Psychology Ethics: Cultural and Gender Issues

When ideas about a gender is misrepresented.

Labels that can be false that present someone in a certain way, attributing certain qualities to them based on their gender.

Freud argued that anatomy is destiny and so the psychological differences between men and women is due to their anatomy.

Hare-Mustin and Maracek (1990)

When the differences between men and women is exaggerated.

When the difference between men and women is minimised.

A paper being more likely to publish significant findings than non significant ones and so exaggerates the extent of gender differences.

When the design of the research biases the chance of the researcher obtaining particular findings about a gender.

Bjorkqcist (1992) found that boys displayed more physical aggression than girls but girls showed significantly more indirect aggression which suggests males are more aggressive due to the tasks that demonstrate this however this may not be true.

A way of life defined by a set of norms and values that a group of people share.

• More than one culture is studied by reproducing a procedure in multiple countries

• This allows for comparison to each other in which we can establish is behaviour is nurture if there are differences or nature if there are similarities

1) High generalisability as it often studies multiple countries allowing high representatives of behaviours differing in other countries
2) High validity as the researchers are made aware of cultural differences and so would be sensitive to subjective interpretation

1) Low reliability if there is miscommunication issues in different countries leading to inconsistencies in data gathered
2) Low validity due to the researcher still having preconceptions from their own social norms which would bias their interpretation of behaviour they don’t understand

When an individual judges someone else’s culture based on the perception that their own norms and values are superior.

• 
  It can lower the validity as there may be elements of subjectivity in researcher bias when they define behaviours in other cultures

• These could be misinterpreted that could present a culture in an overly positive or negative way

The belief that the norms and values of a culture cannot be fully understood in other languages due to being specific to that culture and so to understand an individuals beliefs and behaviours it must be seen in terms of their culture.

• Cultural-specific behaviours

• Explaining behaviour using native concepts

• Studying behaviour only within a culture producing findings within it

• Universal behaviours that appear in a range of cultures

• Assumes that a particular behaviour is common but that cultural factors affect the display of those behaviours

• Produces findings that can be applied to a range of cultures

Ethnocentrism can be avoiding by allowing the researcher to immerse themselves within the culture being studied meaning higher validity due to a higher understanding of that culture’s beliefs and behaviours.

With etic research, the same procedures and measures are used for different cultures which may not be valid assessments of behaviours in certain cultures, draining the meaning from the behaviour of that culture.

Memory

1) Tulving’s theory as different genders may experience different episodic memories based on their gendered lives (e.g. Girls will lack episodic memories of shaving)
2) Schematic theory as different genders experience different things that form different schemas as a result due to having experienced different ideas of what a situation will be like

1) Tulving’s theory is supported by the case study of KC whose hippocampus was destroyed as a result of a motorcycle accident leaving his episodic memory impaired but semantic memory intact
2) Brewer and Treyans’s (1989) study rejects Schematic theory due to finding that ppts recalled unusual objects in an office environment due to their uncommonness in that situation (e.g. a skull)

Memory is considered universal and so wouldn’t be affected by dispositional or environmental variables.

S - 72 male and female volunteers from Cambridge Uni
A - Wouldn't affect conclusion of study as memory is considered universal
M - All 10 words on the 4 lists were neutral and mono-syllabic and the interference task involved copying a sequence of digits 8 times meaning there was no bias
I - No improvements in terms of gender bias

1) The WMM suggests a difference in digit span of the phonological loop across cultures due to the difference in language and how the length of words may vary with Spanish words being longer than English words meaning less words will be held in their STM
2) Schematic theory is based on schemas altering our memories through reconstruction whereby the schema is an idea of what a situation will be like which can be affected by our culture due to different norms and values forming different ideas of a situation

1) Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil (2012) support a difference in WMM due to finding the average digit span as 5.8 at age 15 in 570 Spanish children when development of this stops which contrasts with the average of 7 from Anglo-Saxon data
2) High reliability as the abstract noun of accuracy of memory recall can be operationalised to how many features of a story is remembered accurately and so is objective, quantitative and scientific due to reductionist

S - 72 British volunteers from studying the Applied Psychological Research Unit at Cambridge Uni
A - No cultural affects as processes in memory are considered to be universal, such as types of encoding in STM and LTM
M - However the 4 lists of 10 words used were English which doesn't represent other languages and how the encoding of those may differ
I - Replicate the study in multiple cultures to strengthen the credibility of memory encoding being acoustic in STM and semantic in LTM as a universal process

Obedience

1) Sheridan and King (1972) found that 100% of women were fully obedient in administering real electric shocks to a puppy that increased in voltage compared to 54% of men
2) Kilham and Mann (1974) found that 40% of Australian males obeyed compared to 16% of females giving the maximum shock level replicated from Milgram's experiment

1) Sheridan and King (1972) have low validity due to the learner being a puppy limiting the amount the ppts can empathise with the pain of the animal and so will not reflect obedience in real life on humans
2) Kilham and Mann (1974) low validity as the women were being ordered to shock another woman by a male authority figure, so they may have sided with the victim instead, not reflecting true obedience

1) Milgram's (1963) study demonstrated that there was no significant difference between the amount of women and men who administered 450V
2) Burger's (2009) study which replicated Milgram's procedure but only going up to 165V with verbal protests from the learner at 150V and found no significant gender differences

1) Milgram's (1963) study has high validity as ppts were unaware of the true aim due to thinking it was an experiment to do with memory and so their obedience would reflect real life
2) Burger's (2009) study has low task validity of electrocuting people which doesn't represent everyday obedience

S - 22, 11-year-old boys
A - It affects conclusions because it doesn't represent girls who may behave differently in terms of prejudice
M - It involved tasks of baseball, tug-of-war, and scavenger hunts which are mainly male activities so replication would be bias towards males
I - Replicate the study with more gender-neutral activities and the representation of girls in the sample

Obedience and prejudice.

1) Schurz (1985) argued culture DOES affect obedience replicated Milgram's (1963) study in Austria (a collectivist culture) and found an 80% obedience rate compared to Milgram's 65% in America (an individualist culture)
2) Triandis's (1994) research argued culture DOESN'T affect obedience as he reported that countries governed by dictators (such as Nazi Germany) have high levels of obedience, meaning situation in over culture itself

1) Schurz (1985) has low reliability due to using ultrasound saying that high amounts can cause skin damage instead of Milgram's voltage which is harder to compare due to having different levels of threat (skin vs. life)
2) Triandis's (1994) research has low validity as it doesn't establish an explanation for when countries with high obedience aren't governed by dictators such as Norway's 58% level of obedience according to Milgram's (19632) experiment

1) Minard (1952) found that 80 white American miners had friendly relations with the black miners underground (a place free of cultural norms) which changed to only 20 above ground when they were exposed to cultural values
2) Al-Zahrani and Kaplowitz's (1993) found that Saudi people (a collectivist culture) reported more in-group favouratism and negative out-group bias than American people (an individualistic culture)

1) Minard (1952) has low application to modern day prejudice in America as his study was carried out during the open segregation of black people biasing their level of prejudice
2) Al-Zahrani and Kaplowitz's (1993) has low validity due to using self-report data which is open to social desirability in which American ppts may have made themselves look better than is the truth

S - 22, 11-year-old boys from Oklahoma in America
A - This biases findings as it only represents the manifestation of prejudice and the solution to it with superordinate goals in America and Western societies, not the East
M - The tasks in the experiment were also bias towards Western society due to using baseball as well as the setting of summer camp using boy scouts which is a Western norm
I - Replicate in other countries either with emic procedures of activities and settings normal to them or the etic approach of more neutral activities (e.g. football) so that they may be represented in their prejudice and solutions for it

1) Evolution

| 2) Hormones

1) Men are more aggressive due to being the ones who protect their mates and offspring in order to survive by killing animals for food and fighting other people for shelter. They would therefore pass on the aggressive gene to their offspring to due it aiding their survival and so being seen as desirable
2) Men may act aggressively towards females (e.g. domestic abuse) when they fear they're being unfaithful due to not wanting to share his resources with another man's child. Similarly women may act aggressively through jealously of suspecting they're being unfaithful and fears the survival of her and her child which is put at risk

1) Lorenz (1963) found that male animals used aggression to fight off other males to protect their offspring
2) Daly and Watson (1988) found that modern males have developed mate retention through domestic abuse when jealous of suspecting infidelity

1) Lorenz's (1963) research has low generalisability due to using animals as ppts who would have qualitative differences to social situations between animals and humans
2) Theory has low credibility as it suggests that aggression comes from men protecting offspring to pass on genes so cannot account for all types of relationships (e.g. same sex)

• Increased testosterone levels is associated with increased aggression

• Which is more commonly found in men due to being a male reproductive hormone

1) Dabbs (1995) found that testosterone levels were high in the saliva of 10/11 violent criminals compared to non-violent criminals
2) Wagner (1979) found that when injecting castrated rats with testosterone their aggression levels increased

1) Wagner's (1979) research has high validity as there were controlled conditions in which a causal relationship was established due to the high control over EVs so nothing other than testosterone would have affected their aggression levels
2) Reductionist as its explanation of testosterone causing increased aggression being high in males doesn't account for females who commit violent crimes similar to males

S - 39 men and 2 women murderers pleading NGRI and 41 controls
A - It causes beta bias in the results as identifying a difference in the brains of murders and non-murders didn't fully represent whether there was a difference between men and women due to only have 2 women in the sample, therefore differences are underrepresented
M - There was no gender bias in the methodology as it involved a mundane and neutral task of spotting targets for the CPT whilst the 32 min PET scan was taking place
I - Gain a higher sample of women in case there is a difference in activity due to a difference in biology and so the assumption that women's brain functioning could be different to men (e.g. using the right side more than the left)

This approach states that all behaviour is governed by nature in that nurture (culture) should have little impact.

S - 41 murderers pleading NGRI and controls from California, America
A - This should not affect the findings of a difference as biology suggests little interference from nurture however it may affect conclusions and applications drawn from this as some countries don't use NGRI as a plea in court and would therefore not consider how some criminals may not be fully accountable
M - There wasn't any ethnocentrism in the methodology due to using a PET scan with a CPT of spotting targets for 32 mins
I - Should find ways to replicate the study in a way which represents the courts of different cultures and how not having full accountability as a result of a difference in brain activity may affect sentencing

1) Social Learning Theory

| 2) Classical and Operant Conditioning

• People are more likely to idolise role models of the same sex due to seeing them as more alike

• They therefore pay attention to the role model's behaviours that are likely to be specific to their gender

• They will retain the information via rehearsal for complex behaviours through exposure to the role model

• They will then reproduce the observed behaviour in the same fashion as their same sex role model leading to gender differences in behaviour

Bandura (1961) found that boys reproduced 25% of aggressive behaviour displayed by the same sex role model, and that girls reproduced 5%, showing that boys are more likely to reproduce observed aggressive behaviours.

1) Bandura's (1961) study has high inter-rater reliability due to multiple researchers observing the behaviours of the children, agreeing on when a particular behaviour was reproduced allowing for objectivity in the interpretation and analysis of behaviour
2) Bandura's (1961) has low validity as the children had never seen a bobo doll before and so would not have thought you were supposed to behave aggressively towards it therefore it doesn't accurately represent the difference in genders observing aggression

IS NOT

• The principles of learning via conditioning is considered universal due to inability of the individual to so the processes
  IS

• What is learnt through classical and operant conditioning may differ in terms of gender

• Such as a mother teaching her daughter how to play nicely by taking her toys away if she acts aggressively or unkindly, which would go against the gender stereotypes as a norm

1) Classical conditioning is considered deterministic due to not taking into account the free will of the learner who may reject the process of conditioning of behaviour as the theory states the learners don't have control over their actions
2) Operant conditioning has high practical applications of a token economy system used in some treatments for mental disorders (e.g. anorexia) as it uses principles of positive secondary reinforcers of a token when a desired behaviour is shown such as gaining weight to exchange for primary reinforcers such as money if they get enough

S - A 9 month old baby boy
A - The gender of the ppt did not affect the findings or conclusions as principles of classical conditioning mean that the way in which behaviour is learnt is universal
M - There was no gender bias in the methodology as the object of the fear was a rat being paired with a loud bang which does not have any gender stereotype or bias attached
I - A replication of the study should be carried out to ensure there are no differences in the effects of conditioning on females using the same object of fear as a rat and the loud noise of a bang to create fear

• Role models are anyone a person idolises

• The differing norms and values of cultures may cause someone from one culture to idolise a role model and someone from another to idolise someone different based on principles that are closer to them

• Their behaviour will be retained and rehearsed through exposure to their role model

• Therefore behaviour produced will be different in different cultures due to their role model behaving in a way more alike to their culture (e.g. the cultural-specific behaviour of a mom in China will be different to that of one in America causing a difference in behaviour learnt)

Nasser (1986) found that 12% of 50 Egyptian women studying university in London developed anorexia compared to none of the 60 Egyptian women studying university in Cairo, demonstrating a difference in culture and the role models observed as result cause a difference in learnt behaviour.

1) Scott Van-Zealand (2013) rejects nurture being the sole cause of learnt behaviours such as anorexia as he found that the gene EPHX2 (related to cholesterol and mood regulation) is related to the disorder and is inherited meaning the cause is nature not nurture
2) SLT has low generalisability as much of its core research uses child ppts and so it is difficult to put adults in the same controlled conditions with realistic role models therefore meaning data cannot represent adults and their difference in social context of more complex role models

IS NOT

• The principles of learning via conditioning is considered universal due to inability of the individual to so the processes
  IS

• People in different cultures are exposed to different ways of life with norms and values therefore what is conditioned will vary in context of the culture

• Such as the operant conditioning of how to behave in a Western society vs Eastern

1) Operant conditioning is reductionist as it simplifies behaviour being learnt through association which is too simplistic as an explanation as doesn't account for behaviours that occur without association
2) Research into operant conditioning involve animals (e.g. Thorndike's cats and Skinner's rats) which have low generalisability due to qualitative differences in their brain and behaviour towards stimuli compared to humans who are more complex

S - An american boy age 9 months
A - His culture did not affect the findings or conclusions as principles of classical conditioning mean that the way in which behaviour is learnt is universal
M - There was no culture bias in the methodology as the object of the fear was a rat being paired with a loud bang
I - A replication of the study should be carried out to ensure there are no differences in the effects of conditioning on people of another culture using the same object of fear as a rat and the loud noise of a bang to create fear

1) Brain injury
2) XYY syndrome
3) Personality

• Men are more likely than women to receive a traumatic brain injury due to exposed to risky situations more often such as manual labour

• And so the brain injury would more likely cause criminality in men than women

1) High reliability as researching brain injuries involves using brain imaging techniques (e.g. PET scan to measure activity via glucose uptake) which are objective and highly scientific
2) Low validity in case studies of brain damage causing criminal behaviour (e.g. Charles Whitman) due to establishing correlations rather than cause and effect as we cannot be sure of the behaviour prior to the injury

• This syndrome involves an extra Y chromosome in the 23rd pair which can only affect males due to females having XX

• Syndrome is correlated with lower IQ and increased physical activity causing outcast

• Explains why there are more male criminals

1) Jacob's (2012) research supports as he found a link between XYY syndrome and the prison population with the norm of XYY in a population being 1/1000 whereas it was 15/1000 in the prison
2) Low validity due to not being able to establish a causal relationship as chromosomes are not something that can be scientifically studied and identified

• Eysenck's personality theory suggests that psychoticism is a result of increased testosterone levels which is a hormone most prevalent in males

• However females also have testosterone levels accounting for crime

1) Rushton's (1981) research supports as he found a relationship between delinquency and psychoticism, providing evidence that this characteristics can lead to criminal behaviour
2) Eysenck's personality theory is more holistic in that it describes a relationship between nature and nurture to provide a more comprehensive explanation of behaviour

1) Social Learning Theory

| 2) Self-fulfilling Prophecy

• People are more likely to idolise role models of the same sex due to seeing them as more alike

• They therefore pay attention to the role model's behaviours that are likely to be specific to their gender

• They will retain the information via rehearsal for complex behaviours through exposure to the role model

• They will then reproduce the observed behaviour in the same fashion as their same sex role model leading to gender differences in criminal behaviour

1) Low validity as the theory cannot account for a difference in criminal behaviour for opportunist crimes that are not observed first whereby men make up more of criminals
2) It involves an explanation of cognition with rehearsing behaviours observed, which is an abstract concept that cannot be fully operationalised

• Men receive labels of aggression due to their stereotypical boisterous, trouble-making behaviour in school

• Women have labels of passivity and kindness

• Men internalise these labels due to questioning their self-concept and therefore start to exhibit the behaviour they were labelled with

1) Jahoda's (2004) research supports SFP explaining difference in gender and crime as he found that at an African tribe 22% of violent criminals were boys with Wednesday names (being labelled as aggressive) and 6.9% of boys had Monday names (being labelled as placid) which showed that labels led to the behaviour
2) Reductionist due to biological explanations of crime as well, as Charles Whitman had a tumor pressed against his amygdala and he killed 16 people including himself
3) Unethical to study as it is attributing negative labels

Social Learning Theory.

• Role models are anyone a person idolises

• The differing norms and values of cultures may cause someone from one culture to idolise a role model and someone from another to idolise someone different based on principles that are closer to them

• Their behaviour will be retained and rehearsed through exposure to their role model

• Therefore criminal behaviour produced will be different in different cultures due to their role model behaving in a way more alike to their culture

Huesmann and Eron (1986) supports culture affecting criminal behaviour as they found that the more violence people watched on TV the more likely they were to have committed a crime by the age of 30 which can be generalised to different cultures and their depictions of violent TV and the behaviours shown in that.

1) Genes

| 2) Socio-cultural

There are no gender differences in mental health issues caused by genetics as gender doesn't inhibit the inheritance of the gene.

Scott Van-Zealand (2013) identified the gene EPHX2 having a correlation with anorexia due to its relation with cholesterol and mood regulation.

1) High reliability due to the use of scientific methods such as DNA sequencing which can be replicated easily and analysed objectively by multiple researchers
2) High validity as twin studies are often used to determine if a behaviour is genetic and they are a naturally occurring variable in which the researcher won't have bias on operationalising variables to obtain particular findings
3) Low validity has twin studies never have a 100% concordance rate for genes suggesting that nature is not the only factor in behaviour

• Girls make up the majority of cases of anorexia

• Social learning theory as an explanation

• Girls are exposed to the media which presents desirable women that they idolise (e.g. models and celebrities) as skinny and praises people for losing weight

• Girls will want to be like them and so will retain the information of being skinny by rehearsing dietary plans, etc

• They will reproduce this in the behaviour of starving, developing AN and will receive motivation through vicarious reinforcement of praise from the media

1) Barlow and Durand's (1995) research supports as they found that over half of the Miss America contestants were 15% below their healthy BMI
2) Deterministic as it states that mere exposure to the media will cause development of anorexia through stating all female idolise skinny celebrities which therefore doesn't take into account the free will of the individual to reject its influence

S - Staff in the study were of mixed gender, nursers and doctors
A - There was no gender bias affecting the result as it was assessing the reliability and validity of the DSM as well as hospital conditions
M - No methodological gender bias as it involved pseudo-patients recording interactions with patients and conditions of the hospital
I - No improvements for removing gender bias

1) Factors affecting diagnosis

| 2) Socio-cultural explanation

• The practitioner assessing a patient may have differing cultural norms and values to their patient and so may misinterpret their symptoms and behaviours as something in their culture that may not be prevalent in the patient's

• Some cultures are less likely to disclose the full detail of their emotions and symptoms to the practitioner leading to misdiagnosis

• A disorder may not exist in the culture of the practitioner or patient causing a misdiagnosis

1) Casas (1995) found that African Americans do not like to disclose personal info with people of a different race
2) Rack (1982) found that Asian people don't disclose depression as a symptom due to not believing it is something you should go to the doctor for

1) High validity as the DSM-IV has been revised to include known culture-bound syndromes to allow for a more sensitive and comprehensive evaluation of a patient of a different culture to the practitioner
2) Low reliability if the patient doesn't disclose all of their symptoms to one practitioner but a different amount of detail to another when gaining a second opinion causing inconsistencies

• It mainly states that exposure to the media can cause the development of disorders such as anorexia via social learning theory

• They idolise the skinny models and celebrities due to them being seen as desirable by the media

• Reproduce the desired behaviour by starving self in which anorexia is developed to become as skinny as the models

• Motivation through vicarious reinforcement of the celebrity being praised for their weight loss

• Varies for culture as Eastern countries don't have as much exposure to the same media as the West therefore would be less likely to develop AN

• Eastern values are also different as they view plumpness as desirable instead

1) Nasser (1986) supports culture affecting development of disorders as found that 12% of 50 Egyptian women studying in London developed AN compared to none of the 60 Egyptian women studying in Cairo
2) Eysenck and Flanagan (2000) argue that almost all of the West are exposed to the media yet only 3% of them develop AN and so there must be more than nurture

S - 12 psychiatric institutions in America across 5 different states, West and East coast
A - Didn't affect the conclusions much as it was assessing the reliability and validity of the DSM (an American diagnostic manual) and diagnosis of SZ (which is a global disorder), however does affect results of the implications of mental health labels
M - Ethnocentric as it only assessed the reliability and validity of diagnosis of Americans which doesn't represent how people with mental disorders are diagnosed in other countries
I - Improve by assessing the reliability and validity of diagnosis in other countries and the conditions of their psychiatric institutions to represent the treatment of disorders and how labels of a disorder affect people there