Cultral bias Flashcards
(15 cards)
What is culture bias
Cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions.
One example of cultural bias is when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different oe when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised and all people are assumed to be the same
What is Ethnocentrism
Seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective and believing that this one
perspective is both normal and correct.
This is an inadvertent lack of awareness that other ways of seeing behaviour can be as valid as your own
The implication of this is that one ethnic group is
superior to all others.
What is Universality
The idea that all behaviours apply equally across the world.
There is an assumption in some
research that findings can be generalised globally.
However, a great deal of research is conducted in western culture and therefore many theories reflect only western cultural norms.
What is Cultural relativism
It is an alternative view to universality.
Cultural relativism insists that behaviour can be properly understood online if the cultural context in which it occurred is taken into consideration. Research that fails to do this may not be valid or useful.
Cultural relativism is the opposite of ethnocentrism which is when behaviour is judged from one’s own cultural
perspective.
What is the emic approach
Research on a single culture to understand it within a local context, this isn’t then generalised to other
cultures; instead it looks at variations and contrasts them.
What is the etic approach
Research across a number of cultures to discover that elements of behaviour might be universal e.g. we all
use language, have children – form attachments, are aggressive.
What is imposed etic
Imposing the judgements and values of one culture onto another
What topics of psychology can gender bias be applied
Schizophrenia
Psycopathology
Attatchment
How can cultural bias be applied to the strange situation in attachment
Ethnocentrism/Universality
Ainsworth’s Strange Situation is an example of ethnocentric research. The Strange
Situation was developed to assess attachment types and many researchers assumed
that the Strange Situation has the same meaning for infants from other cultures as it
does for American children.
For example, German children show higher rates of
insecure-avoidant attachment. This does not mean the German mothers are more insensitive than American mothers. It reflects German mothers valuing and encouraging independent behaviour and therefore their children react differently in
the Strange Situation.
This demonstrates that the Strange Situation is an
ethnocentric tool that shouldn’t be applied universally.
How can cultural bias be applied to Addiction and psychopathology
Ethnocentrism
In western cultures the definition of psychopathology (including addiction) is based
on western norms and values that are reflected in statistical manuals such as the DSM. However, in the case of anxiety disorders the culture in which a person lives seems to determine which situations/objects are likely to cause anxiety or fear. For example, in Japan there is a syndrome called ‘taijin kyofusho’. Sufferers have a fear
of upsetting or displeasing others. They also fear blushing and refuse to make eye
contact. In the UK this would be diagnosed as a social phobia - in the UK this is usually a fear of embarrassment rather than the fear of upsetting others.
How can cultural bias be applied to Schizophrenia
Cultural bias:
African Americans and English people of Afro-Caribbean origin are several times more likely than white people to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Given that rates in Africa and the West Indies are not particularly high, this is almost certainly not
due to genetic vulnerability. Instead, diagnosis seems to be set with issue of culture
bias. There may be several factors at work here.
One issue is that positive
symptoms such as hearing voices may be more acceptable in African cultures because of cultural beliefs in communication with ancestors, and this people are more ready to acknowledge such experiences. When reported to a psychiatrist from a different cultural tradition these experiences are likely to be seen as bizarre and irrational
What are some evaluation points for Cultural bias in psychology
- Real world effects
- Recognising when cultural bias occurs
- Development of indigenous
psychologies
Evaluate the effect of recognising when cultural bias occurs
P: One way to deal with cultural bias is to recognise when it occurs.
E: Smith & Bond (1998) surveyed research in one European textbook on social psychology and found that 66% of the studies were American, 32% European and 2% came from the rest of the world. A more recent study (Henrich et al, 2010) found that 67% of research participants were American
psychology students. The researchers calculated that a randomly selected American student was 4,000 times more likely to be a participant in a psychology study than a random non-westerner.
E: This suggests that psychological research is very unrepresentative and can be greatly improved simply by selecting a variety of cultural groups to study. Consequently, an appreciation and understanding of cultural bias can help psychologists to avoid issues of cultural bias.
Evaluate the real world effects of culture bias
P: A further issue is that culturally biased research can have significant real-world effects - for example amplifying and validating damaging stereotypes.
E: One of the most infamous examples of the damage done by psychologists through cultural bias was the US Army IQ test used just before the First World War. The test used was culturally biased toward the
dominant white majority. These tests showed that European immigrants fell slightly below white Americans in terms of IQ, and African - Americans were at the bottom of the scale with the lowest mental age.
E: This had a damaging effect on the attitudes of Americans towards this group of people, which is indicative of the negative impact that culturally biased research can have. Because a considerable
amount of psychology is based on middle-class, academic, young adults its results do not reflect the behaviour apparent in a variety of cultures. Therefore, it is only by developing an awareness
and understanding of cultural bias that psychologists can try to avoid and overcome these
problems caused by this issue in the future.
Evaluate that culture bias led to the development indigenous
psychologies
P: Heightened awareness of cultural diversity has led to the development of indigenous
psychologies
E: Afrocentrism, for example, is a movement which suggests that all black people have their roots in Africa and hence that psychological theories about them must recognise the African context of behaviours and attitudes. Afrocentrism disputes the view that European
values are universally appropriate descriptions of human behaviour and suggests that the values and culture of Europeans are often irrelevant to the life and culture of people of African descent
E: This matters because it has led to the emergence of theories that are more relevant to the lives and cultures of people not only living in Africa, but also to those far removed from their African origins.
This development of indigenous psychologies is often seen as a strength of cultural relativism. This approach to the study of human behaviour also moves away from the traditional theory construction approach and suggests that, rather than presenting a universal theory (an etic approach), researchers
should create culturally specific theories (an emic approach).
