Topic Summaries

Gender

A-Level > Psychology > AQA > A-Level Psychology Topic Summaries > Issues and debates > Gender
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Addiction

  • Gender bias: gender bias is a distorted view of behaviour which may be typical or atypical of either gender. This includes the different treatment of men and women that is based on stereotypes not factual information. Psychology has typically been male-dominated meaning the majority of its theories and approaches reflect only the male dominated perspective. The female voice has been minimised and judged as inferior to the male standard.
  • Androcentrism: when something is male-centred. In psychology, it’s when behaviour is judged based on male standards and may not adequately account for the broader population.
  • Alpha bias: exaggerates the differences between men and women. This can devalue one gender compared to the other (usually men over women).
  • Beta bias: when differences between men and women are downplayed. They assume that because one thing is true for one gender, it can be generalised to the other.
  • Universality: characteristics of human beings can be generalised to all human beings. This is done by accepting real differences, but not making one superior to the other.
  • Evaluation of gender bias debates:
    • Evidence of bias: historically, most psychologists were men and the majority existing published research is by men. Therefore, female views may not be reflected in the research. These are forms of institutional sexism.
    • Reflexivity: researchers must reflect on any possible biases in their research and how it may have affected the outcome, leading to a greater awareness of biases.
    • Evidence of bias: having stereotypical assumptions based on biased research can have a damaging effect on the lives of women. It creates untrue, misleading assumptions about female behaviour that can lead to the validation of discrimination (e.g. lack of equality in the workplace has been justified by Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment (see page 6) by arguing that women need to stay home and shouldn’t work if they have children).

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