Culture Bias Flashcards
(13 cards)
1
Q
Statistics about cultural bias
A
- 64% psychological researchers are from USA
- 90% studies have USA pps
- Predominantly white males
2
Q
What is cultural bias?
A
- Tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all behaviour through norms of your own culture
- Misinterpretation of behaviour
3
Q
What is ethnocentrism?
A
- Belief in superiority of your own culture
- Prejudice to other cultures, regarding them as deficient
- Prejudice/misinterpretations
4
Q
What are emic behaviours?
A
Behavioural constructs particular to a specific culture
5
Q
What are etic behaviours?
A
Behavioural constructs that are universal to all people
6
Q
What are imposed etics?
A
When emics and etics get mistaken for each other
7
Q
What is cultural relativism?
A
- Norms/values can only be understood within specific social and cultural contexts
- Avoids cultural bias but limits universality
8
Q
Example of ethnocentrism (evaluation)
A
- Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’ attachment research
- Inappropriately negative language makes norms of other cultures seem deficient
- Not appropriate for assessing children from non USA/UK
- Results liable to misinterpretation e.g Kibbutz
9
Q
Example of cultural relativism (evaluation)
A
- Cultural bias in diagnosis of mental health disorders
- Cochrane 1995 found African-Caribbean immigrant to be 7X more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness (12X for schizophrenia)
- Validity of DSM/ICD in diagnosing people born outside western culture
- Mental illness is not a universally agreed concept but should be regarded as culturally relative (e.g anorexia)
10
Q
What is DSM/ICD?
A
A manual that doctors use to diagnose mental illness
11
Q
Individualist/collectivist cultures (evaluation)
A
- Individualist cultures value personal freedom/independence
- Collectivist cultures value interdependence and group needs
- Cultures are not comparable in terms of origins of behaviours
- Leads to ethnocentrism bias/imposed etic/compromised validity
12
Q
Asch and Milgram (evaluation)
A
- Exclusively US pps, reproduction of studies in diff countries produced diff results
- Higher rates of conformity in collectivist cultures
13
Q
Counterargument (evaluation)
A
- In an age of increased media globalisation it’s argued that individualist-collectivist distinction no longer applies
- Takano and Osaka 1999 found 14/15 studies comparing USA and Japan found no individualism/collectivism
- Suggests cultural bias may be less of an issue in more recent psychological research
