Psychological research Essay

One of the main(prenominal) criticisms that rescue been levelled against psychology is that it does not produce objective, value-free science. The assumption here, of course, is that an absolute faithfulness actually exists and that psychologists should be pursuing it with vigour. The natural scientists such as biologists and chemists unwaveringly believe in this positivist stance that an absolute truth exists and defense force of this must weaken any science and scientist that ignores it. The importance of this question is rally to the nature of diverge in interrogation because if a value-free science rear be achieved, then, psychology should be able to embrace this and eradicate bias.However, the precise real possibility that there is no such thing as a totally value-free knowledge (i.e. one with bulge prejudice or personalized bias) means that ride bias as well as cultural and other biases will be impossible to remove, which is not to say that psychologists justify s uch practice, only the realisation that value-free knowledge represents a holy grail. psychological science before the 1970s was riddled with gender biases. Early male person psychologists such as Stanley Hall claimed that women should not be allowed into higher study because education increases the blood flow to the brain and away from the uterus.With the rise of the libber movement in the 1970s feminist psychologist began to challenge limiting and chagrin views of women. The classic paper written in 1971 by feminist psychologists Naomi Weisttein was a scathing attack on psychologys theories about women. Psychology she said portrays women as inconsistent, emotionally unstable and intuitive rather than intelligent. In short the list adds up to a typical minority congregation stereotype of inferitory. She pointed out that these kind of psychological theories were used to keep women out of education and professional occupations, to confine women to the kitchen, the bedroom and the nursery, inferior to men in all aspects. Research examples of gender bias in psychology so-and-so be found where research only uses male participants and generalises results to women without question. This type of research makes it unclear as to whether findings for men argon equally same to women.If women deportment differs from mens, the former is often judged to be pathologically, abnormal or lacking(predicate) in some way (sexism). This is because mens deportment is interpreted (implicitly or explicitly) as the standard or norm against which womens doings is compared (andocentric male centeredness, or the masculinity bias). Psychological explanations of behaviour tend to strain biological (and other internal) causes as opposed to affable (and other external) causes. This fierceness on internal causes is called individualism. This gives (and reinforces) the impression that psychological sex differences are inevitable and unchangeable. In turn this reinforces wi dely held stereotypes and women and men, contributing to the oppression of women (another example of sexism) umteen feminist psychologists argue that scientific method is gender bias. For example, Nicolson (1995) identifies 2 major(ip) problems associated with the objective study of behaviour for how claims are made about women and gender differences. a) Experi psychical environment takes the individual subjects behaviour, as opposed to the subject herself. This ignores the behaviours meaning, including its social, personal and cultural contexts. b) Experimental psychology takes place in a very specific context, which typically works to womens injustice (eagly, 1987). In an experiment a women becomes anonymous. She is put in a irrelevant environment and expected to respond to the needs of (invariably) a male experimenter, who is in charge of the situation.How does gender bias help  gibe to Kitzinger (1998) questions about sex differences (and similarities) arent just s cientific questions they are too political. Answers to some of these questions know been used to keep women out of universities, or to put them in mental hospitals. Others have been used to encourage women to go to assertiveness training courses, or to argue that women should have all the rights and opportunities as men. In other lyric science of sex differences research is always used for political causations. According to Gilligan (1993) at the core of her work on moral development in women and girls were the realisations that within psychology values were taken as facts. Psychologists have a responsibility to make their values explicit about important social and political issues. Failure to do so may contribute to prejudice, secernment and oppression.Alpha bias According to Travis, the belief that man is the norm and women is the opposite, lesser or deficient (the problem) constitutes one of the 3 alternative views regarding the mismeasure of women. Alpha bia s underlines the enormous self-help industry. Women consume many books advising on beauty, independence and so onMen being normal feel no need to add in the same way. Examples of alpha bias in research Wilison (1994) maintains that the reason 95 % of bank managers, professors etc in Britain are men is that men are more competitive and because dominance is innate in a man.Wilson also argues that women in academic jobs are less productive than men objectively speaking, women may already be over promoted. Women who do achieve promotion to top management positions may have brains that are masculinised. The research cited by Wilson to support these claims comes partly from the psychometric testing industries. These provide scientific curtilage of womens inadequacies, such as (compared to men) their lack of mathematical and spatial abilities. stock-still if women are considered to have the abilities to perform well in professional jobs, Wilson believes they have personalit y deficits (especially low self esteem and a lack of assertiveness) which impede performance.