Culture bias Flashcards
(11 cards)
What is cultural bias in psychology?
Cultural bias occurs when psychological theories or research wrongly assume that findings from one culture apply to all cultures. Most research is based on WEIRD populations – Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic – which limits generalisability. Behaviours from non-WEIRD cultures may be wrongly labelled as ‘abnormal’, ‘inferior’ or ‘unusual’.
What did Henrich et al. (2010) find about cultural bias in psychology?
Henrich et al. found that 68% of participants in psychology studies came from the US, and 96% from industrialised nations. Around 80% of participants were university students. This shows psychology is largely based on WEIRD samples and not representative of global human behaviour.
What is ethnocentrism in psychology?
Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture. It often leads to the belief that one’s own culture is superior. This results in misinterpreting behaviours from other cultures as abnormal or incorrect.
Example of ethnocentrism: Ainsworth and Bell (1970)
In the Strange Situation, ‘secure attachment’ was defined by moderate distress when separated from the mother – a Western norm. However, Japanese infants, who rarely experience separation, showed greater distress. Labelling them as ‘insecure’ reflects ethnocentric bias, as it misinterprets their behaviour using American norms.
What is cultural relativism?
The view that behaviour and values cannot be judged properly unless they are viewed in the context of the culture in which they originate.
What is the difference between etic and emic approaches?
Etic approach: Looks at behaviour from outside a culture and tries to find universal rules.
Emic approach: Focuses on behaviour that is meaningful within a specific culture and avoids generalising across cultures
What is an imposed etic?
An imposed etic happens when a theory/method developed in one culture is wrongly applied to another. Ainsworth’s Strange Situation is an example – it imposed Western ideas of attachment onto non-Western cultures, leading to misjudgements.
alpha bias in cross-cultural research
refers to the assumption that there are real and
enduring differences between cultural groups.
beta bias in cross-cultural research
Refers to theories that minimise or ignore cultural differences, They do this by assuming that all people are the same and therefore it is reasonable to use the same theories for different cultural groups
evaluation of culture bias (brief)
weakness - most influential studies are culturally biased
weakness - culture bias has led to prejudice
weakness - not all behaviours are affected by cultural bias
weaknesses of culture bias
Most influential studies are culturally biased. For example, Asch and Milgram’s original studies were conducted exclusively with US participants (most of whom were white and middle-class). Replications of these studies in different countries produce rather different results. Asch-type experiments in collectivist cultures found significantly higher rates of conformity than in original studies. This suggests that our understanding of topics such as social influence should only be applied to individualistic cultures.
Culture bias has led to prejudice around groups of people. Gould explained how the first IQ tests led to eugenic social policies. Psychologists used WW1 to pilot their first IQ tests. Many items on the test were ethnocentric, e.g. assuming everyone would know the name of US presidents. The results were that recruits from south-eastern Europe and African Americans received the lowest scores. The poor performance was used to inform racist discourse about the genetic inferiority of particular cultural and ethnic groups. Ethnic minorities were deemed mentally unfit in comparison to white majority and denied educational opportunities as a result. This shows how culture bias can justify prejudice.
Not all behaviours are affected by cultural bias: Although there may be differences in rates of obedience (Milgram) and conformity (Asch) between collectivist and individualist cultures, universal behaviours still exist. For example, facial expressions for anger, guilt and disgust were universally recognised across all cultures. In terms of attachment, interactional synchrony and reciprocity are universal features of infant-caregiver interactions. Therefore, this suggests that to fully understand behaviour, we must look at both universal and culture-bound examples.
