PSYC of G Lesson 2

• ·        
• used to explain gender differences

• the suggestion that
• women's lack of intrinsic ability is to blame for their underrepresentation in
• science and engineering

• ·        
• tendency to focus on innate differences

• tendency to downplay
• social factors

• ·        
• contended that women's progress in scientific
• careers has been slow because women lack the talent to succeed in science and
• engineering

• mentioned social
• factors and discrimination as less important than intrinsic ability for success
• in academic science careers

• ·        
• contended that discrimination is widespread in
• science

• mentioned that
• neither men nor women want to believe that the practice is common

• ·        
• debated the basic  conceptions of science and its continued
• value in the modern world

• gender as one of main
• topics

• ·        
• started 16th century

• ·        
• came to prominence during 19th century

• ·        
• represented radical departure from traditional
• thought

• assumed that the
• world works by a set of natural laws and that these laws can be discovered by
• careful, objective investigation

• ·        
• gathering information through evidence from the
• senses

• rejected information
• based on authority or presumption of supernatural powers

• the notion that observation is free of bias by
• the observer

• ·        
• research that follows the procedure of
• quantification

• turning observations
• into numbers

• ·        
• the numbers that represent the quantitative
• research

• representations of
• some facet of the phenomenon the researcher considered important

• focuses on understanding the complexity of the
• situation

• ·        
• scientific information must be observable by
• anyone

• ·        
• systematic observation is required - some plan
• or system must be followed

• ·        
• the use of numbers to omit some aspects of the
• situation and concentrate on only one

• specification of a
• variable

• ·        
• the factor of interest in a research study

varies

• ·        
• experimental

descriptive

• ·        
• carefully conducted experiment

• allows researchers to
• draw conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships

• ·        
• help investigators answer "what"
• questions

• ·        
• include surveys and correlational studies

• ·        
• include methods that overlap with qualitative
• research

• yield descriptions of
• the observed phenomena

• ·        
• design that allows researchers to answer
• "why" questions

• obtains information
• about cause and effect

• the one factor that is manipulated in an
• experiment

• ·        
• measured in an experiment

• all other factors are
• held constant

• ·        
• quasi-experimental study

• a type of
• nonexperimental research design that involves the comparison of subjects, who
• are placed in contrast groups, on the basis of some preexisting characteristic
• of subjects

• a qualitative method that focuses on gathering
• extensive information about a single person or a small group

• a group of critics of science who argue that
• reality is constructed through perception and is inevitably subject to bias

• scientific observation that excludes science
• from its claim of objectivity

• a descriptive research method that requires
• researchers to measure two factors known to occur within a group of people to
• determine the degree of relationship between the two factors

• a type of qualitative research in which the researcher
• becomes immersed in a situation in order to make observations and
• interpretations of that situation

• a qualitative research method consisting of a
• discussion involving a group of people centered around a specific topic

• a statement about the expected outcome of a
• study

• a type of qualitative study in which respondents
• are interviewed in order to determine patterns or commonalities among their
• responses

• a statistical analysis that allows the evaluation
• of many studies simultaneously

• the notion that observation is free of bias by
• the observer

•  a
• definition of a variable in terms of operations used to obtain information on
• that variable, rather than in terms of concepts underlying that variable

• ·        
• an important result with practical implications

• different from
• statistical significance

• research that focuses on understanding
• complexity and context rather than distilling situations to sets of numbers

• the process of turning observations into
• numerical data

• research that uses numerical data and
• statistical analysis

•  a result
• obtained by analysis with statistical tests and found unlikely to have been
• obtained on the basis of chance alone

• a characteristic of the subjects, such as
• gender, that allows researchers to form contrast groups in quasi-experimental
• studies

• a descriptive research method involving the
• measurement of attitudes through the administration and interpretation of
• questionnaires

• gender similarities hypothesis
• - meta analysis and effect size
• - 78% of studies show negligible to small gender differences

• - nationality
• - ethnicity
• - age
• - salience of gender roles

• -experimental situaiton
• - social situation (first heterosexual date - becomes more salient as date more and become more comfortable)

• how important a gender role is
• - how it comes about in certain situations

-imaging studies provide glimpse into structure and function of brain

the change of a brain by influences from environment and hormonal influences

• behavior shapes your brain
• your brain shapes your behavior

different areas in the brain are specialized for different functions

The idea that the left and right sides of the brain can control many different aspects of behavior in different categories

a unique meaning and information system, shared by a group, and transmitted across generations, that allows the group to meet basic needs of survival, pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life

• individualism vs. collectivism (most frequently studied)
• cultures differ on far more dimensions
• cultural heritage may vary by situations, relationships and other contextual variables
• cultural universals vs. culture specific differences
• variability within cultures

ex: women provide child care

ex: non-egalitarian cultures, women lack rights and privileges

• not a biological variable
• - most people are not racially pure

• cultural qualities and affiliations of a group
• - ethnic identity - white people do not have a strong ethnic identity, people of color do
• - acculturation
• - bilingualism

• modernization
• economics
• gender equality

• governmental action to address gender inequality
• involving men and boys in social change

• logical positivism (value-free, objective)
• empiricism (observable evidence)

• western bias toward objectivity vs. subjectivity
• overreliance on biological explanations
• neglect of sociohistorical context
• neglect of intersections (ex: ethnicity, class)
• failure to consider values (ex: essentialism)

• critiques of traditional research
• formulation of research guidelines
• gender as focus of study
• striving toward gender fair methodologies
• ex: feminist emiricism (typically quantitative)
• ex: feminist standpoint epistemology (often qualitative)

• at least two variables that are not manipulated by the researcher
• assesses the strength of relationship or association
• correlation coefficient

• magnitude of relationship
• direction of relationship

• directionality
• bidirectionality
• third variable problem

• Bryant, 2008
• study of rap music videos and male/female stereotypes
• - positive correlation between number of videos watched and stereotyped attitudes
• - adversarial attitudes toward gender relations
• - other factors

• importance of random sampling
• representativeness of sample a related issue
• possibilities and pitfalls inherent in Internet surveys
• natures of questionnaires

• reliability
• validity
• framing
• social desirability

• behavior recorded in natural setting
• influencing participants' behavior - must desensitize children to you
• inter-observer reliability - objective observers, higher percentage of agreement with others
• observational definitions - definitions of the behavior; peers are strongest socializer of gender

• content analysis of cultural "artifacts"
• coding: themes; gender of characters; activities (women characters in video games, how are they portrayed? male vs. female presenting a product
• inter-rater reliability (is an issue)
• internet databases

• establishment of causal relationships due to logic of experimental design (cause and effect)
• characteristics: independent variable; dependent variable; experimental control

variable that is measured in the experiment

variable manipulated by experimentor

each group is treated exactly the same

each individual has the same chance of being assigned to a group (equates the two+ groups from the beginning)

*all sex differences are correlational in nature*

• correlational studies
• surveys
• naturalistic observation
• archival studies
• experimental methodology

• case study
• interviews

• single case, individual, or group
• rich description
• poor generalization

• semi-structured (questions with follow up on answers)
• open-ended (more qualitative and open to interpretation)
• participant contributes to interpretation (go back and ask interviewee if interpretation is correct
• Lisa Diamonds

• dialogue w/ participants embedded in social context
• - as much in natural context as possible

• - embedded in participants' life course
• - may be developmental in nature
• - life history, change over time

discourse and narrative analysis

an in-depth history of one or a small number of participants

provides in-depth analysis of rare cases

generally not generalizable

semi-structured or open-ended questions usually administered face to face

• participants provide meaning and interpret their experiences
• multiple perspectives
• rich amount of data

• reflexivity may be difficult to negotiate
• authenticity may be a concern
• large amount of data to be summarized

• assess age differences; compare two groups of different ages
• two or more groups, one time of measurement
• age-cohort confound (year of birth, generation = aged group born at that time)

• assess age change; one group at different times
• one group, many times of measurement
• participant mortality/ability to continue (motivation, death)
• may not be able to generalize to other cohorts

very important to match the ethnicity*

• Rehman-Holtzworth-Monroe, 2006
• marital dissatisfaction related to withdrawal from conversation (universal)
• European-American wives, Pakistani husbands made demands

• cut down to the question: "what does it mean?"
• quantitative literature review
• importance of considering gender differences and similarities
• nature of gender difference

• difference between group means statistically significant
• on average, women and men differ on dependent variable

• variability = spread of scores
• individual differences often larger than group differences
• d = (Mmale - Mfemale)/s
• s: variability

• 1. conduct literature search; PsycINFO and other databases
• 2. collect all published papers; collect all unpublished papers
• 3. compute Cohen's d; average ds across studies
• = #: effect size

• so few variables show large gender differences
• ex: mathematics anxiety, talkativeness, helping

• identification of effect size
• identification of moderator variables
• limitations

• d = .20: small
• d = .50: moderate
• d = .80: large

• quality of study should be variable in analysis
• no cause-and-effect relationships can be implied

• research topic/question
• research design
• data analysis
• interpretation of results (heterosexism, anthropomorphism, ethnocentrism)