Gender bias

• What’s gender bias?

  Seeing difference and/or similarities that aren’t there
• What’s universal ?

  Can apply to all people and includes real differences
• What gender is normally not being represented or experienced the behaviour in gender bias?

  Women
• What does alpha bias mean?

  Exaggerates the differences between men and women
• What does beta bias mean?

  Ignores or minimises differences between genders.These theories often assume that the findings from males can equally apply to females
• What’s an example of alpha bias?

  Sons and daughters form equally strong bonds to their mothers, but chodrow (1968) suggested that daughters have strong bonds to their mothers due to their biological similarities
• What’s an example of beta bias?

  The fight or flight response is based on studies with men.Women were assumed to respond to threats similarly,but women tend to follow the tend and befriend strategy:protect and form alliances
• What does androcentrism mean?

  Being centred on/dominated by males.Having majority male psychologists means male views are normal views and anything that is different than this is seen as abnormal.
• What’s an example of androcentrism?

  Anger in women is and was put off as being due to hormonal challenges (premenstrual syndrome).This makes it sound like women are abnormal,while anger in men is seen as a normal response.
• How is Freud’s research an example of alpha bias?

  Freud argued that there’s genuine psychological differences between men and women.His theory suggests that women are inferior as young girls suffer from penis envy and viewed feminist as failed form of masculinity.Therefore exaggerated differences by saying women were inferior and suffered from penis envy.
• How is biological research an example of beta bias?

  The floght or fight response has often been carried out with male animals.it was assumed that this wouldnt be a problem as the fight or flight response would be the same for both sexes.
• How does aschs research demonstrate androcentrism?

  Aschs research was only conducted on a male sample.Aschs assumed that the findings would be similar for both males and females which is known as beta bias.
• Why would gender biased research create misleading assumptions about female behaviour?

  It provides 'scientific' justification to deny woman opportunities within the workplace and wider society which fails to challenge negative stereotypes and validate discriminatory practices towards woman.
• Therefore what impact does spreading misinformation on women do?

  Carol Travis puts it as 'it becomes normal for women to feel abnormal' as men are seem as the standard anything but what women do is different and is seen as defective or abnormal.Furthermore , gender bias in research is not just a methodological problem but may have damaging consequences which affect the lives and prospects of real women
• Why is lack of women at senior research levels means that female concern may not be reflected in the research questions asked bad?

  Male researchers are more likely to have their work published and studies which find evidence of gender differences are more likely to appear in journal articles than those that dont.Female participants are placed in an relationship with a researcher who has power over them, can call them unreasonable.This means psychology may be guilty of supporting a form of institional sexism that creates bias in theory and research.
• what did Worrell and Remer have put forward a number of criteria that should be used in order to avoid gender bias?

  Women should be studied with within meaningful real life contexts, and genuinely participate in research rather than being studied as objects.Diversity within groups of women should be examined rather than comparisons between men and women. Finally greater emphasis on qualitative research through collaborative research.Therefore this allows for gender bias to be controlled in the experiment