Deck 3: Bias in Psychology

Question 1

What is 'ethnocentrism'?

A) Seeing different ethnic groups as psychologically different.
B) Seeing things from other people's cultural viewpoint.
C) Believing that one is always right.
D) Seeing things from one's own cultural viewpoint as the norm.

Answer 1

Seeing things from one's own cultural viewpoint as the norm.

Question 2

What term refers to a male centred approach?

A) Misandry
B) Androcentrism
C) Misogyny
D) Androgyny

Answer 2

Androcentrism

Question 3

Which of the following did Erikson believe helped define women's self concept?

A) Housework
B) Motherhood
C) Attractiveness
D) Career

Answer 3

Attractiveness

Question 4

What assumption often underlies gender difference research?

A) That any differences found are the result of biological sex.
B) That any differences found are the result of socialization into gender roles.
C) That any differences found are the result of different life experiences.
D) That no real differences exist between genders.

Question 5

What is 'scientific racism'?

A) An objective approach to investigating fixed biological differences between racial groups on psychological variables.
B) The attempt to justify racial policy through the use of scientific arguments.
C) Acceptance of the scientific reality of racial differences.
D) The search for similarities between different racial groups.

Question 6

What assumption underpins scientific racism?

A) Non-white races are in a state of arrested evolutionary development.
B) Any differences between racial groups are the result of socialization.
C) Racial differences can be ameliorated through government policy.
D) Western societies are inherently racist and need to be changed.

Question 7

What social factor led to scientific racism being seen as taboo from the 1930s?

A) The success of eugenics.
B) Immigration control.
C) The emergence of the civil rights movement.
D) The excesses of Nazism.

Question 8

What problems might we have in defining 'race'?

A) We cannot yet identify the genetic basis of race.
B) Some individuals are too hard to categorize.
C) The concept has no biological reality, but rather is a social construct.
D) There is too much variation within groups.

Question 9

What is the main method psychologists use for research?

A) Ethnography
B) Grounded theory
C) The hypothetico-deductive method
D) Discourse analysis

Question 10

What does the experimental method in psychology tell us?

A) That there are differences between groups.
B) That there is a correlation between two variables.
C) That most people are largely the same.
D) That there is a lot of variation between people in general.

Question 11

What does the concept of constituencies within psychology mean?

A) That psychologists are chosen by their peers.
B) That psychology is composed of different kinds of people, who represent the interests of people like themselves.
C) That psychologists represent the interests of people from the same geographical area as themselves.
D) That psychologists strive to represent the interests of all people equally.

Question 12

What do the results of experimental studies tell us about?

A) The performances of individual people.
B) The best performances in each group.
C) Similarities between people.
D) The average performance of groups.

Question 13

When is it reasonable to generalize from a sample?

A) When the sample is large.
B) When the sample is representative.
C) When the effect is statistically significant.
D) When the difference is large.

Question 14

Why should we be cautious in interpreting differences between groups?

A) Because there may be larger variation within groups than differences between groups.
B) Because the groups are the creation of the researcher.
C) Because we cannot rely on statistics.
D) Because groups always differ anyway.

Question 15

Why do we need to worry about minority members of experimental groups?

A) Because minority groups are unfairly discriminated against.
B) We do not; there is no problem.
C) Because minority group members perform disproportionately well.
D) Because the average of the group as a whole misrepresents the performance of minority group members.

Question 16

When can we ascribe causality in psychological research?

A) Whenever we find a difference between groups.
B) Where we find a correlation between scores.
C) When we have a pure experiment where extraneous factors are controlled.
D) When the independent variable is a naturally occurring one, like gender.

Question 17

When might bias in psychology be of particular concern?

A) When it produces results that we do not like.
B) When it influences social policy.
C) When people do not take any notice of it.
D) When it does not use scientific methods.

Question 18

Which of the following would not help address bias within psychology?

A) Not over-interpreting the results of quasi-experiments.
B) Ensuring that samples are representative.
C) Relying on dichotomous significance testing.
D) Not overstating the population.

Question 19

What is an effect size?

A) A measure of the importance of differences between groups.
B) A measure of the statistical significance of differences between groups
C) A measure of how much variation there is within a group.
D) A measure of the size of differences between groups.

Question 20

What does feminist psychology assume?

A) That social change is necessary to improve the lives of women.
B) That psychology is an objective science.
C) That experimental methods are the appropriate way of conducting psychology research.
D) That women are better than men.