Discuss Gender Bias in Psychological Theories

... Discuss Gender Bias in Psychological Theories Many theories in psychology either have shown a bias against women or have ignored women specifically preferring to assume that their development would be no different from men. First of these approaches is alpha bias: suggesting an enduring difference between genders, an example is Freud's psychosexual development theory. Second approach is beta bias, when theories ignore any possible differences between genders and does not present both genders equally. Freud's psychosexual development theory (alpha bias), represented women as being less morally mature than men, in that their superego were less developed and inferior because they do not have a penis (penis envy). By representing women in this way, Freud was changing the treatment of women as second-class citizens in Victorian society. Feminist critics (i.e. Horney - womb envy) claimed that Freud was simply reflecting sexism of his time and therefore building cultural sexism into his theory. Another

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