Gender Bias

• Universality


  Any underlying characteristic of human behaviour that can be applied to all
• Gender bias 


  = research that offers the view that does not justifiably represent the behaviour of men or women - usually women
• Alpha Bias

  • Suggests there are real differences between men and women
  • Enhance or undervalue members of either sex
  • Exaggerate these differences
  • E.g. - sociobiological theory says promiscuity is genetically determined in males, but deviant in females
• Beta Bias


  • Ignore or minimise differences between the sexes
  • Often female participants aren't included but findings are generalised to both sexes
  • E.g. - fight or flight found females respond to stress with 'tend and befriend'
• Androcentrism


  • Male-centred where behaviour is judged according to a male standard
  • Female behaviour is misunderstood and judges to be 'abnormal' or 'deficient'
  • Almost all psychologists are men so theories represent a male world-view
• Eval : Strength


  By understanding gender bias psychologists have been able to put forward solutions such as Cornwell et al noting that women are better at learning as they are more organised and attentive. This emphasises the value and positive attributes in women, to challenge stereotypes.
• Eval : Weakness


  Loring and Powell found that 56% psychiatrists gave a diagnosis of schizophrenia when the patient was described as male or no gender given, but only 20% diagnosed when the patient was female. This was only the case with male psychiatrists, and so suggests that unless stereotypes are challenged, patients will be misdiagnosed reducing validity and reliability of diagnostic tools.
• Eval : Weakness


  Rosenthal found that male experimenters are nicer to female participants, resulting in male participants underperforming, suggesting there are serious issues with researcher bias creating a false picture of male-female differences.