Gender and culture bias

Question 1

Define universality

Answer 1

This relates to the ability for research findings to be applied to everyone regardless of gender, culture and time? Believing that some behaviours are the same for all cultures. for example, yerkes dodson law

Question 2

Define gender bias

Answer 2

This is when a bias is made towards one gender, behaviour is then applied to the other gender. This is mainly caused by using a sample of just one gender in research, and then applying the findings to all people.

Question 3

What are the three types of gender bias we have to know?

Answer 3

• beta bias
• alpha bias
• androcentrism

Question 4

Describe androcentrism

Answer 4

This refers to theories which are centred on males or focused on males only.

This can only occur if all male samples are used in research and then a theory is generated from this research which is applied to both genders.
For example, milgram, zimbardo, asch as well as Cohlbergs theory of moral development, freud’s psychosexual stages of development

Question 5

Nowadays, however, given that approx. 70% of the modern Psychology undergraduate students are female, we might later fine that research has a bias in favour of females,
especially those that employ opportunity sampling methods. This could be called….

Answer 5

gynocentrism

Question 6

Describe alpha bias

Answer 6

Alpha bias occurs when the differences between men and women are exaggerated which can lead to misrepresentation.
Therefore, stereotypical male and female characteristics may be emphasised.
E.g., evolutionary explanations for partner preference (relationships) - men are more likely to commit adultery and women have a more parental investment in their offspring.

Question 7

Describe beta bias

Answer 7

Beta bias occurs when the differences between men and women are minimised or ignored.
This often happens when findings obtained from men are applied to women without additional validation (androcentrism).
E.g., biological research into the fight-or-flight response has often been carried out with male animals, but Taylor et al. (2000) suggests that females produce a slightly different response to fight or flight: tend and befriend.

Question 8

How can psychologists avoid gender bias?

Answer 8

• equal no. of male and female ppts
• don’t generalise results from one gender to another
• replicate experiments with missing gender or a balances sample

Question 9

Evaluation point for gender and cultural bias: theories of human behaviour have been built on androcentric research

Answer 9

Many significant theories of human behaviour have been built on androcentric research which have then tested women using flawed criteria (i.e., based only on males) and found results that appear to show significant differences in behaviour according to gender.
For example, Kohlberg (1969) proposed a stage theory of moral development based on research on boys only. He later tested girls using the stages and found that, on average, women researched a lower level of moral development. This led to alpha-biased conclusions that women have inferior moral understanding.
Therefore, androcentric research can at best only apply to half the population, reducing how useful it can be to whole peoples. As a result, androcentric research should only be applied specifically to males and not inappropriately generalised to females.
This means that Psychology as a field may have some significant biases in terms of understanding behaviour in relation to gender.

Question 10

Evaluation point for gender and cultural bias: critical analysis of beta bias

Answer 10

Critical analysis of beta bias has led us to see that whilst equality is important, we should not minimise the differences between men and women if this means disadvantaging one gender.
For example, Hare-Mustin and Marecek suggest that arguing for equality between men and women draws attention away from the current power imbalance between men and women and may inadvertently lead to even greater imbalances. E.g., arguing for equal parenting rights / time ignores the biological demands of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.
This means that beta biased approaches that seek to minimise gender differences can be as damaging as alpha biased ones.

Question 11

Evaluation point for gender and cultural bias: gender bias can stem from research methods

Answer 11

It is possible that some differences that appear to exist between males and females may stem from gender bias in research methods.
For example, Rosenthal (1966) found that male researchers are more pleasant, friendly and encouraging towards female Pt’s than male ones which may skew results.
This means researchers must be careful to consider how they are able to carry out research with minimal experimenter bias as possible in order to avoid misinterpreting data.

Question 12

Evaluation point for gender and cultural bias: Diagnostic manuals may harm cultures ability to treat mental illness

Answer 12

Mental health manuals may potentially be altering the way cultures diagnose illnesses to more American norms.
For example, the Americanisation of mental health led to significant changes in how Japan viewed the symptoms of depression. Previously seen phenomena in Japan such as Koro are not included in the DSM 5, leading to society to abandon its symptom pool of depression in more american norms. This has huge effects on the accuracy of diagnosis, as it rejects regional and cultural interpretations of a disorder. For instance the DSM forces american interpretations on mental illness onto any country that uses it and may lessen the validity of both classifications and diagnosis.
Therefore diagnoses manuals may harm a cultures ability to treat mental illness, due to cultural biases of american led interpretations of mental illness

Question 13

Evaluation point for gender and cultural bias: challenge gender bias in well established theories

Answer 13

Psychologists are beginning to challenge the potential gender bias in many well-established psychological theories.
For example, recent DNA evidence suggests that women are equall competitive and aggressive compared to males in situations where they need to be, which contradicts the long-held Darwinian view that males are competitive whereas females are more passive.
The suggestion is that Darwin may have been influenced by the prevailing view of women in Victorian times and that many of the theories we assume to be unbiased and scientific may actually be riddled with gender bias.

Question 14

Define culture bias

Answer 14

The act of interpreting and judging behaviour and psychological characteristics of one culture by holding them to the standards of your own.
In psychology this can take a number of different forms; either by theories developed in one culture which are then applied inappropriately to all others, or through biased research methods which only use participants which are not representative of all cultures.
Therefore cultural biases assume that the behaviour of a certain society or culture is the norm, and that anything that differs is abnormal

Question 14

Define enthocentrism

Answer 14

The view that our own culture should be the basis for judgements of other groups. The views, beliefs and cultures of our own group are “normal” or superior, and those of other group are “strange”.
This limits the validity of these theories and neglects the important cross-cultural differences.
E.g., when assumptions about one’s own culture are considered generalisable to other cultures.

Question 15

2 ways of researching seem to amplify or reduce cultural bias?

Answer 15

1- An ETIC approach may amplify cultural bias
2- An EMIS approach can help reduce cultural bias

Question 16

Describe an etic approach

Answer 16

an etic approach may amplify cultural bias. This is where research is carried out across cultures in order to discover what behaviour might be universal. This type of approach seeks to develop universal, ‘nomothetic’ theories about human nature and behaviour that span all cultures. For example, Berry (1969) replicated Asch to see if the conformity rates seen in the US was repeated amongst the Tenne people of Sierra Leone or the inuit of Canada. The Tenne had high rates by the inuit had low rates. The difference was put to alternative styles of living hence conformity is not a universal behaviour

Question 17

Describe an imposed Etic

Answer 17

Refers to the use of a measure (e.g DSM), which has been developed according to the values of one culture (in this case largely North American) and used to make assessments in that culture (in this case of mental health)…and then used to study or JUDGE behaviour in another culture with alternative cultural reference points.

Question 18

Examples of imposed etic and the problems they could create:

Answer 18

1- Definitions of abnormality vary from culture to culture. Rack (1984) claims that African-Caribbeans in Britain are sometimes diagnosed as ‘mentally ill’ on the basis of behaviour which is perfectly normal in their subculture, and this is due to the ignorance of African-Caribbean subculture on the part of white psychiatrists.

2 - Ainsworth’s Strange Situation. Many researchers assume that the Strange Situation has the same meaning for the infants from other cultures, as it does for American children. German children, on average, demonstrate a higher rate of insecure-avoidant behaviour. However, it is not the case that German mothers are more insensitive than American mothers. Instead, they value and encourage independent behaviour, and therefore their children react differently in the Strange Situation.

3- IQ Testing e.g. Eysenck. An example of an etic approach which produces bias might be the imposition of IQ tests designed within one culture on another culture. If a test is designed to measure a European’s understanding of what intelligence is it may not be a valid measurement of an African’s , or Asian’s intelligence. IQ tests developed in the West contain embedded assumptions about intelligence, but what counts as ‘intelligent’ behaviour varies from culture to culture. Non-Westerners may be disadvantaged by such tests – and then viewed as ‘inferior’ when then don’t perform as Westerners do.

Question 19

Define an emic approach

Answer 19

One way to overcome this problem could be to employ an EMIC APPROACH, to help reduce cultural bias.
This is where one culture is studied in order to discover culture specific behaviour, and they will only generalise their findings to the culture they have been studying.
They do not try and generalise to everyone.

Question 20

Describe a problem with the emic approach

Answer 20

A problem with this is that it is very hard to get a true understanding of the culture if you are not a member of it, especially when carrying out experiments where there is limited contact, and usually a small sample.

Question 21

Describe and explain cultural relativism

Answer 21

Cultural relativism is the principle of regarding the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself.
The principle is sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research, as well as to avoid judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture. For this reason, cultural relativism has been considered an attempt to avoid ethnocentrism.