Universality
In psychology, researchers aim for universality, which involves developing theories and ideas that apply to everyone, regardless of gender or culture. However, universality can be a difficult aim, as researchers are influenced by their own beliefs, which are shaped by their social environments. Therefore, psychological research is often threatened by gender and cultural bias. These biases undermine psychology’s aim of creating theories and conducting studies that can be applied to everyone.
When discussing gender bias, we find that there are two distinct types: alpha and beta bias.
Alpha Bias
According to Hare-Mustin and Marecek (1988), alpha bias involves exaggerating or overestimating the differences between the sexes. Differences that are perceived as enduring, fixed, and inevitable can lead to misinterpretations of the behavior of one sex, resulting in that sex being viewed as inferior. This bias is more likely to devalue females than males. For example, Sigmund Freud saw men as the superior sex, and he exaggerated the differences between men and women. Josselson (1988) claims that, in Freud’s theories, women are seen as inferior as they are jealous of men’s penises (penis envy) and cannot go through gender and moral development as well as men do.
Beta Bias
On the other hand, Hare-Mustin and Marecek (1988) state that beta bias ignores, minimizes, or underestimates the differences between men and women. This can occur when female participants are not included, and the research results are therefore assumed to apply to women as well. For example, this can be seen in research on the fight or flight response to stress conducted by Taylor et al. (2000). It was later found that female animals show ‘tend or befriend’ as a response to a stressful or threatening situation. Biological research has traditionally been conducted mostly with male animals, and thus findings that are applied to males are also usually applied to females. The fight or flight response to stress study proves that this is not the case.
Androcentrism
A consequence of beta bias is known as androcentrism.
This occurs when our understanding of what is seen as ‘normal’ behavior is taken from research that consists of all-male samples. This means that any behavior that deviates from this standard is likely to be judged as ‘abnormal’. This leads to female behavior being misunderstood and pathologized, meaning that it can be taken as a sign of psychological instability or disorder. For example, many feminists have objected to the diagnostic category premenstrual syndrome (PMS) as it medicalizes female emotions.
Cultural Bias
Cultural bias is the interpretation of behavior based on the norms and values of one’s own culture.
Applying one’s own cultural standards to other cultures may lead to misunderstandings within research. Henrich et al. (2010) coined the term ‘WEIRD’, indicating that those most likely to be studied by psychologists are Westernized, Educated people that are in Industrialized, Rich Democracies. This indicates that individuals who fall under the category of ‘WEIRD’ are typically the ones whose behaviors are used to create societal norms.
Ethnocentrism
A form of cultural bias is ethnocentrism.
This is a specific form of cultural bias that refers to a belief in the superiority of one’s own cultural group over another. It also involves the normalization of one’s own culture and viewing other cultural backgrounds as abnormal. In psychological research, this can be explained through the perspective that any behavior which does not conform to the model behavior (usually Western) is somehow inadequate, ignorant, or underdeveloped. According to Berry (1969), ethnocentrism is a product of an imposed etic approach within psychology, where Western theories and research are expected to be universal. As a result, researchers often study a culture from the ‘outside’ and try to apply their own understanding and worldview to it, causing a bias. An example of this is Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation study. Ainsworth et al. (1978) identified the attachment style most commonly seen in American children as ‘secure’, while attachment styles found in lower proportions in American culture (but more prominent in others) were termed as ‘insecure’. The terminology here suggests that the attachment styles prevalent in other cultures (for example, insecure resistant in Japan) are inferior, which reinforces a cultural bias. Takahashi (1986) used the Strange Situation in Japan, which can be considered an etic approach. This terminology once again implies that Japanese children are inferior or less developed in comparison to American children. Thus, this research has shown the need for emic approaches in psychological research.
Cultural Relativism
However, the opposite of ethnocentrism is cultural relativism.
This is the idea that all cultures are worthy of respect and that, when studying another culture, we need to try to understand the way that culture perceives the world. Berry (1969) found that culturally relative theories use an ‘emic’ approach. This means that cultures are studied from within, and researchers identify and study behaviors and models that are specific to those cultures. For example, we can acknowledge that we cannot use the Western-based DSM-5 to diagnose people from other cultures such as African or Indian cultures. This is because in some cultures certain things may be considered as a divine gift from God, and therefore would not be perceived as an abnormality. Whereas in the USA or UK, the things other cultures deem as normal can be seen as abnormal or even as a symptom of a mental disorder. Therefore, African or Indian cultures (for example) may require culturally sensitive or even different diagnostic systems. Thus, cultural relativism is needed to understand that the same ‘rules’ cannot be applied to all cultures.
References
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Erlbaum.
Berry, J. W. (1969). On cross-cultural comparability. International Journal of Psychology, 4(2), 119–128. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207596908247261
Hare-Mustin, R. T., & Marecek, J. (1988). The meaning of difference: Gender theory, postmodernism, and psychology. American Psychologist, 43(6), 455–464. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.43.6.455
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world?. The Behavioral and brain sciences, 33(2-3), 61–135. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
Josselson, R. (1988). Finding herself: Pathways and identity development in women. Jossey-Bass.
Takahashi, K. (1986). Examining the strange-situation procedure with Japanese mothers and 12-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology, 22(2), 265–270. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.22.2.265
Taylor, S. E., Klein, L. C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A., & Updegraff, J. A. (2000). Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological review, 107(3), 411–429. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.107.3.411