//Cultural bias Flashcards
What does culture refer to
- the set of customs, social roles. behavioural norms and moral values that are shared by a group of peple
- psychology developed in western countries so researchers would typically study people who were available- people from their own cultural background
Why isn’t there much research to compare people of different cultures
- researchers assumed that people from western cultures are the same as people in other cultures- research was applied to all people
- assumed that non western cultures were more ‘primitive’ and less worthy of study
- researchers who wanted to do cross cultural research couldn’t because they lacked time and resources
How do research methods affect cultural bias
- they can cause cultural bias
- cultural bias can be the result of a researcher’s assumptions and research aims
Berry (1969) identified two main approaches to research which could lead to cultural bias. Explain etic research
- research from a specific culture which is then applied to other cultures to find universal laws, giving studies universality
- possible that there are lots of these- all humans have the same physiology and many behaviours are found in all cultures e.g. language
- but studies take samples of the populations, so it’s difficult to generalise the findings to all cultures. If researchers do this, they could be guily of bias, in the form of imposed etic
Berry (1969) identified two main approaches to research which could lead to cultural bias. Explain emic research
- research based on a specific culture that is used to understand that culture from within. Isn’t generalised. Studies variations in behaviour between groups of people
- bias may occur by exaggerating differences between different cultural groups, and neglecting to look at differences within the cultural groups
- important not to neglect variety found within groups- individual differences
What is universality (etic research)
using one set of rules or theories to explain everything
Why is sub culture bias also important
- this is etic or emic bias for sub groups within larger groups
- e.g. research on relationships might focus on studying heterosexuals, so neglect homosexual relationships (emic). Findings might then generalised to homosexual relationships, despite not studying them (etic)
What is ethnocentrism
- a type of cultural bias
- where our own culture is taken as the norm that we judge other cultures against
- research is centred around the one culture it’s based in. Beccause a lot of studies have studied people from western cultures, a lot of them are ethnocentric
How is Asch’s study (1951) ethnocentric
- it only studied Americans
- it showed etic bias because Asch generalised the results to members of groups that hadn’t actually been studied
How is Milgram’s study (1963) ethnocentirc
- challenged the view that German soldiers who had carried out the Holocaust must be inherently evil
- found that people could commit evil acts because of the situation they were in, rather than because of their character
- he used American pps un his study, and didn’t take into cultural differences between Germany and the USA into account- imposed etic
Why does cultural bias have social implications
- it produces culturally biased theories
- so has important implications for society because psychologists might be making claims that aren’t actually true
- this is problematic when biased views influence psychological practice e.g. understanding abnormality
Cultural bias- Littlewood and Lipsedge (1989)
- found African-Carribean patients were often prescribed stronger doses of medication than white patients, even though their symptoms were the same
- suggests that their symptoms as being more severe than they actually are
- this could be the result of culture biased assumptions, influencing how people’s behaviours are interpreted- patients judged against norms for the white population, even if they’re from a different culture
Problems with cross cultural research
- results aren’t alywas valid
- even with a translator, it can be difficult to interpret what pps say and do- some beliefs/customs may be difficult for people from other cultures to understand Findings can be interpretedand research can be ethnocentric as researchers judge behaviour against their own cultural norms
- cross cultural replications of studies are difficult to do
Problems with cross cultural research- Smith and Bond (1980)
- argued that perfect cross cultural replications are impossible because proecdures will have different meanings to people in different cultures
- therefore studies can lack validity as they might not be testing what they aim to test
Cultural bias ususally isn’t intentional, so it can be difficult to prevent. What are the are ways of reducing it
- research should regonised cultural relativism. This is accepting there are no universal standards for behaviour, and that research done must be taken into account the culture it takes place in
- samples should be representative of the groups you want to generalised the results to- they should include all relevant sub groups
