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16 marker on gender bias in psychology for IDA
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This essay discusses gender bias in psychological research with reference to alpha and beta bias. It's for the issues and debates topic for AQA A level psychology.
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Discuss gender bias in psychological research. Refer to examples of alpha and beta bias inyour answer (16 marks)
Gender bias refers to when psychological research or theory may not represent the
experiences or behaviours of males or more usually females. Psychology has historically
been a male dominated field whereby the majority of studies have been conducted on
males but generalised also to females, known as androcentrism. For example, Asch’s
conformity experiment. After conducting experiments, many psychologists claim that they
have found new information about human behaviour and therefore believe their
explanation or theory can be applied to all people, known as universality, however the
majority of the time, this is not the case as it does not represent the whole population.
Two types of gender bias that can occur are alpha and beta bias. Alpha bias refers to
psychological theories exaggerating differences between genders. Wilson’s sociobiological
theory is an example of this as he theorised that human sexual attraction was based on the
desire of men to spread their genes whereas females wanted to nurture offspring to simply
ensure survival. On the other hand, beta bias refers to when theories ignore or minimise
differences between genders, for example early research into the fight or flight response
focused on male animals and was theorised to be universal. However, more recently, it has
been suggested by another psychologist that female biological has evolved to inhibit the
fight or flight response and instead ‘tend and befriend’.
One of the main limitations of psychological research is that issues of gender bias often go
unchallenged. For example, Darwin’s established theory of sexual selection suggests that
women are selective (in terms of mate selection. These views have only recently been
challenged by DNA evidence suggesting that women are equally as competitive as men. This
highlights the importance of continually challenging earlier gender research and reducing
gender bias to ensure that a valid picture of women is portrayed.
Another limitation is that there is sexism within psychological research. Most senior
researchers are males and males are more likely to have their research published than
females. Studies that find evidence of a gender difference are more likely to be published
than those that do not and lab studies that do involve female participants often have a male
research in a position of power. Therefore, psychology may be guilty of supporting a form of
institutional sexism that creates bias in theory and research.
However, gender bias in psychological research has led to reflexivity. Rather than
psychologists seeing bias as a problem that may undermine their research, they embrace it
as a critical aspect of their investigation. For example, Dambrin and Lambert investigated
the lack of women in executive positions in accountancy firms and included reflections on
how their gender-related experiences influenced their reading of events. Reflexivity may be
important for the development of psychology and lead to greater awareness of the role of
personal biases in shaping future research.
Furthermore, previous issues surrounding gender bias have lead to some psychologists
looking for ways to avoid or reduce it, proposing a number of solutions. For example,
Worrell suggested that diversity within groups of women should be examined instead of
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