WEIRD Problem Flashcards
(11 cards)
The Pith of the WEIRD problem
a majority of psychological research is conducted within industrialised, white boundaries and so it limits the findings and the generalisability of research
- lack of cultural bounds
98% of participants come from countries that have only 12% of the worlds population
WEIRD
Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic
Henrich et al. (2010) - Cultures in Psych Research between 03-07
- mostly undergraduate students in western countries
- suggested that reviews of journal articles include diversity of their sample
- comparing culture differences is suggested
Nielsen et al. (2017) - WEIRD problem in dev psych
- most labs based in english speaking countries and non english european countries
- few in other continents
have things improved on this front?
- not much
- more unspecified, less english speak countries
- hasn’t changed despite call out
Why is there a WEIRD problem?
recruiting non-weird is difficult, time consuming and expensive
- use of convenient samples, that live close to researchers around a university, whom are possibly students instead
weak incentives
- not a highly valued topic, doesn’t get much funding even though it is more expensive
barriers are strong
- researchers from non-weird countries may be more adept to tackle these challenges
- researchers from non-weird countries lack resources
- expectation to publish in english, translations will lessen the papers perceived rigour
- gatekeepers of journals set in weird countries
Theoretical Issues associated with the WEIRD problem
- are we uncovering universal truths about the root of human behaviour if we are just researching a specific group, assuming it will transfer to everyone else
Empirical Issues with the WEIRD problem
- high risk of failing to generalise/replicate results
- researchers use convenient samples or smaller samples in dev psych
- power issues
- samples are smaller and harder to replicate because of the cost of research in non weird countries
Infancy researchers mostly don’t report ethnicity ( Singh et al., 2023)
- 1383 papers
- hard to even compare differences between weird and non weird research because most frequently it was not even stated
- makes it even more difficult to understand the effect of cultural differences
Over-Imitation
- Infants are able to learn though observation, however over imitation is a type of observational learning where they imitate every single action a person demonstrates even when they aren’t integral to achieving that goal
only happens in humans, compared to dogs and chimpanzees
- shown how to open a box, animals opened most efficient way, humans imitated every movement
Neilson & Tomasello (2010) - over imitation in children from Brisbane or the Kalahari bushman tribe in Africa
- for each of the 3 boxes they were to open, they were shown completely irrelevant actions, followed by someone opening the box (therefore it is inefficient
demonstration group produced similar irrelevant actions
- similar across cultures
-
What do Cross Cultural Studies tell us?
tells us:
- that this may be a universal truth across human behaviour
- what are the necessary conditions
- a shift from what to why questions
