2. Culture Bias - Description

Question 1

Cultural Bias:
Psychological research is usually proposed by white middle class men. Psychological theories are usually proposed by white middle class men. Psychology research historically was usually performed on white middle class men.

What is the problem?

Answer 1

• Say we have discovered “facts” but they’re not generalisable because of bias any behaviour straying from the “norm” is seen as abnormal
  e. g asch

Question 2

Ethnocentrism
This is a type of cultural bias. It involves judging other cultures by the standards and values of one’s
own culture. It can lead to the assumption that one ethnic group is superior to another or all others
and that the behaviour in that group is the ‘norm’.

Examples of Ethnocentrism:

Answer 2

• Strange situation, ainsworth, the types of attachment is based on american ideals
• Type B (securely attached) was seen as the ideal - moderately upset
• Had to misinterpretation of child rearing practices in other cultures e.g germany / japan

Question 3

Emic and Etic Approaches
Berry made a distinction between approaching the study of human behaviour:

1) Etic approach - looks at universal behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to
describe and explain those behaviours that are universal. (strenege situation, conferrif, obechine)
2) Emic approach - looks at behaviour from within a given culture and identifies behaviour specific
to that culture.

Berry argues that psychology has been guilty of imposing an etic approach. He argues that theories,
models, concepts etc. are thought to be universal, when they actually came about through emic
research in a single culture.
The suggestion is that psychologists should be much more mindful of the cultural relativism of their
research. The things that they discover may only make sense from the perspective of the culture
within which they were discovered. By recognising cultural relativism, cultural bias in research can
be reduced.

Cultural Relativism and Mental Health:

Answer 3

• Emerging in a culture then doing research from the culture perspective
• west - gift to talk to ancestor / auditory hallucinations
• Anorexia - not found in many non-western culture