Gender bias

• Types of gender bias

  1. Alpha bias
  2. Beta bias
• What is alpha bias

  Exaggerates and overestimates differences between the sexes - more likely to devalue females in relation to males
• What is beta bias ?

  ignores minimises or underestimates differences between men and women- women not included in research but results are generalised to both genders
• example of alpha bias

  Freuds theory of psychosexual development

  • alpha bias can sometimes favour women in the psychodynamic approach: Nancy Chodorow suggested that daughters and mothers have a greater connection than sons and mothers because of biological similarities. as a result, women develop better abilities to bond with others and empathise
• Example of beta bias

  Research on fight or flight

  • biological research has generally favoured using male animals because female behaviour is affected by regular hormonal changes
  • This simply ignores any possible differences
• Problems with beta bias

  • research that minimises gender differences may result in a misinterpretation of women’s behaviour
  • issues with drug development for psychological disorders may be affected
• Define Androcentrism

  A male centred / male biased view of the world that male behaviour and male traits are judged to be the norm/acceptable/desirable and female behaviour/ feminine traits are judges to be abnormal/ less acceptable and undesirable
• issue of gender bias - gender bias promotes sexism in research

  • Women are underrepresented in university departments especially 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
  • This could mean that women underperform in research studies.
  • This means that the institutional structures and methods of psychology may produce findings that are gender-biased.
• Issue- research challenging gender bias may not be published

  • Magdalena Formanowicz et al. (2018) analysed more than 1000 articles relating to gender bias, published over eight years.
  • Found that research on gender bias is funded less often and is published by less prestigious journals.
  • The consequence of this is that fewer scholars become aware of it or apply it within their own work.
  • This suggests that gender bias in psychological research may not be taken as seriously as other forms of biasn psychological research
• Issue- gender differences are often portrayed as fixed biological differences when they’re not

  • Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin (1974) presented the findings of several gender studies which concluded that girls superior verbal ability whereas boys have better spatial ability. 
  • suggested that these differences are 'hardwired' into the brain before birth. Such findings become widely reported and seen as facts.