Gender Bias in Psychology

• What differences between males and females do you know about?

• Which of these do you think are stereotypes and which are absolute truth?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoIyrv5GPUc

Gender Bias

• What studies do you know about that have used only male participants?

• What female traits may have been ignored in the findings of these studies?

Gender bias in psychology

• Gender bias has been found in both theory and research.

• Theories can be designed to promote stereotypical views of women.

• Research can be designed exaggerate differences or similarities. Therefore a female perspective is often seen as inferior or ignored all together.

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Gender bias

• Alpha bias• Exaggerating the differences between

men & women• Beta bias

• Exaggerating the similarity between men & women

• Often happens when findings obtained from men and applied to women without additional validation

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Gender bias

• Androcentrism• Similar idea to ethnocentrism• Taking male thinking/behaviour as

normal, regarding female thinking/behaviour as deviant, inferior, abnormal, ‘other’ when it is different

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Gender bias

• Range of consequences including:• Scientifically misleading• Upholding stereotypical assumptions• Validating sex discrimination

• Avoiding gender bias does not mean pretending that men and women are the same

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Plenary questions

• Milgram used an all male sample. If the results of the obedience study were generalised to females too what type of bias would this be?

• Why is Freudian psychoanalytic theory of moral development androcentric?

• Why do we need to be concerned about gender bias in Psychology?

Starter

• Heinz stole a drug to help his wife. Is this right or wrong? Would both sexes see this the same way?

• How might males and females react differently to a conflict situation at work?

• Are gender differences due to nature, nurture or both?

Examples of gender bias

• Kohlberg & moral development• Based stages of moral development

around male moral reasoning• Inappropriate generalisation to women

(Alpha or Beta bias?)• Claimed women generally reached lower

level of development (Inappropriately applying male thinking to moral development making female thinking seem inferior – what is this called?)

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Examples of gender bias

• Gilligan & moral development• Highlighted bias inherent in

Kohlberg’s work• Suggested women make moral

decisions in a different way to men (care ethic vs. justice ethic)

• Arguably also (alpha) biased, as M & F moral reasoning is more similar than her work suggests

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Examples of gender bias

• Freud & psychosexual development• ‘Biology is destiny’ – women’s roles

are prescribed & predetermined• ‘Penis envy’ – women are defined

psychologically by the fact that they aren’t men

• Alpha or Beta?

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Examples of gender bias

• Consequences of Freud’s ideas:• Reinforcing stereotypes e.g. of

women’s moral inferiority• Treating deviations from traditional

sex-role behaviour as pathological (career ambition = penis envy)

• Alpha Bias and Androcentric (phallocentric)

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Examples of gender bias

• Biomedical theories of abnormality• Abnormal behaviour explained in

terms of neurochemical/hormonal processes

• Higher prevalence of depression in women explained in hormonal terms, not social/environmental (e.g. violence, unpaid labour, discrimination)

• ‘Is it your hormones, love?’• FAE in Pre-menstrual tension

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Plenary questions

• What was Gilligan’s criticism of Kholberg’s work and how could her research also be criticised?

• Is there any way we could defend Freud’s work considering the era he was working in?

• Why do think a male perspective is so often found in psychological research?

Key word check

• Androcentrism• Alpha bias• Beta bias• Oedipus conflict• Tend and befriend• Fight or flight• Justice vs Care ethic

Gender bias in research

• Institutional sexism• Men predominate at senior researcher

level• Research agenda follows male concerns,

female concerns may be marginalised or ignored

• See pg 77 – Feminist Psychology – How does Eagly (1978) suggest Feminist research could help ‘redress the balance’ ?

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Gender bias in research• Use of standardised procedures in research

studies• Women and men might respond differently to

research situation• Women and men might be treated differently by

researchers• Could create artificial differences or mask real

ones.See pg 77 – How does Gilligan think we should view gender differences ?

• What did Eagly and Johnson find about the drawbacks of lab research?

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Gender bias in research

• Dissemination of research results• Publishing bias towards positive results• Research that finds gender differences

more likely to get published than that which doesn’t

• Exaggerates extent of gender differences• However - See pg 77 what concerns did

Hare-Mustin and Maracek have about trying to treat males and females exactly the same?

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Addressing gender bias

• Feminist perspective• Re-examining the ‘facts’ about gender• View of women as normal humans, not

deficient men• Scepticism towards biological determinism• Research agenda focusing on womens’

concerns• A psychology for women, rather than a

psychology of women

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Gender bias essay planExamples of Gender Bias

• Why is gender bias an issue?

• What types of bias are there?

• What examples of these types are there in research?

• What are the overall consequences of bias for psychology ?

Dealing with Gender Bias

• According to Feminists what are the problems within Institutions, methods of research, and publication of findings which need to be acknowledged?

• In what ways can we look at apha and beta biases differently according to Feminists?