Gender bias

• Universality


  Conclusions drawn can be applied to everyone regardless of their gender
• Gender bias


  When psychological research or theories may offer a view that does not justifiably represent the experience of both males and females
• Alpha bias


  When the findings exaggerate or overestimate differences between males and females. These differences are presented as real, enduring, fixed and inevitable. These findings will are more likely to devalue females in comparison to their male counterparts.
• Alpha bias theory example

  • Freud's theory of Psychosexual Development tends to lead to a pessimistic view of women being inferior to men. His theory sees women as 'failed masculinity' due to the way that girls and boys experience the phallic stage of development. It has been suggested that women inevitably suffer from penis envy and because they cannot experience the same strong identification with their same sex parent (due to lack of castration anxiety) women have weaker superegos. This makes women morally inferior to men and consequently more corruptible.
• This makes women morally inferior to men and consequently more corruptible. This can be seen as Alpha bias because Freud exaggerates the differences between women and men's morals. Additionally it devalues women's morals in comparison to men's.
• Beta bias


  When the findings ignore, minimise or underestimate differences between males and females. This often occurs when female participants are not used within the study and then it is assumed the research findings apply equally to both sexes.
• Beta bias example 2


  • Taylor et al (2000) found evidence that there are differences in this biological mechanism and that females, when stressed, produce a 'tend and befriend' response which evolved to protect young
• Beta bias

  Biopsychology has explored the fight or flight response to stress. Much evidence comes from research on rats looking at changes in hormones when they are deliberately stressed. The traditional technique has favoured using male animals because their hormones are more stable than female animals. This can be seen as Beta bias because when the fight or flight response was first recognised and understood it was assumed to be universal for both males and females despite not using a female sample.
• ANDROCENTRISM:


  Is the result of beta bias. If our understanding of what is “normal” is the result of using an all male sample any behaviour that deviates from this standard will be considered “abnormal” or “inferior”. This results in female behaviour being misunderstood and perhaps pathologised (seen as a sign of a psychological disorder).
• Androcentrism example

  An example of androcentrism is male anger which is often seen as a rational response to external pressures. If a female expresses anger it can be viewed as a hormonal response, thus medicalising it and therefore in need of treatment or there being something wrong.

  Many feminists object to the diagnostic category of premenstrual syndrome as it trivialises and stereotypes female experience. Critics suggest that PMS is a social construct which medicalises female’s emotions in terms of their hormones.
• it deletes one
• Gender bias


  NEGATIVE IMPLICATIONS
• There are many negative implications of gender bias
• Gender biased research


  • May create misleading assumptions about female behaviour and confirm negative stereotypes
  • Can provide scientific justification to deny women opportunities within the workplace or wider society (for example PMS and the menopause)
• In any domain in which men are used to set the standard of normalcy, 'it becomes normal for women to feel abnormal'
• Research may have damaging consequences which affect the lives and prospects of real women
• There have been huge improvements in this area compared to decades ago
• Many studies now incorporate separate male and female samples
• Feminist psychologists


  • Attempt to challenge androcentrism in psychology
  • Make women the focus of study rather than the object of study
  • Examine diversity within groups of women rather than make comparisons between women and men
  • Emphasise collaborative research methods that collect qualitative data rather than numerical data
• Studying women in meaningful real life contexts is less gender biased and thus a preferable way of doing research
• Research needs to find out what the real differences between men and women are
• Psychologist showed


  • One of women's key strengths is that they are better at learning because they are more flexible, better organised and pay more attention
• Issues with research methods used in psychology

  • Lack of women appointed at senior research level
  • Male researchers more likely to get their work published
  • Studies finding gender differences more likely to appear in journal articles
• Psychology may be guilty of supporting a form of institutional sexism that creates bias in theory and research
• Bias must be recognised in processes such as peer review and staff recruitment in research organisations
• Women are less likely to be published, meaning their views are not being represented