- Psychologists seek universality but bias may be inevitable
- Social/historical contexts that they live in
- Gender bias: psychological theory/research may not accurately represent the experience/behaviour of men and women
- Alpha bias exaggerates differences, likely to devalue women
- g. Freud argued that there are genuine psychological differences between men and women because of their physiological differences
- Claimed young girls suffer from ‘penis envy’
- Viewed femininity as a failed form of masculinity
- Beta bias minimises differences, needs of women sometimes ignored
- Fight or flight response research used a male only sample
- Assumed findings would be applicable to females
- Taylor et al (2000) discovered tend and befriend response instead
- Androcentrism: male behaviour seen as normal, deviations seen as abnormal/inferior, female behaviour misunderstood/pathologized
- Consequence of beta bias
- g. many feminists object to PMS as it medicalises female emotions by explaining in hormonal terms
- Male anger seen as rational response to external pressures (Brescoll and Uhlman 2008)
- Problems in psych research
- May create misleading assumptions/validate discriminatory practices
- scientific justification to deny women opportunities (PMS)
- Damaging consequences on lives/prospects
- Promotes sexism in research process
- Lack of women at senior research level = female concerns not reflected in research questions
- Men more likely to be published
- Female ppts in inequitable relationship with researcher: has power to label irrational/unable to complete tasks
- Constitutional sexism that creates bias in theory/research
- Feminist psychologists suggest how to avoid
- Worrell and Remer (1992)
- Should be studied within meaningful real-life contexts
- Participate instead of being objects of study
- Study diversity in groups of women rather than comparisons to men
- Collaborative research methods that produce qualitative data
- Preferable/less biased
