1a. Issue of Gender Bias

What is universality?

Universality= Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, regardless of experience.

Psychologists attempt to be objective and value free, but researchers have beliefs and values that are influenced by the social and historical contexts that they live in. This may influence their research, findings and conclusions; undermining the universality of their research.

For example, if a psychologist completed a piece of research concerning sex/gender in a particularly patriarchal (or male-dominated) time-period or culture, it may cause them to judge male and female behaviours differently because they may have adopted a pre-existing assumption of male superiority or female inferiority.

This would create subjectivity and researcher bias that would mean that their work would not be objective or scientific enough to conclude that a behaviour was universal to all human beings.

What is Gender Bias?

Gender Bias= When considering human behaviour, bias is a tendency to treat one individual/group in a different way from others. In terms of gender, theory/research may offer a view that does not justifiably represent the experiences of women or men.

What is Androcentrism?

Androcentrism= when 'normal' behaviour is judged according to a male standard, often meaning that female behaviour is judged as 'abnormal' or deficient.

Freud was being androcentric when he stated that, as girls do not have castration anxiety in the phallic stage, they are not under pressure to identify with their same-seх parent; leading to women having weaker superegos and therefore a lower level of morality.

Essentially, femininity is failed masculinity, with vanity as a defence mechanism to make up for their inferiority(!).

What is Alpha Bias?

Alpha Bias= An exaggeration of the differences between men and women. This is prominent in Bowlby's Monotropic and Maternal Deprivation Theories of attachment that state that only women can be the primary attachment figure and that they will severely damage their child's development if they do not fulfil this role.

What is Beta Bias?

Beta Bias= Ignoring or minimising differences between the sexes.

This is prominent in Asch's and Milgram's Zimbardo's research that both involved all male samples but made universal claims about conformity and obedience in all humans.