Issues & debates AO3

Question 1

Gender bias

Answer 1

• Lack of females at senior research level, female concerns may not be reflected in questions asked.
• Lab exp disadvantage to women, psychologist (usually male) can label unreasonable, irrational and unable to complete complex tasks. Guilty on instituational sexism?

+ Can be prevented/minimised, criteria in place, diversity within women studied, not studied as object but actually participate, emphasis on collaborative research methods, qualitative data.

• Based on an essentialist perspective. Gender difference inevitable, ‘fixed’ in nature. 1930’s ‘scientific’ research- intellectual activity shrivel ovaries (disguised as biological ‘fact’), double-standard.
  + Changed since 1930’s, reflects time conducted in, gender bias less of an issue now.

Question 2

Culture bias

Answer 2

+ Less of an issue now. Used to be individualist/collectivist culture comparison. Less simplistic now.
+ Takana & Osaka. 14/15 studies comparing USA and Japan, no evidence of distinction between individualism and collectivism, culture bias less of an issue.

+ Not an issue as some can be universal. Ekman-basic facial expressions are the same for all human/animal world. Strange situation, imitation and interactional synchrony are universal.

• Conducting research in different cultures means less control of variables
• Now psychologists are more open minded so acknowledge differences in findings when doing cross culture study reducing bias

Question 3

Ethical implications

Answer 3

• Stopping socially sensitive research would leave only trivial questions to research, ignoring socially sensitive areas bad - Scarr says otherwise wouldn’t help underrepresented people.
• Some sensitive research is desirable, Finn et al - youth= reliable witness when questioned in a timely manner.
• In the US, sensitive research is likely to be rejected, Ceci found 2x more likely than non sensitive.