Issues and Debates in Psychology Flashcards
what is gender bias?
the differential treatment of males and females, which is based on stereotypes.
what are the two types of gender bias?
alpha bias and beta bias
what is alpha bias (in terms of gender)?
refers to theories which exaggerate the differences between males and females.
what is an example of alpha bias (in terms of gender)?
believing that men should always appear strong and unemotional, while women should always be nurturing and emotional, it assumes that emotions are tied to gender and enforces stereotypes.
what is beta bias (in terms of gender)?
ignores or minimises sex differences, these theories often assume that the findings from males can equally apply to females.
what is an example of beta bias (in terms of gender)?
assuming that the symptoms of depression in men and women should be identical, this may result in under diagnosis of depression in men, as their symptoms might differ from the stereotypical female presentation.
what is androcentrism?
male-centred, normal behaviour judged according to a male standard
what is universality?
any results from research can be applied to all.
what are examples of alpha biased research (in terms of gender)?
freud’s theory of psychosexual development (1905) - argued that through the castrating, boys develop a strong superego as they identify with their father, they fear castration if they do not regulate their sexual desire towards their mother, also claimed that girls do not develop such a strong superego as they blame their mother for the oedipus complex and they have penis envy, leading them to have a greater identification with their father, so such claims lead to the idea that women are inferior to men as they are less morally developed than men, so exaggerating a difference between the sexes.
bowlby - claimed that mothers needed to stay at home and care for their children or else they would damage their children’s social, cognitive and emtional development which implies that only the mother can fulfil this role, therefore, reinforcing gender stereotypes.
what is an example of beta biased research (in terms of gender)?
research on ‘fight or flight’ response - biological research has mainly favoured the use of male animals due to female behaviour being affected by hormonal changes which ignores any possible differences and it is clear that early research assumed that both sexes respond to certain situations with a fight or flight response.
milgram (1965) - had a limited gender diversity which means the majority of participants were male so there is a limited representation of females, this means that only potential sex-related variations in obedience were not thoroughly investigated and represented.
asch (1951) - had a lack of gender biased analysis; his published research did not provide an analysis of potential sex differences in conforming rates / responses, this means that he did not emphasis or explore whether male and female participants had different levels of conformity due to their sexes.
what is reflexivity?
the examination of one’s own beliefs, judgements and practices during the research process and how these may have influenced the behaviour of the researchers and participants.
what are the strengths of gender bias?
can lead to a reduction in gender biased research as the field of feminist psychology seems to improve the lives of women, therefore through research, clinical practice and social advocacy that focus on women and social contexts in which women live, the representations of females in research are able to be improved allowing generalisability to occur.
may permit more value-free research as researchers now recognise the effect their own values and assumptions have on the nature of their work (reflexivity) and rather than seeing gender bias as an issue, they embrace it as a crucial aspect of the research process e.g. in dambrin’s and lambert’s (2005) study of the lack of women in executive postions, they included reflection on how gender-related experiences influence their reading of events.
what are the weaknesses of gender bias?
gender bias promotes sexism in the research process, women remain underrepresented throughout research due to it being conducted mostly by men which disadvantages participants who are women, this means that androcentrism negatively impacts psycholgical research as findings produced will be gender biased and lack generalisability of the whole population.
in most cases, psychologists seek universality but bias seems to be inevitable as the majority of researchers and research is male centred and the findings gathered cannot be generalised to the whole population as half of the population are women which means that research may create misleading assumptions about female behaviour and fail to challenge the negative stereotypes that are embedded into society.
what is cultural bias?
the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions.
what are the two types of cultural bias?
alpha bias and beta bias
what is alpha bias (in terms of culture)?
occurs when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different.
what is beta bias (in terms of culture)?
occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised, and all people are assumed to be the same, resulting in universal research designs and conclusions.
what is ethnocentrism?
judging other cultures from one’s own cultural viewpoint and believing their culture is superior, which may lead to discrimination and prejudice.
what is cultural relativism?
behaviour and attitudes can only be meaningful and understood if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
what is an etic approach?
looks at behaviour from the outside of a given culture and attempts to describe these behaviours as universal.
what is an emic approach?
functions from within a culture and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture.
what is universality and bias (in terms of culture)?
henrich et al (2010) - reviewed hundreds of studies and found that 68% of research participants came from the USA and these behaviours were deemed as ‘facts’ and applied universally which led to culture bias, as a result they came up with WEIRD (westernised, educated people from industrialised, rich, democracies) and these are the group of people most likely to be studied - all other behaviour seen as abnormal.
what is an example of ethnocentric research?
ainsworth and bell’s strange situation (1970) - reflects ethnocentrism of western culture, measuring attachment type against the western ideal, they misrepresented child-rearing practices in other countries as they seemed to deviate from the american norm; an example of this is japanese babies classed as insecurely attached as they showed distress when separated, however, this is likely because babes are rarely separated from their mothers and Japan inhibits a collectivist culture while the USA inhibits an individualist culture. this study can also be considered as an example of imposed etic in research as they studied behaviour of one culture (USA) and then assumed their ideal attachment type and how they assess for it can be applied universally.
why is the DSM-5 and ICD-10 culturally biased?
they are sources produced by americans and used to apply to other cultures, this minimises other cultures and their differences which creates beta bias and lacks validity and reliability which suggests that they are ethnocentric and are etic constructs
what are examples of culturally biased research?
milgram (1963) - all participants are american so the results cannot be generalised to other cultures, study is ethnocentric as they wanted to see if americans would be as obedient as germans possibly leading to discrimination against germans, individualist cultures are less likely to obey due to independent values
zimbardo ( ) - all participants are american males so the results cannot be applied universally, it is also ethnocentric as only focused on americans.
what is a strength of cultural bias?
led to the emergence of cultural psychology, this is the study of how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experiences, cultural psychologists strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach, which conducts research from within a culture and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture, this suggests that modern psychologists are mindful of the dangers of cultural bias and are taking steps to avoid it.
what are the weaknesses of cultural bias?
led to ethnic stereotyping, in 1981, gould explained how early army IQ tests were ethnocentric e.g. assuming the knowledge the soldiers would have of the american presidents, the poor results were not seen to reflect the poor research methods / techniques but rather to inform racist discourse of genetic inferiority deeming ethnic minorities as ‘mentally unfit’, they were denied educational opportunities as a result, this shows how cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice and discrimination towards certain cultural and ethnic groups.
most influential studies are culturally bias, asch and milgram’s original studies consisted of solely USA participants and when the studies were replicated in collectivist cultures, the findings were very different from individualist cultures, this suggests that knowledge of such topics, such as social influence, should only be applied to individualist cultures.
-> (counterpoint): however, the increased media globalisation has led to the arguments that there is no longer a distinction between individualist and collectivist cultures, in 1999, takano and osaka found that 14/15 studies comparing the USA and Japan found no evidence of individualism or collectivism which suggests that cultural bias in research may be less of an issue in more recent psychological research.
what is the nature-nurture debate?
it is an age-old debate about whether genetics (nature) plays a bigger role in determining a person’s characteristics than lived experience and environmental factors (nurture).
what is nature?
it suggests that behaviour is innate and a result of genetics, all behaviour and characteristics are pre-determined (deterministic), all development is pre-wired from birth - people’s behaviour / personality is relatively fixed.
what are nativists?
they assume that biological / heredity (genes) are more important in determining, knowledge is innate.
what evidence is there for a biological origin of behaviour (nature)?
genetic evidence for disorders like schizophrenia
evolutionary arguments for mate preference
neurotransmitter (dopamine / serotonin) and hormonal (testosterone) evidence for aggression
twin studies: MZ twins often show higher concordance rates than DZ twins for behaviours and disorders despite both sets sharing environments
what is nurture?
all behaviour is learnt from the environment and external forces, individuals are shaped by the environment - all behaviour is a result of learning therefore undesirable behaviour can be ‘un-learned’.
what are empiricists?
they assume that learning (experience) is more important in determining behaviour , as knowledge comes from interaction with the world (the mind starts as a blank state).
what evidence is there for an environmental influence of behaviour (nurture)?
social learning theory; bandura’s bobo doll study demonstrates that behaviour can be learnt through interaction with the environment (nurture)
behaviourist studies e.g. pavlov’s dogs.
how are nature and nurture measured?
the degree to which two people are similar on a particular trait can be represented by a correlation coefficient (concordance) - provides an estimate about the extent to which a trait is inherited, called heritability (this is the proportion of differences between individuals in a population, with regards to a particular trait that is due to genetic variation) e.g. general figure for heritability in IQ = .5 (50% of IQ is determined by genes)
what is the interactionist approach?
the idea that nature and nurture are linked to such an extent that it does not make sense to separate the two as any behaviour / characteristic arises from a combination of both, so researchers instead study how they interact and influence each other.
what studies are examples of the interactionist approach?
maguire et al (2000) taxi driver study; structure of the brain can alter in response to environmental factors showing how genetic factors link with environmental factors.
attachment patterns between CG and infant are the result of a 2-way process, child’s innate temperamnet will influence the way its parents respond to it; child’s genetic personality has an impact on the relationship between their parents and how they parents react to such behaviour impact child’s upbringing, therefore linking nature and nurture.
what is the diathesis-stress model and how does it apply to the nature-nurture debate?
a theory that suggests a vulnerability to a behaviour such as a mental disorder (e.g. schizophrenia) is combined with a trigger to cause it to develop, and these vulnerabilities and stress triggers could be biological or environmental.
