Sexism: Heterosexism, Historical and social context, 'invisibility' of women in psychology

Overview

Recall questions on Heterosexism, Historical context, social context and invisibility of women in psychology.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Where does the genuine disagreement lie about the causes of sex differences in behaviour?

   Model answer

   Evolutionary accounts such as Buss (1989) explain consistent cross-cultural patterns in mate preference as adaptations, while social role theory, argued by Eagly and Wood (1999), holds that the same patterns follow from the different social positions men and women occupy; both fit much of the same data, and the dispute is unresolved.

2. 2

   Give two nineteenth-century claims that used apparently scientific evidence against women, and state what was wrong with them.

   Model answer

   That women's smaller average brain size implied lesser intelligence, and that intellectual education would damage women's reproductive health; both drew sweeping conclusions from crude measures, and Gould (1981) showed that such data were interpreted to fit conclusions the researchers already held.

3. 3

   What was the variability hypothesis, and who tested it?

   Model answer

   The claim that men vary more than women in ability, so more men appear at the highest levels of achievement; Hollingworth (1914) tested it empirically and found no support, and also found no evidence that menstruation impaired women's performance.

4. 4

   Give two examples of institutional exclusion of women in the history of psychology.

   Model answer

   Mary Whiton Calkins completed the requirements for a Harvard doctorate but was refused the degree, although she went on to become the first woman president of the American Psychological Association in 1905; and Margaret Floy Washburn, the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in psychology in 1894, worked in an era when most academic posts were closed to women.

5. 5

   What is meant by the 'invisibility' of women in psychology, and what name is given to the wider pattern?

   Model answer

   It is the pattern by which women's contributions to the discipline were omitted from its histories and textbooks, credited to male colleagues or supervisors, or reduced to an assisting role; Rossiter (1993) named the wider under-recognition of women in science the Matilda effect.

6. 6

   Which co-author of the classic conditioned fear study is frequently dropped when it is described?

   Model answer

   Rosalie Rayner, who conducted the study with Watson, though it is often referred to as Watson's study alone.

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