The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

30 Chapter 2

The scientific method rests onempiri-

cism. Empiricism means information is col-

lected via one of our major senses, usually

sight. One can touch, feel, hear, or see the

information. This information, referred to as

data, usually takes the form of thoughts, feel-

ings, or behaviors. For example, I examine the

way in which men and women think about

themselves and the world, the way men and

women experience and express emotions, the

way men and women interact with other peo-

ple, and the way men’s and women’s bodies

respond to stress. Statements about these ob-

servations, or data, are calledfacts. A collec-

tion of facts can be used to generate atheory,

or an abstract generalization that provides an

explanation for the set of facts.

For a theory to be scientific, it must be

falsifiable, meaning there must be the possi-

bility it can be disproved. Creationism, for ex-

ample, is not a scientific theory because there

is no way to disprove it.Intelligent designis a

new term that has been applied to the study

of religion as a way to explain the origin of

humankind. Although the term was devel-

oped to sound scientific, it also is not a scien-

tific theory because it is not testable—that is,

there is no observation or experiment that can

be performed to support or refute religion.

A theory is used to generate ahypoth-

esis, a prediction that a certain outcome will

occur under a specific set of conditions. A

hypothesis is tested by creating those con-

ditions and then collecting data. The state-

ments made from the data, or facts, may

either support the hypothesis, and thus the

theory, or suggest the theory needs to be

modified. Each of these steps in the research

process is shown in Figure 2.1.

Let’s take an example. One theory of the

origin of sex differences is social role theory.

According to social role theory, any differ-

ences in behavior we observe between men

with books such as Deborah Tannen’s

(1990)You Just Don’t Understand: Women

and Men in Conversationand Carol Gilli-

gan’s (1982)In a Different Voice.You will

read about sex differences in the newspa-

per and on the Internet and hear about

sex differences on television, especially on

news shows such as60 Minutesand20/20.

In this text, we evaluate these popularized

notions about gender and sex differences

from the point of view of the scientific lit-

erature. You will be able to judge which

differences are real and which are not,

which differences are exaggerated, and

which comparisons between men and

women have not been studied adequately.

You will also know what questions to ask

when faced with the results of a sex com-

parison study. In order to do so, you need

to be familiar with the scientific method.

Thus, in the first section of this chapter, I

review the scientific method on which the

majority of the research presented in this

text is based. Then I examine the unique

difficulties that researchers face when

studying gender. In the second half of this

chapter, I provide an overview of the his-

tory of the psychology of gender. In re-

viewing the history of the field, I examine

the different ways that people conceptual-

ize and measure gender roles.

The Scientific Method

If you have taken a research methods course,

you are familiar with the scientific method

and you know that it is difficult to conduct

good research. Here I introduce a number

of terms; they are summarized in Table 2.3,

which is provided later in this chapter.

M02_HELG0185_04_SE_C02.indd 30 6/21/11 12:19 PM