Chapter 2 Flashcards

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1
Q

why is it important to study questions of gender systematically (organized)?

A

without systematic research people would likely rely too heavily on stereotypes and intuitions to understand questions of gender, making them prone to misconceptions

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2
Q

what are the main differences between men and women found in sex research?

A

verbal ability (favors girls)
math ability, visuospatial ability, aggression (favors boys)

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3
Q

what is variance?

A

a measure of how far the scores in a distribution vary, on average, from the mean of the distribution

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4
Q

what is a maximalist approach?

A

emphasize differences between sex groups
ex. girls and boys have completely non overlapping distributions of math anxiety scores

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5
Q

what is a minimalist approach?

A

emphasize similarity between sexes
ex. distributions of math anxiety scores of girls and boys are largely similar and overlapping, with girls scoring just slightly higher than boys on average

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6
Q

why should sex differences be studied

A

can help counter gender bias and misconceptions (ex. experts in the 19th believed women to be intellectually inferior to men, thus women were often denied access to higher education, research on sex differences in cognitive abilities debunked the myth of women’s intellectual inferiority)
essential for more effectively diagnosing alzheimer’s
allows identification of the contexts in which differences do or do not emerge

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7
Q

why should sex differences not be studied?

A

reinforce gender stereotypes (publication bias)
we dont know much about sex similarities (thus it should be more focused on!)
gives sex differences too much attention
methods used to compare women and men stem from a faulty and limited conceptualization of gender (excludes intersex and nonbinaries)
ignores social categories (race, class, sexual orientation)

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8
Q

what is the publication bias or the file drawer problem?

A

tendency in the field of psychology to publish studies that find significant differences more often than studies that do not

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9
Q

what really is science?

A

a systematic, empirical way of investigating the world in order to identify rules and patterns in the way it works

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10
Q

what is the scientific method?

A

a systematic, empirical way of investigating the world in order to identify rules and patterns. the researcher makes an observation, generates a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis, analyzes the results, and interprets the results to generature or refine a theory

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11
Q

is there an end point to the scientific process?

A

no, the process is repeated to develop theories further and to gather more data about the way the world operates

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12
Q
A
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13
Q

what is the gender diagnosticity score?

A

score that refers to the estimated probability that an individual is male or female given the individuals gender related interests. a GD score of 0.85 means that the individual has an 85% chance of being male and a 15% chance of being female

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14
Q

what are quantitative methods?

A

methods that allow researchers to convert variables of interest into numbers and use statistical analyses to test hypotheses

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15
Q

well established experiments allow researchers to establish cause and effect relationships between variables, what does that mean?

A

when a cause occurs, the effect occurs
ex. smiling causes happiness

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16
Q

what occurs in an experiment?

A

the researcher manipulates independent variables to observe whether this causes changes in the dependent variables

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17
Q

researchers use random assignment in true experiments, what does that mean?

A

each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to each of the different experimental conditions in the study

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18
Q

what is experimental control?

A

no variables other than the independent variable differ systematically across the conditions
ex. sex cannot be treated as an independent variable because if you cannot easily or ethically assign people into the different conditions of a variable then it is not a true independent variable

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19
Q

what are examples of pseudo- experimental designs?

A

quasi- experiments
ex post facto designs

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20
Q

what is a quasi experiment?

A

a design that mimics the appearance of a true experiment but in which the researcher lacks control over at least one of the independent variable manipulations
ex. the researcher selects pre- existing groups of participants (two different preschool classrooms) and exposes them to different experiences. in one classroom the teacher emphasizes gender by having the children line up and do activities by sex and the other does not mention gender at all, after 2 weeks the researcher measures the childrens levels of gender stereotyping

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21
Q

what is a person by treatment quasi experiment design?

A

a quasi experiemental design involving at least one participant variable and at least one true independent variable with random assignment
allow for cause and effect conclusion

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22
Q

what is a participant variable?

A

a naturally occurring feature of participants such as sex, gender identity or cultural background

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23
Q

why are person by treatment designs common in gender research?

A

because they allow researchers to compare for ex. how women and men react differently to some manipulated variable

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24
Q

what is the ex post facto design?

A

a nonexperiemtnal design in which groups of people who differ on a participant variable (ex. sex) are compared on some dependent variable
do not allow for cause and effect conclusions
ex. a researcher would use this type of design to test the hypothesis that women smile more than men because they lack random assignment to the levels of a true independent variable.

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25
Q

what are interaction effects?

A

a pattern in which the strength or direction of the association between an independent (or participant) variable and a dependent variable differs as a function of another independent (or participant) variable

26
Q

what occurs in a correlational design?

A

researchers test hypotheses about the strength and direction of relationships between pairs of variables (feminine personality traits and body image problems) the stronger the correlation between two variables, the more accurate the prediction

27
Q

what are r- values? what does a positive r- value indicate, what does a negative r- value indicate?

A

range of values from -1 to 1, the further the value is from 0, the stronger the relationship. positive r value indicates positive correlation and that the variables change in the same direction (ex. as one increases the other increases), negative correlation indicates that the variables change in opposite directions (ex. as one increases the other decreases)

28
Q

what is reverse causation?

A

in correlational research, the possibility that the true cause and effect relationship between two variables is the reverse of what is initially assumed (also known as the directionality problem). instead of x causing y, its always possible that y causes x
Relationship in which the correlation between two things is due not to the first thing causing the second, but to the second causing the first.
(instead of tiktok causing bad grades, bad grades would cause tiktok)

29
Q

what is the third variable problem?

A

in correlational research, the possibility that an unmeasured third variable (z) is responsible for the relationship between two correlated variables (x and y)

30
Q

what are longitudinal designs?

A

researchers follow people over time and measure variables at multiple points
cant address the third variable problem

31
Q

what is cross- sectional design?

A

researchers measure variables at one point in time

32
Q

what are qualitative methods?

A

methods in which researchers collect in depth, non numerical information in order to understand participants’ subjective experiences within a specific context
ex. case studies, interviews, focus groups

33
Q

what occurs in a case study?

A

the researcher conducts an in depth investigation of a single entity (usually a person or group)

34
Q

what is the downfall to case studies?

A

lack generalizability (difficult to generalize the findings to the larger population)

35
Q

what are interviews?

A

involve asking participants (individuals or groups) to answer open- ended questions that vary in how structured verses unstructured they are

36
Q

what are focus groups?

A

interviews conducted in a group format

37
Q

why might you use focus groups for a study?

A

to represent marginalized groups in their research (pushes people to describe their experiences in their own voices)

38
Q

critics suggested that quantitative methods were androcentric, what does that mean?

A

they treated men and mens experiences as universal while viewing women and womens experiences as deviations from the male norm (used men as the “standard” human)

39
Q

what does reflexivity mean?

A

recognizing and acknowledging that the values of the researcher play an active role in shaping the design, findings and interpretations in any study

40
Q

what are mixed methods?

A

a research approach that combines both qualitative and quantitative methods within the same study or same program of research. gives the complete picture of a study

41
Q

what is a meta analysis?

A

a quantitative technique for analysing the results across a set of individual studies. researchers compute an effect size

42
Q

what is effect size?

A

quantitative measure describing the meaningful relationship between variables or the difference between groups

43
Q

what is a second order meta analysis (or meta synthesis)?

A

summarizes the results of a set of meta analyses
(only possible when a given topic is studied enough that there exist multiple meta- analysis of the research)

44
Q

what is good about a second order meta analysis?

A

can reduce some sources of error and allow an even broader more comprehensive view of an entire body of research findings

45
Q

what is the d statistic?

A

an effect size statistic that expresses the magnitude and direction of a difference between group means in standardized units
(negative d value means that girls score higher than boys on the variable of interest)

46
Q

what is a standard deviation?

A

a measure of how far the scores in the set differ, on average, from the average value

47
Q

what is within- group variance?

A

a measure of how spread out the values are among people within the same group (or within the same condition of an experiement)

48
Q

what is between group variance?

A

the difference between the average values for each group in a study

49
Q

what does it mean when distributions have large between group variance and small within group variance?

A

little overlap between the distributions, effect size is large
(ex. d= 0.80 or d= -0.91)

50
Q

people often focus on the between group variability and ignore the within- group variability when discussing gender, what does this lead to?

A

leads to the maximalist bias (people overemphasize differences between people of different sex groups)

51
Q

what is researcher bias?

A

researchers behave in subtle ways that influence the outcome of a study
ex. asking questions hinting to a specific answer

52
Q

what is participant bias?

A

participants’ responses are influenced by what they think the researcher expects

53
Q

what is androcentrism?

A

the tendency to view men as the universal or default for the species and women as exceptions in need of explanation

54
Q

what are different types of sampling bias?

A

only using one sex as the sample
sampling only male and females (ignore race, class…)

55
Q

how is intersectionality important for sampling?

A

need to take into account race, class and sexual orientation, or else the experiment lacks meaning

56
Q

what does it mean that many psychological constructs are multidimensional?

A

they consist of multiple different aspects
(ex. we look at all the facial features as a whole)

57
Q

what is postpositivism?

A

an orientation that views empirical investigation as a useful method for acquiring knowledge but recognizes its inherent biases and values

58
Q

what is scientific positivism?

A

an orientation that emphasizes the scientific method and proposes that objective and value free knowledge is attainable through empirical investigation

59
Q

what are guidelines for gender- fair research?

A

researchers should work to eliminate sex bias from sampling and avoid using men as the standard or norm
they should use precise non- gender biased terminology when collecting data, describing their participants and research findings
they should not exaggerate the prevalence and magnitude of sex differences
should not imply or state that sex differences are due to biological causes when biological factors have not been properly tested

60
Q

what are the guidelines for more inclusive research?

A

academic psychology would benefit from more ethnic, racial and class diversity among its professional ranks, academic psychologists should strive to diversify their research samples, not just within the united states but cross culturally aswell, should routinely measure and report the demographic characteristics of their samples, should avoid language about sex differences that implies generalizability to all people without considering the conditions under which these differences emerge and disappear, researchers should examine how structural inequalities and power differences associated with sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, class, age, ability religion and culture interact to shape peoples experiences