Sexism
Gender differences
Heterosexism
Historical bias and social context
invisibility of women in psychology
Gender bias
Alpha bias
Beta bias
These are theories that maximise the differences between men and women.
The work of Freud
He blamed everything on the mother and penis envy is very one sided.
Horney responded to Freud with 'womb envy'
jealous of females biological functions (childbirth and breastfeeding)
Historical bias and lack of scientific evidence
these are theories that ignore or minimise gender differences
Assume that findings in males can equally to females
Kohlbergs theory of moral development
Favours the male perspective
Written and conducted by men
Androcentric bias
Assumes that the natural kind of romantic relationship should be between males and females
Opposes homosexuality
Psychology used to focus on heterosexual relationships
Challenged by wood and duck
Research on understudied relationship
typically ignores lesbian and gay relationships, online and long distance relationships.
Schools may treat it as a sensitive topic
Assuming people are straight
Woman must have a boyfriend or husband rather than a girlfriend
ignoring differences between homo and hetero
can lead to beta bias
recognising differences between homo and hetero
can lead to alpha bias
Smith and Lloyd- gender stereotypes1978
Observed mothers playing with infants who were made look like a certain gender.
mothers selected gender appropriate toys and responded more actively when they saw boys display motor activity
Mondschein- gender stereotypes 2000
Asked mothers how well their child would do in a crawling task
they had lower expectations for girls which shows differing perception
Moss-racusin Job applications 2012
Job applications were sent out. If the name was jennifer then it was seen to be less competent than one labelled John
Shows how gender stereotypes contribute to bias.
But this is not representative of other cultures as they are all western.
Only studying other cultures. Historical bias, sample size and social desirability
Biological research
majority of Psychology Ps are male
Taylor (2000) we have assumed a common global stress response but this is not typical of females
Females are more likely to tend and befriend
Example of beta bias
Feminist psychology
Aims to redress the balance
pre-menstrual syndrome is a condition in the DSM 4
pathologized as it is not within male norms
uses evidence to show women may be inferior
Eagly (1978) women make less effective leaders
knowledge should be used to give them training
Only 6 of the 100 most eminent psychologists were
women
There are many important female psychologists
Anna Freud, Eleanor Maccoby, Karen Horney and Mamie Phipps Clark
Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin (1974)
looked at a large number of gender studies and concluded that girls have a better verbal abilities and boys are better at spatial tasks.
These differences could be due to the differences of testosterone levels
Daphna Joel et al (2015)
looked at brain scans of over 1400 men and women
This found many differences in individual features but no unique clusters in men or women
They concluded there was no male or female brain
Steven Spencer et al (1999)
the differences between males and females cannot be explained in terms of biology
social explanation of stereotype threat
Found girls do les well in a maths test if they are reminded that girls are less good at maths stereotype just before they take the test
Shows its easy to arouse gender-stereotyped behaviour
Caro gilligan
Carol Gilligan highlighted the gender bias inherent in Kohlberg’s work and suggested women make moral decisions in a different way to men (care ethic vs. justice ethic).