• Beta Bias 
• Men and Women basically alike in their intellectual & social behavior
•  Differences between men & women are produced by socialization, not biology

• Alpha Bias
• Emphasizes differences between women & men
• Differences thought to arise from essential qualities within the individual that are rooted in biology
• May emphasize and celebrate positive qualities historically associated with women(cultural feminism.

• Form feminism that seeks to revalidate undervalued female traits
• Celebrate positive qualities historically associated with women

Bias in Psychological Research:

Selection of topics may be influenced by

• Researchers' personal intrests
• Researchers' assumptions about gender
• Researchers' assumptions about race and other categories of social identity

Bias in Psychological Research:

Selecting research participants

• Are the participants representative of larger population?
• Is the gender composition specified?
• Other sampling limitations: Race, socioeconomic status, sexuality, disability

Bias in Psychological Research:

Selecting the Measures

• Are the measures releveant to behavior?
• ex. Studying agressive behavior in boys v. girls

Bias in Psychological Research:

Analyizing & interpreting the findings

• Statistical significance
• Interpreting findings in a way that suggests female weakness or inferiority
• Inappropriate generalization
• Assumption that presence of gender differences implies biological causes

Bias in Psychological Research:

Comunicating the Findings

• Publishing
• Avoiding gender-biased language

Feminist Research methods:

Quantitative

• Emphasizes objectivity and control
• Uses quantitative measures
• Compares participants' responses to standard

Feminist research methods

Qualitative

• Emphasizes subjective procedures
• Focuses on women's accounts of their own experience
• Attempts to capture each participant's unique perspective

1. Under representation of females
2. Under representations of certain groups of females
• Ethnicity, age, sexual orientation
3. Portrayal of gender-based social roles
4. Depiction of female communion and male agency
5. Emphasis on female attractiveness & sexuality
• White beauty is validated, focus on thinness, dove campaign

• One pair of chomosomes determines the sex of a child
• Egg=x; sperm=x or y (dad determines sex)
• xx=girl; xy=boy

• Classified as female
• Have only X from sperm (no X from egg)
• Apper female but
• Have no ovaries, uterus never develops, does not menstruate (sterile)
• Do not develop breasts
• Under 5'
• Webbed necks

• XX females with over-exposure androgen
• Occurs late in fetal development
• Doesn't affect internal reproductive organs
• Infant has normal ovaries and uterus, but ALSO has a penis
• Can treat with hormones and reconstructive surgery or simply raise male
• One type of hermaphroditism -> have both M&F organs

• XY males that secrete male hormones, but bodies are partially insensitive to them
• Genitals are ambigous (small penis or unusually large clitoris)
• often reared as girls (usuallly with surgery)

Complete Androgen-insensitivity syndrome

• XY males that secrete male hormones,but are entirely insensitive to them
• Externally apper female & are raised female
• Do not have ovaries (can not have children)
• Do not menstrate
• Tallerthan average woman

(Evidance that urture is more important that nature?)

• XY males with "postponed" hormones
• At birth, look female, are raised female
• At puberty, testes drop, penis grows to normal size
• Happens most often in underdeveloped nations
• Dominican Republic
• Varying degrees of "feeling male"

• Sigmund Freud
• Gender typeing stems from children's awareness of anatomical differences between females & males combined with inborn sexual urges
• Sequence of events for boys
• Oedipus Complex
• Castration anxiety
• Identification
• Sequence of events for girls
• Penis envy

• Walter Mischel
• Children acquire behaviors associated with their gender b/c those behaviors are more likely to be imitated and to be associated with positive reinforcement
• Related behaviors
• Observational learning - Imitations or modeling
• Reinforcement & punishment - Granting and denying rewards for gender appropriate behaviors
• Cognition (social cognitive theory) - internalizing standards

• Lawrence Kohlberg
• Children are active learners attempting to make sense of the social enviroment

• Sandra Bem
• Children develop an interrelated set of ideas (schema) about gender that guides their social perceptions and actions
• Gender schema development stems fromlearning the gender norms and practices of society
• Individuals vary in extent to which they use gender schemas to understand and evaluate others and to guide their own behavior