Cultural bias

Question 1

What is meant by culture?

Answer 1

1. Refers to the set of customs, social roles, behavioural norms, and moral values that are shared by a group of people,
2. As psychology developed in western countries, researchers would typically study people who were available - people from their own cultural background,
3. Historically, there hasn’t been much research to compare people of different cultures.

Question 2

Why hasn’t much research been done to compare people of different cultures?

Answer 2

1. Researchers assumed that people from western cultures are essentially the same as people in other cultures. So, whatever was found about people from one culture was applied to all other people,
2. It may have been assumed that non-western cultures were more ‘primitive’ and less worthy of study,
3. Researchers who wanted to do cross-cultural research couldn’t because they lacked time and resources.

Question 3

What did Berry (1969) identify as the two main approaches which could lead to cultural bias?

Answer 3

1. Etic research,
2. Emic research.

Question 4

What is etic research?

Answer 4

1. Etic research is research from a specific culture which is then applied to other cultures to find universal laws, giving the studies universality,
2. It is possible that there are lots of these. All humans are basically the same physiology and many behaviours are found in all cultures, e.g. language, attachment formation, aggression,
3. However, because studies have to take samples of the population, it is difficult to generalise the findings to all cultures. If researchers do this, they could be guilty of bias in the form of an imposed etic.

Question 5

What is emic research?

Answer 5

1. Emic research is research based on a specific culture that is used to understand that culture from within. It isn’t generalised to other cultures. Instead itstudies variations in behaviour between groups of people. This avoids problems of cultural bias through an imposed etic (i.e. making universal laws),
2. However, bias may stil occur by exaggerating differences between different cultural groups, and neglecting to look at the differences within the cultural groups,
3. This is what happens in claims like ‘people from country X are more generous than people from country Y’. Even if evidence showed that, on average, country X residents are more generous, it is still likely that many of them aren’t, and that many people from country Y are. So, it is important not to neglect the variety found within groups - individual differences.

Question 6

What is sub-culture bias?

Answer 6

1. Etic or emic bias for sub-groups within larger groups,
2. For example, research on relationships might focus on studying heterosexuals, and so neglect homosexual relationships (emic bias),
3. The findings might then be generalised to homosexual relationships, despite not having studied them (etic bias).

Question 7

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 7

1. Where our own culture is taken as the norm that we judge other cultures against,
2. Ethnocentric research is centred around the one culture it is based in - so because most psychological studies studied people from western cultures, a lot of them are ethnocentric.

Question 8

How does Asch’s (1951) research show enthocentrism?

Answer 8

1. Involved seeing whether people would change their answer to an easy question to conform with the people around them,
2. This study was ethnocentric because it only studied yanks. It showed etic bias because Asch generalised the results to members of groups that hadn’t actually been studied,
3. Further research found variations in levels of conformity depending on the culture being studied.

Question 9

What are examples of ethnocentrism in research?

Answer 9

1. Asch’s (1951) research into conformity,
2. Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience.

Question 10

How does Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience show ethnocentrism?

Answer 10

1. Challenged the view that German soldiers who had carried out the holocaust must be inherently evil,
2. Milgram found that people could commit evil acts because of the situation they were in, rather than because of their character,
3. However he used Yank participants in his study, and didn’t take cultural differences between Germany and the USA into account, making this an imposed etic.

Question 11

What studies showed the effects of culturally biased research on society?

Answer 11

1. Cochrane and Sashidharan (1995),
2. Littlewood and Lipsedge (1989).

Question 12

Cochrane and Sashidharan (1995), findings?

Answer 12

1. Found that people of African-Caribbean origin in the UK were up to seven times more likely than white patients to be diagnosed with schizophrenia,
2. The rate of schizophrenia in the Caribbean is no higher than in the UK, so it seems that African-Caribbeans don’t have genetic predisposition towards it.

Question 13

Littlewood and Lipsedge (1989), findings?

Answer 13

1. Found that African-Caribbean patients were often prescribed stronger doses of medication than white patients, even though their symptoms were the same,
2. Suggests that their symptoms are interpreted as being more sever than they actually are.

Question 14

What are some of the issues with cross-cultural research?

Answer 14

1. Even with a translator it can be difficult to interpret what participants do and say - some beliefs and customs may be difficult for people from other cultures to understand. This means that findings can be misinterpreted and research can be ethnocentric because the researchers judge behaviour against their own cultural norms,
2. Cross-cultural replications of studies are difficult to do. Smith and Bond (1988) argued that perfect cross-cultural replications are impossible because procedures will have different meanings to people in different cultures. This means that studies can lack validity - they might not be testing what they aim to test.

Question 15

What ways exist to reduce cultural bias in research?

Answer 15

1. Research should recognise cultural relativism. This is accepting that there are no universal standards for behaviour, and that any research done must take into account the culture it takes place in,
2. Samples should be representative of the groups you want to generalise the results to - they should include all relevant sub-groups,
3. Berry (1969) recommends conducting research in meaningful contexts and using local researchers who are part of the culture being studied. This avoids the problem of an imposed etic.