Gender Bias

• Gender bias occurs when research and conclusions favour one gender over the other or make one gender appear inferior to the other
• Gender bias is an issue in psychology as it leads to the misrepresentation of genders in research conclusions and theories
• Usually in psychology it’s women who’re biased against, due to the over-representation of males and a lack of balanced research samples
• Gender bias can occur due to all researchers for a study are males which will effect the interpretation of data through a male lens
• Gender bias can occur due to participants in a study all being the same gender and the behaviour of that gender being taken as standard
• Alpha bias occurs when differences between males and females are exaggerated and presented as being real and enduring, fixed and inevitable. Theories that are alpha biased devalue one gender in comparison to the other
• Beta biased occurs when genuine differences between males and females are ignored or minimised. This often occurs when female participants aren’t included as part of the research process, and it’s then assumed that the research findings apply equally to both sexes
• Androcentrism is a type of gender bias that leans particularly in favour of males and the behaviour of men is taken as the norm which means that female behaviour that differs is seen as abnormal
• Androcentric bias occurs when studies are carried out on males and the results are considered valid for both genders
• Gynocentrism is where female behaviour is taken as the norm
• If research conclusions or theories are gender biased, it no longer can be generalised to the population which means that conclusions based on gender biased research aren’t universal
• We can achieve universality by testing more rigorously across genders, including representative numbers of each gender in our samples
• It would be wrong to try and remove gender bias completely from research by not acknowledging genuine gender differences which is in itself a beta biased approach