Issues and Debates Revision
Gender Bias
Key words:
Alpha: Refers to theories which exaggerate the differences between males and females.
Androcentrism: Theories that are focused or centred on men
Beta: Refers to theories which ignore or minimise sex differences. These theories often
assume that the findings from males can apply equally to females.
Gender Bias: The differential treatment and/or representation of males and females, based
on stereotypes and not real differences.
Examples of Alpha Bias:
● In Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, he argued that because girls do not suffer the same
oedipal conflict as boys, they do not identify with their mothers as strongly as boys
identify with their fathers, so develop weaker superegos.
○ Freud exaggerated the differences between males and females, arguing
that females develop a weaker superego.
Examples of Beta Bias:
● Asch investigated the extent to which social pressure from a majority affects
conformity. His sample consisted of 123 male studies from three different colleges
in the USA. Asch found an average conformity rate of 32% and concluded that most
people went along with the group to fit in.
○ Asch ignored the possible difference between males and females,
assuming that both sexes would respond to social pressure in a
similar way.
● Zimbardo investigated how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and
prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life. The participants
consisted of 22 males who responded to a newspaper advertisement. The guards
and the prisoners conformed to the social roles they were expected to play. Both
groups became dehumanised in the eyes of the others and the experiment clearly
supports a situational explanation of behaviour.
○ Zimbardo ignored the possibility of differences between males and
females and assumed that all participants would become dehumanised
in a similar way.
● Biological research into the fight-or-flight response has often been carried out with
male animals because they have less variation in hormones than females. It was
assumed that this would not be a problem as the fight-or-flight response would be
the same for both.
○ Biological and evolutionary explanations typically ignore sex
differences and assume that both sexes respond to situations
(stress/danger) in a similar way.
, Cultural Bias:
Key words:
Culture: The values, beliefs and patterns of behaviour shared by a group of people.
Cultural Relativism: The idea that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural
context is taken into consideration.
Culture Bias: The tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural assumptions.
Ethnocentrism: Seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and believing that
this one perspective is both normal and correct
Universality: When a theory can apply to all people, irrespective of gender and culture.
Ethnocentrism:
Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and
believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct. Ethnocentrism is an often
inadvertent lack of awareness that other ways of seeing things can be as valid as one’s own.
For example, 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.
In context:
Ainsworth's Strange Situation is another example of ethnocentric research. The Strange
Situation was developed to assess attachment types, and 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. The Strange Situation has
been described as an imposed etic, which is when a technique or theory is developed in one
culture and then imposed on another.
Cultural Relativism:
Cultural relativism insists that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural
context is taken into consideration. Therefore, any study which draws its sample from only
one cultural context (like American college students) and then generalises its findings to all
people everywhere, is suspect.
In context:
According to this viewpoint, the meaning of intelligence is different in every culture. For
example, Sternberg (1985) pointed out that coordination skills that may be essential to life in
a preliterate society (e.g., those motor skills required for shooting a bow and arrow) may be
mostly irrelevant to what is considered intelligent behaviour for most people in a literate and
more “developed” society.
Gender Bias
Key words:
Alpha: Refers to theories which exaggerate the differences between males and females.
Androcentrism: Theories that are focused or centred on men
Beta: Refers to theories which ignore or minimise sex differences. These theories often
assume that the findings from males can apply equally to females.
Gender Bias: The differential treatment and/or representation of males and females, based
on stereotypes and not real differences.
Examples of Alpha Bias:
● In Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, he argued that because girls do not suffer the same
oedipal conflict as boys, they do not identify with their mothers as strongly as boys
identify with their fathers, so develop weaker superegos.
○ Freud exaggerated the differences between males and females, arguing
that females develop a weaker superego.
Examples of Beta Bias:
● Asch investigated the extent to which social pressure from a majority affects
conformity. His sample consisted of 123 male studies from three different colleges
in the USA. Asch found an average conformity rate of 32% and concluded that most
people went along with the group to fit in.
○ Asch ignored the possible difference between males and females,
assuming that both sexes would respond to social pressure in a
similar way.
● Zimbardo investigated how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and
prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life. The participants
consisted of 22 males who responded to a newspaper advertisement. The guards
and the prisoners conformed to the social roles they were expected to play. Both
groups became dehumanised in the eyes of the others and the experiment clearly
supports a situational explanation of behaviour.
○ Zimbardo ignored the possibility of differences between males and
females and assumed that all participants would become dehumanised
in a similar way.
● Biological research into the fight-or-flight response has often been carried out with
male animals because they have less variation in hormones than females. It was
assumed that this would not be a problem as the fight-or-flight response would be
the same for both.
○ Biological and evolutionary explanations typically ignore sex
differences and assume that both sexes respond to situations
(stress/danger) in a similar way.
, Cultural Bias:
Key words:
Culture: The values, beliefs and patterns of behaviour shared by a group of people.
Cultural Relativism: The idea that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural
context is taken into consideration.
Culture Bias: The tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural assumptions.
Ethnocentrism: Seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and believing that
this one perspective is both normal and correct
Universality: When a theory can apply to all people, irrespective of gender and culture.
Ethnocentrism:
Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and
believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct. Ethnocentrism is an often
inadvertent lack of awareness that other ways of seeing things can be as valid as one’s own.
For example, 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.
In context:
Ainsworth's Strange Situation is another example of ethnocentric research. The Strange
Situation was developed to assess attachment types, and 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. The Strange Situation has
been described as an imposed etic, which is when a technique or theory is developed in one
culture and then imposed on another.
Cultural Relativism:
Cultural relativism insists that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural
context is taken into consideration. Therefore, any study which draws its sample from only
one cultural context (like American college students) and then generalises its findings to all
people everywhere, is suspect.
In context:
According to this viewpoint, the meaning of intelligence is different in every culture. For
example, Sternberg (1985) pointed out that coordination skills that may be essential to life in
a preliterate society (e.g., those motor skills required for shooting a bow and arrow) may be
mostly irrelevant to what is considered intelligent behaviour for most people in a literate and
more “developed” society.
