Summary
Issues and Debates Summary Notes
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- Issues & Debates
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- AQA
Summary of all debates learnt in Issues and Debates with Evaluation points for 16 markers.
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Gender bias can be de ned as ‘A preference for or against one gender’: this is not a unique issuesto psychology and has been an issue in many parts of society, politics and the economy for many
years. For example, studies of aggression and criminality have mostly focused on males, whereas
studies of attachment have mostly focused on females. Sometimes, this bias re ects the wider bias
in society: the general view that men are much more likely to be criminal than woman, even though
the true picture is slightly more complex.
In psychology, this gender bias is usually unconscious, but can be overt and deliberate: in either
case it tends to either exaggerate or minimize the differences between the genders.
There are two main types of gender bias:
Alpha Bias & Beta Bias
Alpha Bias is when the differences between the genders are exaggerated: this tends to minimize
the value of one of the sexes and maximize the value of the other.
Beta Bias is when the differences between the genders are ignored: often conclusions drawn from
research which focuses on one gender is generalized out to the entire population.
Research can also be androcentric (male-centered) or estrocentric (female-centered).
Androcentrism is much more common, and tends to occur when male behaviour or cognition is
viewed as the normal: this occurred through much of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Androcentrism can result in people assuming what is true for
men is also true for women, thus minimizing the differences
between men and women. An example of beta bias is research
on ght or ight, research is usually conducted with male animals
as in females the variation hormone levels would make it much
more dif cult to research - it has been assumed that only male
samples are needed as what us true for males is true for females.
Examples of Alpha Bias:
- Psychodynamic explanations for offending behavior suggests that criminality occurs due to a
deviant superego.
- Wilson’s sociobiological theory of relationship formation suggests that sexual promiscuity in
males is genetically determined, whereas promiscuous females are going against their ‘nature’.
- Historically, since the 1980s, schizophrenia has been diagnosed more frequently in men,
compared to women, whereas before this time there had been no signi cant differences. This is
an example of alpha bias, according to Cotton et al, because women are more likely to be able
to continue working, maintain good interpersonal relationships and show less stress than men.
This means that schizophrenic symptoms of women may be masked or not severe enough for a
diagnosis.
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, Examples of Beta Bias:
- Early research conducted into the ght or ight responses exclusively used in male lab mince
because they experience fewer hormonal uctuations and so changes in adrenaline due to
environmental stressors, could be more reliably measured. However, results from these
studies were then generalized to females, ignoring the differences between the two sexes
(e.g ght or ight response).
Evaluation
+ Feminist Psychology = Feminist psychology argues that difference in psychology arises from
biological explanations of behaviour. The social construction approach aims to understand
behavior in terms of social process. Feminist psychology argues that there are real differences
but socially determined stereotypes make a far greater contribution to perceived differences.
Androcentrism can be countered by a feminist view and the balance can be readdressed.
+ Reverse alpha bias describes the development of theorists that show a greater emphasis on
women = Research by Cornwell et al (2013) showed that women are better at learning
because they are more attentive, exible and organized. Such research challenges the
stereotype that in any gender differences the male position must be better and challenges
peoples preconceptions.
+ Avoid a beta bias = Beta bias has allowed women greater access to educational and
occupational opportunities. However Hare, Mustin and Marecek pointed out that arguing for
equality draws attention away from women’s special needs, for example equal parenting
ignores the biological demands of pregnancy, childbirth and the special needs of women.
Therefore, this suggests that some elements beta bias may actually disadvantage women.
- Bias in research methods = if theories and studies are gender biased, the research may nd
differences between genders but it may not be the genders that differ but simply the method
used to test or observe them. For example. Rosenthal (1966) found that male experimenters
are more pleasant are encouraging to female participants and subsequently they perform
better in tasks/ male participants appeared to perform less well. Secondly, fewer women
being appointed at senior research positions means that female concerns are less likely to be
re ected in the experimental questions.
- The laboratory experiment may also be an example of institutionalized sexism within
psychology = Male researchers have the authority to deem women as ‘unreasonable, irrational
and unable to complete tasks’ (Nicolson, 1995).
- Assumptions need to be challenged = Gender bias remains unchallenged in many theories.
Darwin’s theory of sexual selection portrays women as choosy and males as the one who
compete to be chosen, arguing that women are coy and males as aggressive, as they are in
competition with other males. However, this view has been challenged as it has been found
that women are equally competitive when needed. DNA evidence supports the idea that it is
a good adaptive strategy for females to make with more than one man and this puts females
in competition with other females.
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, ‘Culture’ is an inherently tricky concept to de ne but can be seen as a set of views, norms, social
roles and moral values hared by a group of people. Globalisation has aligned cultures more closely;
we all now have access to other cultures through the internet, but differences remain. Psychology
initially developed in Western Europe and the USA: it often therefore assume cultural norms from
these areas, and researched into other cultures has been fairly rare. One possible reason for this
was that western psychologists tended to incorrectly assume that social norms, behaviour and
roles were similar in all cultures, and therefore limited themselves to studying western cultures.
Cross-cultural research is inherently time consuming and riddled with practical dif culties; these
limitations have also meant that psychologists stuck with research which focused on the USA and
Western Europe. Finally, in earlier times, there may have been an assumption about cultures
outside of Europe and the USA were ‘primitive’ and therefore not worth investing time and money
into studying in detail.
Culture - The rules, customs
morals and ways of interacting
that bind together members of a
society or some other collection
of people.
Cultural bias - The tendency to
judge all cultures and individuals
in terms of your won cultural
assumptions, which distorts to
biases judgment.
Cultural Relativism - The view that behaviour, morals, standards and values cannot be judged
properly unless they are viewed in the context of the culture in which the originate.
An example of cultural relativism is Milgram’s study into obedience. It was originally conducted
using 40 male American pps, but then also replicated by using Spanish students, (Miranda et al,
found over 90% obedience rates in Spanish students) and Australian students (where only 16% of
female pps continued to the highest voltage setting, as shown by Kilham and Mann).
This suggest that Milgram’s original results were speci cally bound to American cultures, therefore
meaning the study lacks validity as it doesn’t account for people of all cultures.
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