Issues and debates
Spec:
● Gender and culture in Psychology – universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and
alpha and beta bias; cultural bias, including ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
● Free will and determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and
psychic determinism. The scientific emphasis on causal explanations.
● The nature-nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining
behaviour; the interactionist approach.
● Holism and reductionism: levels of explanation in Psychology. Biological reductionism and
environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism.
● Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation.
● Ethical implications of research studies and theory, including reference to social sensitivity.
, Gender bias AO1
Gender bias is the differential treatment or representation of men and women based on stereotypes and not
real evidence. Within psychology, it means that research is not fully representative of both genders.
Universality refers to the ability to apply findings/research to everyone, but this is threatened by gender bias
which is an issue.
Psychology has historically been a male dominated field, leading to many theories and findings only
representing a male point of view. This is androcentrism and can result in alpha or beta bias.
Alpha bias is the tendency to exaggerate differences between men and women, devaluing one gender as a
consequence. A prominent example of this in psychology is Freud's psychodynamic approach which implies
that females are morally inferior to males, and that femininity is a form of failed masculinity. His theory
exaggerates the differences between men and women so it is alpha bias.
Another form of gender bias is beta bias which occurs when a theory/research ignores or minimises
differences between the sexes. An example is research into the fight or flight response where it typically only
used male animals because female hormones fluctuate. Taylor et al suggested women look to social support
when they are under stress, so the fight or flight response shouldn't be applied to both genders.
Gender bias AO3
- Difficult to avoid it in research.
In order to overcome gender bias we would need to conduct separate research and studies for both men
and women, tailored towards each gender, so that we can conclude things that can be generalised to each
gender. However, this would challenge the universality of research because we aren’t able to apply findings
to everyone. Therefore, gender bias is unavoidable when conducting research with universality.
- Lead to stereotypes.
Research may create misleading assumptions about female behaviour, fail to challenge stereotypes, and
validate discriminatory practices e.g. research focusing on a secondary role for the father in attachment. This
may also deny both men and women opportunities within the workplace and wider society due to research
affecting our views of people. Therefore gender bias has real life negative implications as it affects our day to
day lives.
● One way to overcome gender bias is to change the samples used in studies.
Traditional social psychological research conducted by psychologists such as Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo,
tended to use largely male samples which then results in findings that shouldn’t be generalised to both
genders. By changing samples to include both genders, research is likely to be more representative. It also
means that we can compare outcomes and research can be generalised widely which overcomes the issue
of gender misrepresentation.
Spec:
● Gender and culture in Psychology – universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and
alpha and beta bias; cultural bias, including ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
● Free will and determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and
psychic determinism. The scientific emphasis on causal explanations.
● The nature-nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining
behaviour; the interactionist approach.
● Holism and reductionism: levels of explanation in Psychology. Biological reductionism and
environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism.
● Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation.
● Ethical implications of research studies and theory, including reference to social sensitivity.
, Gender bias AO1
Gender bias is the differential treatment or representation of men and women based on stereotypes and not
real evidence. Within psychology, it means that research is not fully representative of both genders.
Universality refers to the ability to apply findings/research to everyone, but this is threatened by gender bias
which is an issue.
Psychology has historically been a male dominated field, leading to many theories and findings only
representing a male point of view. This is androcentrism and can result in alpha or beta bias.
Alpha bias is the tendency to exaggerate differences between men and women, devaluing one gender as a
consequence. A prominent example of this in psychology is Freud's psychodynamic approach which implies
that females are morally inferior to males, and that femininity is a form of failed masculinity. His theory
exaggerates the differences between men and women so it is alpha bias.
Another form of gender bias is beta bias which occurs when a theory/research ignores or minimises
differences between the sexes. An example is research into the fight or flight response where it typically only
used male animals because female hormones fluctuate. Taylor et al suggested women look to social support
when they are under stress, so the fight or flight response shouldn't be applied to both genders.
Gender bias AO3
- Difficult to avoid it in research.
In order to overcome gender bias we would need to conduct separate research and studies for both men
and women, tailored towards each gender, so that we can conclude things that can be generalised to each
gender. However, this would challenge the universality of research because we aren’t able to apply findings
to everyone. Therefore, gender bias is unavoidable when conducting research with universality.
- Lead to stereotypes.
Research may create misleading assumptions about female behaviour, fail to challenge stereotypes, and
validate discriminatory practices e.g. research focusing on a secondary role for the father in attachment. This
may also deny both men and women opportunities within the workplace and wider society due to research
affecting our views of people. Therefore gender bias has real life negative implications as it affects our day to
day lives.
● One way to overcome gender bias is to change the samples used in studies.
Traditional social psychological research conducted by psychologists such as Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo,
tended to use largely male samples which then results in findings that shouldn’t be generalised to both
genders. By changing samples to include both genders, research is likely to be more representative. It also
means that we can compare outcomes and research can be generalised widely which overcomes the issue
of gender misrepresentation.
