Gender and Culture in Psychology Date

Some Key Terms Universality - the belief that all humans are alike. Gender bias - this is when the differences between genders have not been fully considered leading to conclusions based on views or stereotypes rather than evidence. Androcentrism - a gender bias that comes from a male - centred view of the world. Alpha bias - where differences between males and females are exaggerated. Beta bias - when any differences between males and females are ignored.

1 2. Consider psychological research that has an androcentric bias. Androcentrism Historically psychology has been male dominated. Mostly psychologists were men and therefore, theories were based on a male view of the world. In some cases research is only carried out on males and then the results are genderalised to males and females. There is no value put onto the differences between genders.

Alpha Bias An alpha bias exaggerates the differences between males and females. Evolutionary psychology has a strong alpha bias, especially when discussing, parental investment, aggression and attraction. Freud’s theory of gender identification and the development of the superego. You have examples of alpha bias in your handout.

Beta Bias This is tendency to ignore the differences between men and women. The assumption is that theories derived from research into men can also be applied to women. Kohlberg’s research on moral development. Discuss the beta bias in Milgram's and Asch's research Beta bias in research into the stress response.

Evaluation of Gender Bias Alpha bias can promote gender stereotypes. Beta bias can mean that false generalisations are made, usually from males to females With gender bias we tend to focus on females being the same and males being the same. In doing so we ignore individual differences. The best way is to recognise there are differences but not state that one gender is superior to the other.

Questions 1. Explain what is meant by gender bias in psychology (2) 2. Explain how androcentrism has affected psychological research (3) 3. Outline an example of gender bias in psychological research (4)

Q1 In psychology, gender bias means that any differences between males and females has not been fully considered in research. An alpha bias is where the differences between genders are exaggerated and a beta bias is when any differences between genders is ignored.

Q2 Androcentrism has affected psychological research because in the past most research was conducted only on men and historically there were very few female psychologists. This means that there was a rather masculine view of the world as many important psychological studies only used male participants. An example of such research is Milgram's research into obedience. The assumption from this research is that obedience would be at the Same level as it was in the male sample. Freud's theory of psychosexual development can also be considered androcentric as much of his research was focused on the development of the male child. This is particularly so for the phallic stage of development.

Q3 One example of gender bias in psychological research is in Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Kohlberg studied 72 boys and gave them dilemma's to assess their moral development. This is an example of a Beta bias because Kohlberg's conclusions were generalised to females as well as males even though no females were studied. The assumption is that moral development occurs in exactly the same way for females even though they were not actually studied in his original studies.

Cultural Bias in Psychology Ethnocentrism Cultural relativism

Ethnocentrism This is a form of cultural bias where researchers favour the norms and expectations of one culture and attempt to generalise this to other cultures. Research is ethnocentric if it only focuses on participants from one culture. The idea is that ones own culture is the norm Ainsworth's strange situation is an example of this. The SS has been described as an imposed etic

Types of Culture bias Alpha bias – assumes cultural groups are different. This bias assumes that cultural differences should always be taken into account. Beta bias – This is when cultural differences are ignored or minimised – results in universality.

Cultural Relativism This is the idea that behaviour can only be judged in the context of the culture it is exhibited in. We need to recognise that what is a norm in one culture differs from norms in other cultures. Read up on the research by Margaret Mead. We can a argue that Margaret Mead's research may not have considered the contexts of the behaviours she saw. She tended to emphasise the differences in gender across cultures and in doing so ignored the universals.

Evaluation of cultural bias Can be used for unethical reasons – The use of IQ tests to show African Americans at the bottom of the IQ scale. Psychological research is dominated by the West, particularly America – therefore this viewpoint dominates. Smith and Bon found that 66% of studies into social psychology were American. Awareness of cultural differences has helped in the diagnosis of mental illness. – The DSM IV included an appendix on culture bound syndromes such as amafufunyana (Violent behaviour caused by spirit possession) and Koro (a fear of genitals retracting and disappearing (shrinking penis syndrome)

Questions Explain what is meant by cultural bias in psychology (2) Explain the terms ethnocentrism and cultural relativism (4)

Q1 Cultural bias in psychology occurs when psychologists of one culture make assumptions about the behaviour of people from another culture based on their own cultural practices and norms.

Q2 In psychology, cultural bias can be in the form of ethnocentrism. This is where a psychologist will favour the norms and behaviours of one culture and generalise them to other cultures. Cultural bias can also be that researchers fail to judge behaviour in the specific cultural context. Therefore may judge behaviour as abnormal when it is perfectly acceptable in that culture. This is known as cultural relativism.