gender bias

• Gender bias remains a significant issue in psychological research and theory, often manifesting as androcentrism, where male behavior is considered the norm. For example, early research into moral development, such as Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning, was primarily based on male participants, yet generalized to females.
• However, modern psychology has made strides toward addressing gender bias through feminist approaches, which emphasize inclusivity and diversity in research samples. Nonetheless, some argue that the field still overcompensates, potentially leading to alpha bias, where differences between genders are exaggerated, or beta bias, where differences are minimized. Both forms of bias underscore the need for a balanced approach that recognizes diversity without reinforcing stereotypes.
• alpha bias

  When a theory exaggerates differences between genders

  • E.g. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory argues that women develop weaker superegos than men and have ‘penis envy‘.
• beta bias

  hen a theory ignores differences between genders

  • E.g. Early research into the effects of stress in humans characterised the behavioural response as fight or flight. However, this research was based solely on male animals and assumed these behavioural responses were the same across genders. 
• androcentrism

   A perspective where male psychology and behaviours are viewed as the default and normal
• example of androcentrism

  PMS has been criticised by some as being a social construction, which trivialises female emotion, particularly anger. On the other hand, male anger is seen as a logical response to external pressures
• example of beta bias

  . Early research conducted into the fight or flight response exclusively used male lab mice because they experience fewer hormonal fluctuations and so changes in adrenaline, due to environmental stressors, could be more reliably measured. However, results from these studies were then generalised to females, ignoring differences between the two sexes
• example of beta bias

  . Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning theory was developed on the basis of studying groups of American males, who all answered questions based on moral dilemmas e.g. the Heinz dilemma. These results were then generalised to represent levels of moral reasoning for both men and women.
• If theories and studies are gender biased, the research may find differences between genders but it may not be the genders that differ but simply the methods used to test or observe them. For example, Rosenthal (1966) found that male experimenters are more pleasant and encouraging to female participants and subsequently they perform better in tasks/male participants appeared to perform less well. Secondly, fewer women being appointed at senior research positions means that female concerns are less likely to be reflected in the experimental questions.
• + Reverse alpha bias describes the development of theories that show a greater emphasis on women = Research by Cornwell et al (2013) showed that women are better at learning because they are more attentive, flexible and organised. Such research challenges the stereotype that in any gender differences the male position must be better and challenges people’s preconceptions.
• Another way to reduce gender bias is to take a feminist approach which attempts to restore the imbalance in both psychological theories and research. For example, feminist psychology accepts that there are biological differences between males and females: Research by Eagly (1978) claims that female are less effective leaders than males. However, the purpose of Eagly’s claim is to help researchers develop training programmes aimed at reducing the lack of female leaders in the real-world
• As society has changed and females have progressed further in academic disciplines such as psychology, there have been changes, both in the research methodology used and to the earlier theories. As previously explained, Carol Gilligan proposed that women have a different sense of moral understanding to men and compiled her own stage theory of moral understanding. Her approach showed that men and women are different, but neither kind of moral reasoning (justice focus or care focus) is considered to be better, they are just different.