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A level psychology aqa issues and debates
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A-level PsychologyPAPER 1 PAPER 2 PAPER 3
a. Social influence a. Approaches a. Issues and debates
b. memory b. Biopsychology b. Relationships
c. Attachment c. Research methods c. Schizophrenia
d. Psychopathology d. Aggression
ISSUES AND DEBATES
GENDER BIAS
Sometimes, researchers display personal bias, meaning they lack objectivity when
conducting their research. In an observation, researchers sometimes see what they expect
to see, when bias occurs during an observation, it’s called observer bias, e.g. in an interview
the researcher may behave differently depending on the participant, which confounds the
results. Gender Bias is when the differences between genders are misrepresented by the
researcher. Gender bias exists in research when studies exaggerate or ignore the
differences between men and women, which might be because they incompletely define
their behavioural categories.
Alpha bias - when a researcher exaggerates the differences between men and women.
Beta bias - when a researcher minimises or ignores the difference between men and
women.
THREE PART OF A STUDY THAT CAN BE GENDER BIAS:
➢ Bias in observations, occasionally researchers have expectations, sometimes
unconscious expectations, which lead them to ignore certain behaviours by certain
participants, without even realising it. In observational studies, we need to
operationalise the behaviour we observe, using behavioural categories.
➢ Bias in conclusions, researchers interpret the results, and sometimes they
misrepresent the differences between men and women. More often it occurs when
the media interprets the researchers’ conclusion.
➢ Bias in design, experimental design; before Stillnox was distributed to doctors and
pharmacists, it went through a series of clinical trials. But, in these trials, only male
participants were recruited! The trials found that Stilnox was safe for these
participants, so it was approved. But then, when women took the drug, they
experienced dangerous side effects, like falling asleep at the wheel while driving. The
results of the clinical trials didn’t generalise to women and lacked population validity.
In social psychology, we looked at Milgram’s experiment on obedience, where he
had participants administer electric shocks of increasing voltage to a confederate. All
of Milgram’s participants were men and he concluded that anyone could be made to
obey, meaning that Milgram’s research displayed beta bias. Beta bias can be seen
, also in Asch’s conformity research and Zimbardo’s prison experiment, in all the
studies participants were men, therefore the results may not be generalised to
women and it lacked population validity. In Biopsychology, when people are in a
stressful situation they activate the fight-or-flight mode, though most of the original
research was only carried out on male animals, whereas recent research suggested
that female animals have a different endocrine response to stress, the tend-befriend
response. Therefore it can be concluded that most of the original research on
fight-or-flight suffered from beta bias.
Beta bias can lead to awful consequences. For example, women started falling
asleep while driving, after taking Stilnox, sleeping pills.
ANDROCENTRISM & ANDOCENTRIC BIAS
The vast majority of the researchers throughout the 20th century were men, so as
psychology was a male-dominated field the research focused on male behaviours and
attitudes.
Andocentrism (= male centred) - when theories and studies focus on the male perspective
and assume that their findings on male behaviour generalise to everyone. When focusing on
male participants leads to a lack of validity or reliability the research suffered from
Andocenntric bias. Because Zimbardo, Milgram and Asch focused on men and ignored the
differences between men and women, their research suffered from andocentric bias and
beta bias. Androcentric research doesn’t always suffer from androcentric bias as long as the
results are not generalised to females.
ANDROCENTRISM IN FREUD
Sometimes andocentric bias happens in research as researchers think that women are
inferior. Freud thought that male behaviour was desirable and normal and women all wanted
to be like men, when women find out that they aren’t like men, and get angry at their mothers
for having been born female, they experience penis envy, according to Freud’s theory of
Psychosexual Stages. As women failed to become male they were inferior, therefore Freud
not only put men at the centre of his idea he also put men above women. Freud also claimed
that the psychological differences between men and women were enormous and permanent
as they resulted from women not having a penis, not found by modern psychologists,
therefore Freud's theories suffer from androcentric alpha bias.
CONSEQUENCES OF ANDROCENTRISM
Since experimental psychology as a discipline is so androcentric, researchers are more
interested in learning about male behaviour and not investigating female behaviour, as a
result, inaccurate and misleading information about female behaviour is unlikely to be
challenged.
GYNOCENTRISM & GYNOCENNTRIC BIAS
Some research has focused on the female point of view, in Attachment Mary Ainsworth
strange situation is researched into mothers’ behaviour.
Gynocentrism (= women-centred) - when research focuses on the female perspective.
Moscovici's study on minority influence had only female participants and assumed that
findings on female behaviour generalised to everyone. When focusing on female participants
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