Summary
Issues and Debates Summary A* Notes, AQA Psychology
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- Issues and Debates
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- AQA
Summary notes for AQA Alevel Psychology, Issues and Debates, with PEEL summaries.
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Gender Bias.Spec says ‘Universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and alpha and beta bias’.
Key Terms:
- Universality = any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied
to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing. Gender bias and culture bias
threaten the universality o findings in psychology.
- Gender bias = when considering human behaviour, bias is a tendency to treat one individual
or group in a different way from others. In the context if gender bias, psychological research
or theory may offer a view that does not justifiably represent the experience and behaviour
of men or women (but usually women).
- Androcentrism = male entered, when ‘normal behaviour’ is judged according to a male
standard (meaning that female behaviour is often judged to be abnormal or deficient by
comparison).
- Alpha bias = research that focuses on differences between men and women, and therefore
tends to present a view that exaggerates these differences.
- Beta bias = research that focuses on similarities between men and women and therefore
tends to present a view that ignores or minimises differences.
The issue of gender and bias.
Universality and bias.
- Psychologists hold beliefs and values that Have been influenced by the social and historical
context within which they live.
- These beliefs may be biased, that is leaning towards a subjective view that does not
necessarily reflect objective reality.
o This means bias in the research process may be inevitable, despite psychologists
claims about discovering ‘facts’ that are ‘objective’ and ‘value-free’.
o Bias can also undermine psychology’s claims to universality, that conclusions can be
drawn and applied to everyone, anywhere, regardless of time or culture.
Alpha Bias.
- Psychological research that exaggerates differences is alpha biased.
- Such differences are typically presented as fixed and inevitable. Sometimes these differences
heighten the value of women, but more often they devalue women in relation to men.
- A classic example of alpha bias is Freud’s theory of psychosexual development.
o During the phallic stage of development both boys and girls develop a desire for the
opposite gender parent.
o In a boy this creates a very strong castration anxiety. The anxiety is resolved when
the boy identifies with his father, but a girl's eventual identification with her same
gender parent, which means that her super ego is weaker.
Therefore, women are morally inferior to men.
- Alpha bias can sometimes favour women in the psychodynamic approach.
o Chodorow suggested that daughters and mothers have a greater connectedness
than sons and mothers because of biological similarities. As a result of the child’s
closeness, women develop better abilities to bond with others and empathise.
Beta Bias.
, - Psychological research that ignores or underestimates difference is beta-biased. This
happens when we assume that research findings apply equally to both men and women
even when women have been excluded from the research process.
- One example of beta bias is research on the fight or flight response.
o Biological research has generally favoured using male animals because female
behaviour is affected by regular hormonal changes due to ovulation. This simply
ignores any possible differences.
o Early research into fight or flight did just that – it assumed that both males and
females respond to threatening situations with fight or flight did just that – it
assumed that both males and females respond to threatening situations with fight
or flight.
- More recently, Taylor et al claimed that this is not true and described the tend and befriend
response.
o The ‘love’ hormone oxytocin is more plentiful in women and it seems that women
respond to stress by increasing oxytocin production. This reduces the fight or light
response and enhances a preference for ‘tend and befriend’.
o This illustrates how research that minimises gender differences may result in a
misrepresentation of women’s behaviour.
- Other research has misrepresented men.
o For example, in attachment it has been assumed that emotional care is provided
solely by mothers. But research on the role of fathers show that fathers can supply
the emotional care often assumed to be the province of women.
Androcentrism.
- Alpha bias and beta bias are consequences of androcentrism.
- Over the years, psychology has presented a male dominated version of the world. For
example the American Psychological Association published a lost of the 100 most influential
psychologists of the 20th Century which included only 6 women.
o This suggest that psychology has traditionally been a subject produced by men, for
men and about men (which is an androcentric perspective).
- Women’s behaviour, if it has been considered, has been misunderstood, and at worst
pathologised (taken as a sign of illness).
o Feminists have objected to the diagnostic category ‘premenstrual syndrome’ for
example on the grounds that is medicalises women’s emotions, such as anger, by
explaining these in hormonal terms.
o Men’s anger, in contrast, is often seen as a rational response to external pressures.
Biological vs Social explanations.
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