gender bias

• what is androcentrism?

  psychology being viewed by a male-dominated perspective or bias as a reflection of their (male researchers typically) world views
• what is alpha bias?

  when psychology maximises, or exaggerates differences between men and women
• what is beta bias?

  when psychology minimises the (biological) differences between men and women
• what is one way psychology is changing to reduce gender bias?

  more female researches

  more studies using gender-balanced samples
• What explanation suffers from Alpha bias?

  the evolutionary explanation for sexual behaviour
• What studies suffer from beta bias?

  Asch, Milgram, Zimbardo
• How does the Sociobiological theory of relationship formation, suffer from alpha bias?

  • Explains human sexual attraction and behaviour through the principle of survival efficiency
  • Males mass impregnate women to preserve genes and so look for youth, clear skin, fertility, beauty, etc. Men are less picky in choosing a mate
  • Females will ensure the healthy of survival of fewer offspring as the best chance of preserving genes and so look for safety, protection, providence, etc. more picky in choosing a mate
• How does the 'Fight or Flight' explanation suffer from beta bias?

  It is assumed that both men and women both universally react to threatening stimuli with the fight of flight response
• What is a better explanation that 'Fight or Flight'

  Shelley Taylor et al (2000)

  • Women are more likely to show the tend and befriend response
  • Women produce more of the ‘love’ hormone oxytocin than men, and it seems they produce more of it in response to stressful situations
  • Reduces flight or fight and enhances tend and befriend
  • Minimises gender differences can result in misrepresentations of women’s behaviour
• American Psychology Association Criticised..

  • Released a publishing of top 100 most influential psychologists
  • Only 6 were women
  • Psychology is therefore shown to be a subject traditionally dominated by men, for men and about men
• How does the diagnosis of 'PMS' suffer from androcentrism?

  Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)

  • Feminist writers object the diagnosis of PMS
  • Believed to stereotyping and trivialising of female experience and emotion
  • Brescoll and Uhlman (2008): PMS is a social construction which medicalsies female emotions, particularly anger, by simply explaining them in hormonal terms
  • Men are allowed to be angry as a rational response to external pressures, whereas women are trivialised to be ‘on that time of the month’
• (A03): Gender bias promotes sexism

  Murphy et al (2014)

  Although psychology undergraduates at university are mostly women, the subject is most likely to be taught by a man

  Nicolson (1995)

  Male researches expect women to be irrational, and unable to complete co
• (A03) Research challenging gender biases may not be published

  Formanowicz et al (2018)

  • Analysed more than 1000 articles related to gender bias, published over the past 8 years
  • Research on gender bias is funded less often and published by less prestigious journals