If women behaviour differs from men’s, the former is often judged to be pathologically, abnormal or deficient in some way (sexism). This is because men’s behaviour is taken (implicitly or explicitly) as the ‘standard’ or norm against which women’s behaviour is compared (andocentric – male centeredness, or the masculinity bias).
Psychological explanations of behaviour tend to emphasise biological (and other internal) causes as opposed to social (and other external) causes. This emphasis on internal causes is called individualism. This gives (and reinforces) the impression that psychological sex differences are inevitable and unchangeable. In turn this reinforces widely held stereotypes and women and men, contributing to the oppression of women (another example of sexism)
Many feminist psychologists argue that scientific method is gender bias. For example, Nicolson (1995) identifies 2 major problems associated with the ‘objective’ study of behaviour for how claims are made about women and gender differences.
a) Experimental environment takes the individual ‘subjects’ behaviour, as opposed to the ‘subject’ herself. This ignores the behaviour’s meaning, including its social, personal and cultural contexts.
- Experimental psychology takes place in a very specific context, which typically works to women’s disadvantage (eagly, 1987). In an experiment a women becomes anonymous. She is put in a strange environment and expected to respond to the needs of (invariably) a male experimenter, who is in charge of the situation.
How does gender bias help
According to Kitzinger (1998) questions about sex differences (and similarities) aren’t just scientific questions they are also political.
Answers to some of these questions have been used to keep women out of universities, or to put them in mental hospitals. Others have been used to encourage women to go to assertiveness training courses, or to argue that women should have all the rights and opportunities as men. In other words science of sex differences research is always used for political reasons.
According to Gilligan (1993) at the core of her work on moral development in women and girls were the realisations that within psychology values were taken as facts. Psychologists have a responsibility to make their values explicit about important social and political issues. Failure to do so may contribute to prejudice, discrimination and oppression.
Alpha bias
According to Travis, the belief that man is the norm and women is the opposite, lesser or deficient (the problem) constitutes one of the 3 alternative views regarding the mismeasure of women.
Alpha bias underlines the enormous self-help industry. Women consume many books advising on beauty, independence and so on…Men being ‘normal’ feel no need to correspond in the same way.
Examples of alpha bias in research
Wilison (1994) maintains that the reason 95 % of bank managers, professors etc… in Britain are men is that men are more ‘competitive’ and because dominance is innate in a man.
Wilson also argues that women in academic jobs are less productive than men ‘objectively speaking, women may already be over promoted’. Women who do achieve promotion to top management positions ‘may have brains that are ‘masculinised’.
The research cited by Wilson to support these claims comes partly from the psychometric testing industries. These provide ‘scientific’ evidence of women’s inadequacies, such as (compared to men) their ‘lack of mathematical and spatial abilities’. Even if women are considered to have the abilities to perform well in professional jobs, Wilson believes they have personality deficits (especially low self esteem and a lack of assertiveness) which impede performance.
Sexism in research
Question formulation: it’s assumed that topics relevant to white males are more important and ‘basic’ compared with those relevant to white females, or ethnic minority females or males. The latter are seen as more marginal, specialised, or applied (for example, the psychological correlates of pregnancy of the menopause.
Research methods and design: surprisingly often, the sex and race of the participants, researchers, and any confederates who may be involved, aren’t specified. Consequently potential interactions between these variables aren’t accounted for. For example, men tend to display more helping behaviour than women in studies involving a young female confederate. This could be a function of either the sex of the confederate or an interaction between the confederate and the participants – rather than sex differences between the participants (the conclusion that is usually drawn).
Conclusion formulation or beta bias: results based on one sex only are then applied to both female and men. This can be seen in some of the major theories within developmental psychology, notably Erickson’s psychosocial theory of development and Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. These are example of what Hare-Mustin & Maracek (1988) call beta bias.
Gilligan (1982) gives Erickson’s theory (based on the study of males only) as one example of sexist theory. It portrays women as deviants (alpha bias)
In one versions of his theory, Erickson (1950) describes a series of 8 universal; stages. So for example for both sexes, in all cultures the conflict between identity and role confusion (adolescence) precedes that between intimacy and isolation (young adult hood)
In another version (Erickson’s 1968) he acknowledges that the sequence is different for female. She postpones her identity as she prepares to attract the man whose name she will adopt, and by whose status she will be defined. For women intimacy seems to go along with identity – they come to know themselves through their relationship with others (Gilligan, 1982).
Despite Erickson’s observation of sex differences, the sequence of stages in his psychosocial theory remains unchanged as Gilligan says: ‘identity continues to precede intimacy as male experience continues to define his (Erickson’s) life – cycle concepts.
Similarly, Kohlberg’s (1969) 6 stage theory of moral development was based on a 20 longitudinal study of 84 boys. But he claims that these stages are universal. This represents beta bias.
When males and females are compared, females rarely attain a level of moral reasoning above stage 3 (good boy – nice girl orientation). This is supposed to be achieved by most adolescents and adults. This leaves females looking decidedly morally deficient (alpha bias)
Like other feminist psychologist, Gilligan argues that psychology speaks with a ‘male voice’; this is describing the world from a male perspective and confusing this with absolute truth (beta bias).