Discuss issues of gender bias in psychology.

Alternately, ‘alpha bias’ exaggerated the differences between the genders.  Freud was the most prominent exponent of ‘alpha bias,’ clearly marginalising and derogating women as inferior citizens.  He stated that “in no way should men and women be seen as equals” and punctuated this remark by suggesting that a woman’s morality is stifled by her lack of experiencing and resolving the Oedipus complex (simply because she has no penis.  Freud made it clear, perhaps because of cultural reasons – men were certainly seen as superior to women in the early 20th century – that women were not as morally developed as men.  This has undoubtedly led to prejudices in modern research (i.e. Kohlberg) and influenced, especially due to the importance of Freud in psychology, the way we perceive women, leading to gender bias even now.

Women are generally underrepresented in psychology (in terms of research) as most predominant psychologists have been male.  When females do undertake well-regarded research, questions are asked as to the motives behind it.  For example, Langer and Rodin’s research on giving control has been noted on choosing a care home for its participants.  Arguably, it was males who were undertaking the study, a different sample would’ve been used (i.e. prison.)  In fact, when Zimbardo researched into giving unprecedented levels of control to people he used a prison in his much publicised study.  Ostensibly, the differences in sample indicate a gender bias in how men and women interpret useful samples and how they decide on where would be the most useful place to undertake research.  Freud (male) did lots of research with women as the basis for his psychosexual development books and often labelled women such as Anna O and Dora as being promiscuous and inciting sexual activity despite their young age, clearly showing bias against the neutrality of femininity.  Arguably, if Freud was female, she would’ve responded more empathically and with less outlandish explanations because she would’ve found it easier to relate to the female.

Methodologically, it is presumed that the laboratory environment is a very male dominated one and therefore not suitable for research using females due to their association with men.  The general image of a lab professor is of a male one, and stereotypically it is presumed that the majority of psychologists are, therefore, male.  This is biased and possibly untrue.  Milgram, in his original ‘obedience’ study used a male-only sample; perhaps this was because he thought that women, due to their ‘emotional’ stereotyping, would be more emotionally unstable than men and not be able to cope with the pressures the study dictated.  Actually, seen as though three of the men collapsed – coupled with Sheridan and King’s subsequent research which suggested that women were actually more ruthless than men – Milgram’s original prediction (if indeed he had one) was untrue.  Undoubtedly, the female status outside of psychology (often as a housewife) influences researches when selecting their sample, as they take into account what the media / society dictates the roles of women are.  Whilst in recent years the imbalance has equalled out more (i.e. the prominence of Elizabeth Loftus) there is still an underlying expectation of women which may be wholly inaccurate.

To conclude, the dominance of males in textbooks and course specifications, as well as the definite expectation that when we come across a new psychologist we presume they are a ‘him’ leads to the realisation that there is, hitherto, still an imbalance in the representation of women in psychology (albeit a smaller one than previously,) with biases manifesting themselves both theoretically and methodologically.