Issues and Debates

Define gender bias

Distorted views towards 2 genders; thinking one is superior to another

Maccobby and Jacklin’s differenced between boys and girls

• Girls have greater verbal ability

• Boys have greater visual and spatial abilities

• Boys have greater arithmetical ability

• Girls are less aggressive than boys

Define andocentrism

Being centred on, or dominated, by men. This can be conscious or unconscious

What did Hare-Mustin and Marecek (1988) argue

Two types of gender bias :alpha and beta bias

Alpha bias

-Exaggerates differences between men and women

-Research devalues one gender

Example of alpha bias

Freud: young girls suffer from ‘penis envy’ and femininity is a failed form of masculinity

Beta bias

-Minimised the differences between men and women

-Needs of one gender typically ignored

Beta bias example

Flight or flight stress response is typical for men,but Taylor et al 2000 proposed that women have a tend and befriend response

Positives of gender bias

• May create misleading assumptions about female behaviour and fail to challenge negative stereotypes

• Feminist psychologists (Worrell 1992) offered criteria for avoiding gender bias in research

• Reflexivity

Negatives of gender bias

• A lack of women appointed at senior research levels means psychology may institutionalise sexism, creating biases

• Testing methods are often biased- Rosenthal found male experimenters are more friendly and lenient to female participants than men, skewing results

What is culture bias