Issues and debates

• What is gender bias?

  Differential treatment based on stereotypes
• What is alpha bias?

  Exaggerating differences between men and women
• What are the consequences of alpha bias?

  Theories devalue one gender, often women
• What does androcentrism refer to?

  Behavior compared to a male standard
• How does PMS illustrate androcentrism?

  It trivializes female emotion, unlike male anger
• What is beta bias?

  Minimizing differences between genders
• What is universality in psychology?

  Theories that apply to all individuals
• What does feminist psychology argue?

  Differences arise from biological explanations
• How can androcentrism be countered?

  By adopting a feminist perspective
• What did Rosenthal's study reveal about research methods?

  Male experimenters influence female participants' performance
• What is reverse alpha bias?

  Emphasizing women's strengths in research
• What is the impact of beta bias on women?

  It can disadvantage women by ignoring needs
• What does Darwin's theory of sexual selection suggest?

  Women are choosy, men are competitive
• What is cultural bias?

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

  Behavior judged in the context of its culture
• What is the distinction between alpha and beta bias in cultural research?

  Alpha bias assumes real cultural differences
• What is ethnocentrism?

  Evaluating others by one's own cultural standards
• What are indigenous psychologies?

  Theories developed in different cultural contexts
• What is the emic-etic distinction?

  Emic focuses on cultural uniqueness, etic on universals
• What did Smith and Bond's survey reveal about cultural bias in psychology?

  Most studies were conducted in America
• What were the consequences of cultural bias in the US army IQ test?

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

  They are universally recognized across cultures
• What is the definition of determinism?

  Behavior controlled by external or internal factors
• What is biological determinism?

  Behavior caused by internal biological forces
• What is environmental determinism?

  Behavior caused by previous experiences
• What does psychic determination refer to?

  Behavior determined by unconscious conflicts
• What is free will?

  Power to make choices about behavior
• What is hard determinism?

  All behavior can be predicted by forces
• What is soft determinism?

  Allows for some element of free choice
• What does Freud’s psychosexual stages of development suggest?

  Each stage has a conflict that can cause fixation
• What can result from fixation at the anal stage?

  Anal expulsive personalities
• What is free will in psychology?

  The power to make choices about behavior
• What does hard determinism state?

  All behavior is predicted by external forces
• What does behaviorism suggest about behavior?

  It is a product of conditioning
• What is soft determinism?

  Determinism allowing for some free will
• What is the importance of scientific research in psychology?

  It establishes cause and effect relationships
• What is manipulated in scientific research?

  The independent variable
• How does controlled research increase scientific credibility?

  By enabling prediction and control of behavior
• What does the evaluation of determinism suggest about genetic determinism?

  100% genetic determinism is unlikely
• What do studies of monozygotic twins suggest about intelligence?

  80% similarity for intelligence