Gender bias in psychology PDF

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Summary

Notes, colour coded and easy to read, includes key word and example/relevant psychological studies...

Description

Gender and Culture Universality  is any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite difference of experience and upbringing. Gender and culture bias threaten Universality of findings Bias  when considering human behaviour, bias is a tendency to treat one individual or group differently from others Gender bias  psychological research or theory may offer a view that does not justifiably represent the experience and behaviour of both males and females (usually females) Alpha bias  psychological theories which suggest there are real and enduring differences between men and women which may enhance or undervalue members of either sex but usually females Freud’s psychodynamic approach  

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took male behaviour as the standard norm for all human behaviour said that females don’t experience castration in the phallic stage of development which has implications for the development of their super-ego which leads to a weaker sense of morality believed females had ‘penis envy’ and this was why they wanted to compensate for their sexual inferiority by focusing on their physical charms using vanity as a defence mechanism

Beta bias  theories that ignore or minimise difference between males and females Asch 

only use male ppts from the USA and Neto found later that females were more concerned with social relationships

Zimbardo  Educated American males were used as ppts , we cannot say the females would have acted in the same way (more/less brutal/depressed) Milgram  Used males ppts aged 20-50 from any background but no females so we cannot say how a woman would react in the same situation Androcentrism  is a consequence of beta bias which is caused by male-centred research, when ‘normal’ behaviour is judged according to a male standard, as result female behaviour is sometimes called ‘abnormal’ in comparison Fight-or-flight    

Early research on fight-or-flight was only done on males, so it has a beta bias It assumed that females respond to danger in the same way as males It had limited application to females Taylor stated that females adopt a ‘tend and befriend’ response in stressful situations (tend=protect offspring, befriend=form alliances) rather than fight-or-flight...