Gender bias

Cards (16)

  • Psychologists, like everyone, hold beliefs and values that have been influenced by the social and historical context within which they live. These beliefs may be biased (leaning towards a subjective view that does not necessarily reflect objective reality). This means bias in the research process may be inevitable, despite psychologists' claims about discovering 'facts'.
  • Bias also undermines psychology's claims to universality - that conclusions drawn can be applied to everyone, anywhere, regardless of time or culture.
  • Gender bias comes in two forms - alpha bias and beta bias.
  • Psychological research that exaggerates differences is alpha-biased. Such differences are typically presented as fixed and inevitable. Sometimes these differences heighten the value of women, but more often they devalue women in relation to men.
  • The classic example of alpha bias is Freud's theory of psychosexual development. During the phallic stage both boys and girls develop a desire for their opposite-gender parent. In a boy this creates a very strong castration anxiety. The anxiety is resolved when the boy identifies with his father. But a girl's eventual identification with her same-gender parent is weaker, which means her Superego is weaker (because it develops as a result of taking on the same-gender parent's moral perspective). Therefore girls/women are morally inferior to boys/men.
  • Alpha bias can sometimes favour women in the psychodynamic approach. Chodorow suggested that daughters and mothers have a greater connectedness than sons and mothers because of biological similarities. As a result of the child's closeness, women develop better abilities to bond with others and empathise.
  • Psychological research that ignores or underestimates differences is beta-biased. This happens when we assume that research findings apply equally to both men and women even when women have been excluded from the research process.
  • An example of beta bias is research on the fight or flight response. Biological research has generally favoured using male animals because female behaviour is affected by regular hormonal changes due to ovulation. Early research into fight or flight assumed both males and females respond to threatening situations with fight or flight. More recently, Taylor et al. claimed this isn't true and described the tend and befriend response. The 'love' hormone oxytocin is more plentiful in women and it seems women respond to stress by increasing oxytocin production. This reduces fight or flight.
  • Other research has misinterpreted men. For example, research on attachment assumed emotional care is provided solely by mothers. But research on the role of fathers shows that fathers can supply the emotional care often assumed to be the province of women.
  • Alpha bias and beta bias are consequences of androcentrism. Over the years, psychology has presented a male-dominated version of the world. For example, the American Psychological Association published a list of the 100 most influential psychologists of the 20th century which included only six women. This suggests that psychology has traditionally been a subject produced by men, for men, and about men - an androcentric perspective.
  • Women's behaviour, if it has been considered, has been misunderstood, and at worst, pathologised - taken as a sign of illness. Feminists have objected to the diagnostic category premenstrual syndrome, for example, on the ground that is medicalises women's emotions, such as anger, by explaining these in hormonal terms. Men's anger, in contrast, is often seen as a rational response to external pressures.
  • A limitation is that gender differences are often presented as fixed and enduring when they are not. Maccoby and Jacklin presented the findings of several gender studies which concluded girls have superior verbal ability whereas boys have better spatial ability. Maccoby and Jacklin suggested these differences are 'hardwired' into the brain before birth. Such findings became widely reported and seen as facts. Joel et al. used brain scanning and found no such sex differences in brain structure or processing.
  • It is possible that the data from Maccoby and Jacklin was popularised because it fitted existing stereotypes of girls as 'speakers' and boys as 'doers'. This suggests that we should be wary of accepting research findings as biological facts when they might be explained better as social stereotypes.
  • However, this does not mean that psychologists should avoid studying possible gender differences in the brain. For instance, research by Ingalhalikar et al. suggests that the popular social stereotype that women are better at multitasking may have some biological truth to it. It seems that a woman's brain may benefit from better connections between the right and left hemisphere than in a man's brain. This suggest that there may be biological differences but we still should be wary of exaggerating the effect they may have on behaviour.
  • Another limitation is gender bias promotes sexism in the research process. Women remain underrepresented in university departments, particularly in science. Although psychology's undergraduate intake is mainly of women, lecturers in psychology departments are more likely to be men. This means research is more likely to be conducted by men and this may disadvantage participants who are women. For example, a male researcher may expect women to be irrational and unable to complete complex tasks and such expectations are likely to mean that women underperform in research studies.
  • A limitation is research challenging gender biases may not be published. Formanowicz et al. analysed more than 1000 articles relating to gender bias, published over 8 years. They found research on gender bias is funded less often and is published by less prestigious journals. The consequence of this is fewer scholars became aware of it or apply it within their own work. The researchers argued that this still held true when gender bias was compared with other forms of bias and when other factors were controlled. This suggests gender bias may not be taken as seriously as other forms of bias.