gender bias - issues and debates

Alpha and beta bias

• Alpha - differences between men and women are exaggerated e.g evolutionary explanations for partner preference (relationships)

• Beta - differences between men and women are minimised - often happens when findings obtained from men are applied to women without additional validation (andocentrism)

• E.g bio research into fight or flight reponse has been carried out with animals but Taylor et al suggests that females produce a slightly different response to fight or flight : tend and befriend

AO3 of gender bias - weakness of theories based on andocentric research

• (-) many significant theories of human behaviour has been built on andocentric research = tested on women based only on males = showed differences e.g Kohlberg proposed a stage theory of moral development based on research on boys only - later tested girls using the stages = found on average women researched a lower level of moral development = lead to alpha biased conclusions that women have inferior moral understandings - these explanations can at best only apply to half the population = less useful - psych has biases

AO3 of beta bias

• Critical analysis of beta bias led us to see whilst equality’s important we shouldn’t minimise differences if it means disadvantaging one sex. E.g Hare Mustin and Marecek suggests arguing for equality between men and women draws attention away from current power imbalance between men and women and can lead to eve greater imbalances e.g arguing for equality between men parenting rights = beta biased approaches seek to minimise gender differences = damaging

AO3 - using rosenthal

• Rosenthal : male researchers more pleasant and friendly towards female pts than male ones = skew results = researchers must be careful to consider how they’re able to carry out research w minimal experiment or bias as possible