AQA A-Level Psych - Issues and Debates essays. All complete written essays which include both strength and weakness paragraphs, plus an 'interactionist' paragraph.
Discuss gender bias in psychological research. Refer to examples alpha and beta bias in your answer .
- In research, bias means tendency to favour/treat an indivuidal or a group differently, thus the
research might offer a view that doesn’t justifiably represent the different experiences and
behaviours of men and women (usually women)
- Gender bias – overrepresentations of male research/ tendency to treat males differently to
women
- Gender bias is a key issue in psychology coz it threatens universality. Psych aims to establish
general laws about human behaviour that can apply to everyone. Where biases are present,
that threatens this process.
- 2 forms of bias in research process – alpha/beta
- Alpha – differences in behaviour are exaggerated/ either enhances or undervalued types of
behaviour. Eg: Freud – only focuses on the complex men go through over women, therefore
men have higher morals since going through a “more severe” complex. Go through
fears/must overcome them for increased mortality/ differences are very separated/
- Beta – Ignores/minimises/undermines differences between sexes. Eg: Asch/Milgram
/zimbardo – who all only study male samples, yet still attempt to make universal laws about
social influence without considering gender differences.
- Problem with beta bias research is androcentrism – if constantly taking male viewpoint of
research, this sets the bar/lens for how behaviour is to be viewed/behaviour is mostly
viewed from the male perspective. Hence female behaviour viewed as inferior/abnormal
AO2: how to fix beta bias research:
- Go do a study that enrols females
- Change headlines to ‘males only’ (based on sample)
Ao3:
- IMPLICATIONS OF gender bias – gender biased research will in turn have far reaching
consequences if published. Can lead to misleading assumptions on female behaviour/ fails to
challenge stereotypes and validate discriminatory practices. Women behvaiour are made to
feel abnormal due to scientific credibility behind the standards of practises against women/
could lead to being denied work opportunities/discrimination in wider society.
- Becomes a real life problem/impacts prospects due to scientific gender biased research.
Ao3:
- Not only looking at research that doesn’t include a females in the sample, but also the
research process is sexist. Lack of women employed at senior positions/ men study men/
men more likely to have their work published over women; alpha biased research is more
likely to be published/ institutional sexism in the research process. Gives scientific validation
to discriminatory practises
A03:
+ its important we understand how our values affect our work/ researcher made aware of their
mistakes/ less likely to make this a problem, but embrace change within the research process. More
open mind of conscious or unconscious biases that might have been integrated into research/ allows
to take a more holistic view on the research. Embrace mistakes and learn how to change them/ take
precautions.
_ BUT, many of the gender differences reported by psychologists over the years are based on
essentialist perspective – some say gender differnces are fixed; we have different biological makeups,
so differnces are inevitable, differences cant be minimised.
, Issues and Debates 16 markers
Discuss cultural bias in psychology. Refer to examples of research in your answer.
- Cultural bias – tendency to ignore differnces and interpret all human behvaiour in the lens of
ones own culture.
- {Imposed etic – imposing your own views/ideals/ etiquette onto someone else}
- Threatens universality/ aims to establish general laws of human behaviour, cultural bias
threatens this.
- Eg: research that imposes etic/ is culturally biased
Ainsworth and Jahoda – concepts and criteria are more centred to western/individualist
cultures. One attachment should be more superior/ conforming to a specific criteria to
achieve ideal mental health
Asch – measures conformity using individualistic views/cant be applied to collectivists
- Ethnocentrism is a form of cultural bias that believes in superiority of ones own culture over
others, which is a problem for culturally biased research since it sets standards And values
from ones own culture – eg: ainsworth suggesting that a secure attachment type is the best
kind of attachment to have, but what about in Japan, where the children most often
insecure-resistant. Suggests that maybe not conforming to this Western model means the
children’s attachment type if underdeveloped/unsophisticated.
- For psych to truly provide understanding of human behaviour, has to take on cultural relative
approach – must understand the moral standards/norms/values of other cultures being
studied/actually study them within their cultural context over the researchers own one.
Ao3:
_ Cultural bias might have its issues because of lack of cultural relativism, imposed etic and
ethnocentrism. However, we cant ignore fact that certain Behaviours are indeed biological in nature
and are universal. Eg: research has found that there are 5 facial expressions that exist across all
cultures, irrespective of individual/collect. Some features of human attachment are universal even,
eg: interactional synchrony occurs irrespective of culture. Therefore, cant take on just a cultural
relative approach (study behaviours in their own culture). It’s best to take an approach where a
research can study behaviour through cultural variations (thus achieving cultural relativism) and look
at the idea of universality of behaviour (balance between the two).
Ao3:
_ often in the past when referring to ‘culture’, psychologists have made out the distinction to be
between and individualist and collectivist culture. (Indiv – west/ Collect – non-west). However,
increased global interconnectedness through mass media/ globalisation/ industrialisation, such
distinctions isn’t as applicable to the modern age (too simplistic of a distinction). Therefore
traditional distinction between individualism and collectivism doesn’t apply as much as there is
almost a blur, or slight overlap, between the two. This could suggest that cultural bias within
research might be less of an issue than it once was.
Ao3:
+ Challenges Implicit assumptions due to an increase in cross cultural research. We can evaluate if
western thinking could be generalisable to other cultures. Provide validation and recognition of other
cultures. Forces researcher to analyses the norms and values of the investigated culture and how this
could have impacted on their behaviour. Cross cultural research has been used to challenge
stereotypes of other cultures; the more cross culture research we do, the better. Develop better
understanding
Discuss the nature-nurture debate in Psychology.
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