This covers the Issues and debates topic in A level psychology: gender bias, cultural bias, free will vs determinism, nature vs nurture, holism vs reductionism, idiographic vs nomothetic, and ethical implications. :)
● Gender bias - bias means leaning towards a personal view that doesn’t reflect reality
- research and theory may not accurately represent the experience and behaviour of
men and women
Hare-Mustin and Marecek (1988) stated there are 2 different ways that theories may be
biased:
● Alpha bias - when differences between genders are maximised and exaggerated,
contributing to belief that genders are distinctive🫸 🫷
● Beta bias - when differences between genders are minimised, and key differences
are not acknowledged (eg differences in societal pressures)🫸🫷
This is done by assuming all people are the same, and therefore it is reasonable to apply
these theories to both men and women
● Beta bias reduces differences and leans more towards equality=, 🫸🫷🙂 however this
means that some legitimate differences are ignored🙈 (eg impact of oxytocin on the
body)
● Synoptic link - in Milgram’s study on obedience he used a sample of male ppts, 65%
of these delivered a 450v ‘shock’ to confederate - Milgram assumed that we are all
obedient due to factors such as legitimate authority, however he did not acknowledge
that females may have responded differently or that different genders may be raised
to behave in different ways👨👩
● Universality - when a theory is described as universal it means that it can apply to all
people, irrespective of gender and culture🌎
● Psychologists have beliefs and values influenced by the social👥 and historical🏺 context
within which they live - this may undermine their claims to discover facts about
human behaviour that are value-free,🦅🚫 objective,🥼 and consistent across time and
culture🕰
🎎️
Androcentrism - focused/centred on men
● Psychology has always been male dominated, most of the theories we study
therefore represent a male worldview - this is androcentrism and may produce alpha
or beta bias
Universality
● It would be wrong to eradicate gender difference as a way to resolve the gender bias
issue - that would be beta bias - Solution therefore lies in recognising differences but
not superiority of one gender over the other 🙏
Moral reasoning research
● Kohlberg (1969) produced a theory on moral development - suggesting that the
moral decisions we make are based on an ethic of justice. His research entailed
asking men👨 to describe what behaviour was more appropriate in certain situations
then applied his findings to all - this is beta Bias 🫸🫷
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