Issues and Debates

• What is gender bias?

  Differential treatment based on stereotypes
• What is alpha bias?

  Exaggerating differences between men and women
• What is a consequence of alpha bias?

  Theories devalue one gender compared to another
• Which gender is typically devalued by alpha bias?

  Women
• What does the psychodynamic explanation suggest about females and morality?

  Females are less moral than males
• How does Wilson’s theory view sexual promiscuity in males and females?

  Males are genetically determined, females are not
• What does alpha bias suggest about women who are promiscuous?

  They are going against their nature
• What did Cotton et al. find about schizophrenia diagnosis?

  More frequent in men than women
• Why might women's schizophrenic symptoms be overlooked?

  They maintain better relationships and less distress
• What is androcentrism?

  Behavior compared to a male standard
• How has PMS been criticized in terms of androcentrism?

  It trivializes female emotion, especially anger
• What assumption does androcentrism lead to regarding gender behavior?

  What is true for men is true for women
• Who challenged the assumption of the fight or flight response being male-centric?

  Shelley Taylor
• What did Shelley Taylor's research reveal about females under stress?

  They tend to 'tend and befriend'
• What is beta bias?

  Minimizing differences between genders
• How does beta bias affect women's lives?

  Ignores insights derived from women's studies
• What is universality in psychology?

  Theories that apply to all individuals
• What reduces the universality of psychological findings?

  Bias, lack of validity, and reliability issues
• What are the evaluations of gender bias in psychology?

  • Feminist psychology argues for real differences
  • Bias in research methods affects findings
  • Laboratory experiments may show sexism
  • Reverse alpha bias emphasizes women's strengths
  • Avoiding beta bias can disadvantage women
  • Assumptions about gender need to be challenged
• What does feminist psychology argue about gender differences?

  They arise from biological explanations
• What did Rosenthal's study find about male experimenters?


  They are more pleasant to female participants
• What is the impact of fewer women in senior research positions?

  Female concerns are less likely to be reflected
• What did Eagly and Johnson find about leadership styles?


  Men and women are more similar in real settings
• What is reverse alpha bias?

  Emphasizing women's strengths in research
• What did Cornwell et al. find about women's learning abilities?


  Women are better learners due to attentiveness
• What is the criticism of equal parenting in terms of beta bias?

  Ignores biological demands of women
• What does Darwin's theory of sexual selection suggest about gender roles?


  Women are choosy, men are competitive
• What evidence challenges Darwin's view of female competition?

  Women can be equally competitive when needed
• What is culture in psychology?

  Rules and customs binding a society
• What is cultural bias?

  Judging cultures by one's own assumptions
• What is cultural relativism?

  Behavior judged in cultural context
• How did Milgram's study demonstrate cultural relativism?


  Obedience rates varied across cultures
• How does beta bias relate to mental disorders across cultures?

  Assuming universal rules for mental illness
• What did Takano and Osaka find about individualistic and collectivist cultures?


  Less of a divide in conformity than expected
• What is ethnocentrism?

  Evaluating others by one's own cultural standards
• How can indigenous psychologies counter ethnocentrism?

  Developing theories in different cultural contexts
• What is the emic-etic distinction?

  Emic focuses on cultural uniqueness, etic on universals
• What did Smith and Bond find about cultural bias in psychology research?


  66% of studies were American
• What was the consequence of the US army IQ test?

  Led to stereotyping and discrimination
• What did Ekman et al. demonstrate about facial expressions?

  Universally recognized across all cultures