Cultural and gender bias

What is bias?

• When a psychologist’s pre-existing beliefs and viewpoints influence their theories and dat interpretation

• This bias cans stem for personal experiences, cultural background, education, political belief and gender-related societal experiences

• Can lead to understandings of behaviour being shaped by perspectives and misconceptions rather than objective data

What is Gender bias?

• When research happens when researchers’ stereotypical views about male and female behaviour affect their theoretical assumptions

• This can result in misinterpretations of actual male and female behaviour by incorrectly assuming gender differences where none exist of by overlooking significant gender-specific differences

What is cultural bias?

• Occurs when interpreting and judging human behaviour based on cultural norms and experiences

• This often stems from an ethnocentric perspective Where researchers view their culture as superior or the standard compared to the other countries being evaluate

What is universality?

• The argument that certain observed behaviours apply to all humans, regardless of differences in gender, biology, or cultural background

• When psychologists discover a behaviour, they often assume universality

• However, if their hypothesis is tested on a non-diverse sample, tis claim remains an assumption and may not be generalisable to a broader population

• When other groups’ behaviour varies from a standard falsely claimed to be universal, their behaviour will be defined as abnormal

What are WEIRD participants

• Participants that are from western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic societies unlike most of the worlds population

• This sampling bias results from a significant amount of accepted psychological research being conducted by researchers based in the USA and UK

• These researchers often use opportunity samples which results in most ppts being western psychology students

What is androcentrism?

• Theories that are gender biased and reflect/support a male-centric view of the world

• This bias is due to the fact that most of the researchers who developed these theories are male

• This gender imbalance can be seen in the composition of many psychology courses, where male psychologists are referenced more frequently than female psychologists

What is alpha bias?

• The assumption that there are significant differences in behaviour between genders

• This often leads to an overemphasis or exaggeration of these differences between males and female

What is beta bias?

• The assumption that there are no significant differences in the behaviour of males and females

• This often leads to underestimating or minimising actual behavioural differences

Theories that highlight Alpha bias

• Bowlby’s monotropic theory- emphasises the mother’s role as crucial in the infants development more so than the father’s role

• The evolutionary theory of relationships- argues males with the potential to father many children but uncertain of their paternity, are innately promiscuous, seeing to impregnate multiple women to increase their genetic legacy

• Females can have a limited number of children but are certain of their maternity, so they are said to seek men with resources to support child-rearing

• Upholds traditional gender stereotypes and contributes to unequal societal attitudes towards male ad female sexuality

Theories that highlight beta bias

• Milgram’s research on social influence- original study only included 40 male ppts and focused only on obedience to male authority figures- overlooks potential differences in response to female authority figures

• Asch’s conformity study only included male ppts and therefore ignored gender-specific differences

• The fiight or flight response- this automatic reaction to a threat is based on male survivial sytatergies- research on this theory has been predominnantly involved in male ppts incluing animals

• It has been argued that females adopt tend and befriend

• Tend maximises the survival of both mother and her children like keeping children quiet to avoid detection

• Befriend is building social connections that can provide support in emergency situations

Studies highlighting cultural bias

• Henrich found in major psychology journals 68% of ppts were from the USA and 96% were from Weird nations- 67% of American subjects were psychology undergrads- when tests are developed in or for a Western context, cultural biases can influence the diagnosis and understanding of disorders

• Diagnosing schizophrenia in the UK- those from n Afro-Carribean background are 7 times more likely to get diagnosed as schizophrenic

Studies highlighting ethnocentricism

• Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation

• Developed within an American context and assessed based on an American context

• Therefore resulted in secure attachment being argued to be the most desirable outcome and is the most common outcome in Western, individualistic societies- therefore creates an imposed etic

• Different cultural norms can influence and infant’s behaviour in the assessment so therefore labelling these behaviours as ‘insecure’ based on a Western standard is ethnocentric

• German infants are more likely to be classified as insecure-avoidant and Japanese infants as insecure-resistant

What is cultural relativism?

• the principle that human behaviour should be understood within the context of the specific culture where it occurs

• This would therefore result in taking into account the culture’s norms. Values and beliefs

• Acknowledges the behaviours deemed normal, moral or abnormal in a culture that may be perceived differently in another and not deemed as inferior in others eg; measures of intelligence- Western= IQ, others may be hunting skills/survival skills

• Cultural relativism emphasises understanding and respecting cultural differences but doesn’t imply hat all practices or beliefs are equally valid or beneficial from a psychological perspective

How to deal with bias

• To minimise bias, researchers should not assume universal norms or differences across cultures or sexes- claims of universality should be supported by empirical data

• Challenging the dominance of one cultural or gendered perspective in psychological theory can be achieve through greater diversity or equal representation amongst researchers

• This encourages more female researchers and supports indigenous psychology where research is conducted by individuals who are native or deeply understand the culture under observation

• To reduce WEIRD bias, use diverse samples instead of assuming finding from a single culture are universal

• Researchers can take a reflexive approach here hey actively reflect on their beliefs, values and experiences to recognise how personal factors may be influencing their research process and therefore help identify stereotypes that could affect the interpretation of ppts behaviour

• In findings, its crucial to clearly state that the theories, findings and or conclusions are specific to the gender or culture represented in the sample- this helps minimise the risk of other researchers or the media misinterpreting the results as universally applicable