Discuss gender bias in social influence research

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Discuss gender bias in social influence research

Gender bias is 'the separation of gender which prefers one sex over the other' it takes place in psychology and therefore this sexism pervades much psychological research including research studies and theories.

Two of the main biases in psychology are alpha bias and beta bias.

Most psychological theories and research theories are alpha biased. Alpha bias refers to the traditional view of gender differences that see real and enduring sex differences. Some alpha biased theories are used to heighten the value of women (e.g. Gilligan's theory of moral development) but many are used to devalue women. For example Freud's theory of psychosexual and moral development claims that females develop penis envy when they discover that boys have a penis due to castration anxiety males experience but females do not then males become more moral than females; and the evolutionary theory of human reproductive behaviour that justifies male infidelity but reinforces female fidelity. Thus alpha bias refers to theories and/or research that see real differences between men and women and may either enhance or undervalue of one gender compared to the other.

Beta bias is used to classify any research