A comprehensive and in-depth set of notes about the social influence topic of psychology. Written for the NEW 2015 spec for AQA Psychology. Suitable for paper 1 of both AS and A2 exams
• Proposed that there are two different ways that theories may be biased
1) Alpha bias refers to theories that assume there are real and enduring differences between
men and women
2) Beta bias refers to theories that ignore or minimise gender differences. This is done by
assuming that all people are the same, and so reasonable to apply theories/methods to both
men and women. Aiming to produce theories that claim to have universality.
Androcentrism
• Psychology and society in general has been very male dominated
• Almost all psychologists were male and therefore theories tended to represent a male world-
view
• Described as androcentrism and may result in either an alpha or beta bias
Alpha Bias
• Exaggerates the difference between men and women
• Theories that are alpha based devalue one gender in comparison to the other
Freud’ Research Bias
• Freud's research reflected the culture he lived in with educated and more powerful men.
• He regarded feminism as failed masculinity
• Exaggerating the difference between men and women
• Josselson (88)
Beta Bias
• Androcentrism can also result in people assuming that what is true for men is also true for
women
• Mistakenly minimising the differences between men and women
• The consequence of this is that the needs of one gender (usually women) are ignored.
Stress Research Example
• Research usually involves the use of male specimens, as female specimens are seen to
be difficult to work with due to their hormonal variations
• It was assumed that what was observed in the male specimens would be the same in the
females
• This wasn't the case for females as Shelley Taylor et al. (00) discovered the tend-and-
befriend response to stress
• Which is adaptive as it ensures the survival of the offspring
Universality
• It would be wrong to try to eradicate gender differences as a way to resolve the gender bias
issue
• That approach in itself is a beta bias
• The solution lies in recognising differences not a superiority of one gender over another
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