Chapter 2 Flashcards
why is it important to study questions of gender systematically (organized)?
without systematic research people would likely rely too heavily on stereotypes and intuitions to understand questions of gender, making them prone to misconceptions
what are the main differences between men and women found in sex research?
verbal ability (favors girls)
math ability, visuospatial ability, aggression (favors boys)
what is variance?
a measure of how far the scores in a distribution vary, on average, from the mean of the distribution
what is a maximalist approach?
emphasize differences between sex groups
ex. girls and boys have completely non overlapping distributions of math anxiety scores
what is a minimalist approach?
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
why should sex differences be studied
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
why should sex differences not be studied?
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)
what is the publication bias or the file drawer problem?
tendency in the field of psychology to publish studies that find significant differences more often than studies that do not
what really is science?
a systematic, empirical way of investigating the world in order to identify rules and patterns in the way it works
what is the scientific method?
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
is there an end point to the scientific process?
no, the process is repeated to develop theories further and to gather more data about the way the world operates
what is the gender diagnosticity score?
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
what are quantitative methods?
methods that allow researchers to convert variables of interest into numbers and use statistical analyses to test hypotheses
well established experiments allow researchers to establish cause and effect relationships between variables, what does that mean?
when a cause occurs, the effect occurs
ex. smiling causes happiness
what occurs in an experiment?
the researcher manipulates independent variables to observe whether this causes changes in the dependent variables
researchers use random assignment in true experiments, what does that mean?
each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to each of the different experimental conditions in the study
what is experimental control?
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
what are examples of pseudo- experimental designs?
quasi- experiments
ex post facto designs
what is a quasi experiment?
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
what is a person by treatment quasi experiment design?
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
what is a participant variable?
a naturally occurring feature of participants such as sex, gender identity or cultural background
why are person by treatment designs common in gender research?
because they allow researchers to compare for ex. how women and men react differently to some manipulated variable
what is the ex post facto design?
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.