Studied male behaviour Essay Example for Free

Studied antheral behaviour EssayOne theatrical role of gender turn is alpha parti pris. This is the tendency to exaggerate differences between males and females. An recitation of this is heightening the value of wowork force (e.g. Gilligans conjecture of object lesson development), and a contrasting example is devaluing them (e.g. Freuds theory of psychosexual development, which says that women develop insufficient superegos). A nonher caseful of gender bias is beta bias, which is the tendency to overlook differences or exaggerate similarities between the sexes. This was an issue in Kohlbergs theory of the development of moral understanding, as his classifications were largely based on justice-based morality for both men and women, when it whitethorn be that women read different moral values. Many psychological studies have been criticised for universe androcentric. An example of this is Milgrams (1963) research into obedience. This bias was particularly methodological he used only male participants, meaning that it is practicable that the findings only apply to males and do not generalise to females. This criticism is supported by a rejoinder study by Kilham Mann (1974), who used both male and female participants, 16% of the female participants obeyed and administered the full shock, comp ard with 40% of the males. This significant difference was overlooked by Milgrams study as he only studied male behaviour.Both of these pieces of research were conducted in a laboratory setting, which is criticised by feminists for being a male-dominated environment that disadvantages women and feminine behaviour this whitethorn have influenced how some of the participants in both studies acted, in that they may have differently acted differently if the setting was more natural. The feminist criticism would suggest that, in Kilham Manns study, slight women would obey in real life however this criticism may itself be criticised for alpha bias and reductio nism, since it may be too simplistic to characterise behaviours and settings as masculine or feminine.A theory criticised for its alpha bias is the sociobiological theory of interpersonal attraction. The theory states that males and females look for different characteristics in either sex, and will stress certain aspects of their deliver characteristics in order to attract a partner of the opposite sex. Dunbar (1995) compared around 900 only(a) hearts advertisements from four newspapers in the United States, and found that 42% of males sought physic everyy attractive characteristics in their partner, compared to 22% of women and 50% of females adv ertised their own physical attraction, compared with 34% of males.Their conclusion was that the theory was supported and, while this is honest to a certain extent, it overlooks the fact that the theory holds true for a maximum of 50% of participants. That is, it was not all males and no females who said that they sought a physically at tractive partner. The research therefore demonstrates the alpha bias of both the theory and Dunbars conclusions. In addition, the sample and setting of the theory may produce alpha bias.It may be that dating agencies augment gender differences in order to optimise success rates, even if this is not representative of real life. Subsequently, people submitting their own advertisements may conform to this norm of augmenting their own gender, therefore lead-in to a biased sample and, therefore, biased results. This research could be improved by using a more representative sample, such as using a random sample from a great range of places for a questionnaire. This is especially important since the sociobiological theory is an evolutionary theory, in that it assumes that our desires are inhering it is therefore important to gain a sample from multiple cultures.Numerous other theories and research have been criticised for their gender bias. Freuds psychosexual theory of development is p articularly vulnerable to this criticism, as it is androcentric. He claimed that women have inferior superegos to men because they do not have a penis, leading to penis envy which would never be fully resolved. In other words, the theory suggests that femininity is a sort of failed masculinity.This is contrary to the widely authorized idea that women and men, despite their differences, are equal and even Freud (1925) admitted his gender bias, saying that we must not take on ourselves to regard the two sexes in completely equal in position and worth. In reaction to this, homey (1926) said that it did not make sense that women would envy a mans penis, instead envying their higher social stance (at the time). Horney also coined the term womb envy, which describes a mans envy of women for their ability to have children, therefore providing a less androcentric view by indicating that men and women are different and envy each others positive characteristics.Kohlbergs (1976) theory of m oral development has been criticised for beta bias and androcentricism. In his research, he presented participants with moral dilemmas and categorised them with respect to how much they had maturate morally based on their responses to the questions subsequently asked. However, this may be seen as androcentric due to the criteria required for motley the dilemmas were based on abstract principles of justice, which Gillian (1982) proposed was an inherently male method of thinking. This meant that Kohlbergs findings classified most women as being morally inferior to men because of the beta bias of the theory.Gilligan (1982), instead, proposed that womens morals are based on financial aid and relationships, whilst those of men are based on justice. However, this theory shows alpha bias, and the existance of this bias is demonstrated by her own findings that roughly as many women base their morals on justice as on care. In fact, Walker (1984) found, in a meta-analysis of 108 studies, t hat only 8 studies showed overall gender differences in morality (which, ironically, displays beta-bias).It may be that the alpha- and beta-bias in such studies arise due to a lack of explanation of individual differences, as it is rarely the case that there are no differences between men and women, or that men and women are completely different.