Evaluations of Issues

Evaluations of Issues

1. Gender Bias

   • Feminist Psychology
     • Worrell and Remer
     • Creation of criteria to prevent bias in research
   • Implications
     • Bias research leads to misunderstandings - generates negative stereotypes - validates discriminatory practice
     • Example of PMS
       • PMS medicalises and trivialises female emotion but for men this is just a rational response to the situation
         • Brescoll & Uhlman (2005)
   • Essentialism
     • Wilson's sociological theory
       • Double standards - Justified male promiscuity and said for women it was abnormal
     • Walkerdine
       • Reports in the 1930s that research suggest that the education of women damaged their chances of pregnancy and "shrivelled their ovaries"
   • Modern researchers acknowledge bias
     • Recognising how values and assumptions affect research
     • Dambrin & Lambert's study on the lack of female executives
       • They reflected on how their gendered experience may have impacted how they read events
     • Importance of reflexivity

2. Cultural Bias

   • Classic Studies
     • Asch + Milgram use all US participants
       • Replication of Asch
         • Higher conformity rates in collectivist
     • Most knowledge of social influence is based on ethnocentric studies
   • Relavatism VS Universality
     • John Berry
       • Idea of imposed etic = greater awareness for relavatism
     • Ekman
       • Research found innate/ universal expressions for emotions such as disgust
     • Both should be used
   • Implications on real life
     • Diagnosing mental disorders
       • QUestioned validity of DSM
         • Culturally bound syndromes
           • Ethnocentrism of DSM
           • Collectivist cultures rarely see anorexia
       • Cochrane & Sasidharan
         • African- Caribbeans 7x more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness
   • Counter: Globablisation
     • Increased media globalisation = useless dichotomy of individualistic- collectivist
       • Takano & Osaka
         • 14 of 15 studies comparing US and Japan found no difference

3. Ethical Implications of SSR

   • Promoting Understanding
     • Scarr
   • Use by businesses/ governments / institutions
     • Packard
       • Claimed subliminal messaging could be used to increase sales in cinemas
         • Proved FALSE
     • Intention of deception = harmful
   • Framing Research
     • Kitzinger & Coyle
       • Pointed out studies on "alternative relationships were guilty of heterosexual bias
         • Compared homosexuals to straight standards
         • Meant homosexuals perceived as abnormal
     • Sieber & Stanley
       • Said researchers should be aware of how they frame their study to avoid misinterpretation
   • Political use for social control
     • In 1920s- 30s states enacted legislation allowing the mandatory sterilisation of the feeble minded
       • "Feeble- minded" included addicts, mentally ill and those of low IQ
       • Shows SSR can give scientific justification to extreme eugenic policy
       • Argument against widespread use of SSR