1 / 13

Gender bias in psychology

Gender bias in psychology. Types of bias Bias in theory Bias in research. www.psychlotron.org.uk. Gender bias. Range of consequences including: Scientifically misleading Upholding stereotypical assumptions Validating sex discrimination

wynona
Download Presentation

Gender bias in psychology

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Gender bias in psychology • Types of bias • Bias in theory • Bias in research www.psychlotron.org.uk

  2. Gender bias • Range of consequences including: • Scientifically misleading • Upholding stereotypical assumptions • Validating sex discrimination • Avoiding gender bias does not mean pretending that men and women are the same www.psychlotron.org.uk

  3. Gender bias • Alpha bias • Exaggerating the differences between men & women • Beta bias • Exaggerating the similarity between men & women • Often happens when findings obtained from men and applied to women without additional validation www.psychlotron.org.uk

  4. Gender bias • Androcentrism • Similar idea to ethnocentrism • Taking male thinking/behaviour as normal, regarding female thinking/behaviour as deviant, inferior, abnormal, ‘other’ when it is different www.psychlotron.org.uk

  5. Examples of gender bias • Kohlberg & moral development • Based stages of moral development around male moral reasoning • Inappropriate generalisation to women (beta bias) • Claimed women generally reached lower level of development (androcentrism) www.psychlotron.org.uk

  6. Examples of gender bias • Gilligan & moral development • Highlighted bias inherent in Kohlberg’s work • Suggested women make moral decisions in a different way to men (care ethic vs. justice ethic) • Arguably also (alpha) biased, as M & F moral reasoning is more similar than her work suggests www.psychlotron.org.uk

  7. Examples of gender bias • Freud & psychosexual development • ‘Biology is destiny’ – women’s roles are prescribed & predetermined • ‘Penis envy’ – women are defined psychologically by the fact that they aren’t men www.psychlotron.org.uk

  8. Examples of gender bias • Consequences of Freud’s ideas: • Reinforcing stereotypes e.g. of women’s moral inferiority • Treating deviations from traditional sex-role behaviour as pathological (career ambition = penis envy) • Androcentric (phallocentric) www.psychlotron.org.uk

  9. Examples of gender bias • Biomedical theories of abnormality • Abnormal behaviour explained in terms of neurochemical/hormonal processes • Higher prevalence of depression in women explained in hormonal terms, not social/environmental (e.g. violence, unpaid labour, discrimination) • ‘Is it your hormones, love?’ www.psychlotron.org.uk

  10. Gender bias in research • Institutional sexism • Men predominate at senior researcher level • Research agenda follows male concerns, female concerns may be marginalised or ignored www.psychlotron.org.uk

  11. Gender bias in research • Use of standardised procedures in research studies • Women and men might respond differently to research situation • Women and men might be treated differently by researchers • Could create artificial differences or mask real ones www.psychlotron.org.uk

  12. Gender bias in research • Dissemination of research results • Publishing bias towards positive results • Research that finds gender differences more likely to get published than that which doesn’t • Exaggerates extent of gender differences www.psychlotron.org.uk

  13. Addressing gender bias • Feminist perspective • Re-examining the ‘facts’ about gender • View of women as normal humans, not deficient men • Scepticism towards biological determinism • Research agenda focusing on womens’ concerns • A psychology for women, rather than a psychology of women www.psychlotron.org.uk

More Related