Cultural bias

Question 1

Who looked into universality and bias?

Answer 1

Henrich et al

Question 2

What was the study Henrich et al conducted?

Answer 2

Reviewed hundreds of studies and found that 68% of research came from US
- 96% came from industrialised nations

Question 3

What did another study find in relation to cultural bias and universality?

Answer 3

80% of participants in psychological research was undergraduate psychology students

Question 4

What does cultural bias within psychological research mean?

Answer 4

What we know about human behaviour has cultural bias
- WEIRD people most likely to be studied by psychologists
- Westernized, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich Democrats
- If WEIRD people are the norm than those who aren’t WEIRD are seen as abnormal, inferior or unusual

Question 5

What is ethnocentricism?

Answer 5

A particular form of cultural bias
- a belief in the superiority of your own cultural group

Question 6

How does ethnocentrism relate to psychology?

Answer 6

US and Europe have presented an ethnocentric view of human behaviour

Question 7

What’s an example of the US/Europe showing ethnocentricism in psych?

Answer 7

Strange situation study
- Criticised as reflecting only the norms and values of a western culture
- Suggested a normal child displayed moderate distress when separate from their mother
- Misinterpretation of child rearing practices in other countries (deviate from American norms)

Question 8

What’s an example of deviation from the American norms of child attachment?

Answer 8

Japanese infants most likely to be classes as insecurely attached due to high levels of distress when separated from caregivers
- Due to Japanese children rarely being separated from their mother

Question 9

Who speaks about cultural relativism?

Answer 9

Berry

Question 10

What does Berry say?

Answer 10

There’s a distinction between ‘etic’ and ‘emic’ approaches in the study of human behaviour
- Etic: studying behaviour outside of a particular culture, attempting to describe them as universal
- Emic: functions from inside the culture and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture

Question 11

What is The strange situation an example of?

Answer 11

Imposed Etic
- Studies behaviour inside one culture and assumed it could be applied universally

Question 12

What does Berry argue in terms of psychology as a whole?

Answer 12

Psych: guilty of an imposed Etic approach
- theories, models and concepts are universal when they actually came about through emic research inside a single culture
- Psychologists need to be careful of cultural relativism
- Things they discovered may only make sense from the perspective of the culture in which they’re discovered

Question 13

What is one limitation point of cultural bias other than p?

Answer 13

Many of the most influential studies are culturally biased
- Heavy in social influence studies
Suggests that our understanding of topics (eg: social influence) should only be applied to individualistic cultures

Question 14

What influential studies are culturally bias?

Answer 14

Both Asch and Milgram’s participants were mostly white, middle class students from the US
- when replicated in other cultures: different findings
- Asch’s study in collectivist cultures: higher rates of conformity

Question 15

What’s another limitation of cultural bias?

Answer 15

• Lead to predjudice against groups of people
• Suggested a genetic inferiority of some cultures and ethnic groups
• Shows how cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice and discrimination

Question 16

Who looked into cultural bias leading to prejudice?

Answer 16

Gould

Question 17

What did Gould say?

Answer 17

Stated that the 1st intelligence tests led to eugenic social policies in the US
- Psychologists used WW1 to pilot their 1st IQ tests on 1.75 mil army recruits
- Many items on the test were ethnocentric (assumed everyone knew the name of the US presidents)
- South Eastern European and African Americans received the lowest scores

Question 18

What’s a strength of cultural bias?

Answer 18

Tech growth: = individualist-collectivisy distinction no longer applied
- Suggests cultural bias in research may be less of an issue in recent research

Question 19

Who looked into the growth of tech as a strength?

Answer 19

Tanako and Osaka

Question 20

What did Tanako and Osaka find?

Answer 20

14/15 studies that compared the US and Japan found no evidence of individualism and collectivism

Question 21

What’s another strength of cultural bias?

Answer 21

Emergence of cultural psychology
- Study of how people shape and are shaped by their own cultural experience
- Strives to avoid ethnocentric assumptions
- Takes an emic approach and conducts research from inside a culture
- Uses cultural based techniques
Suggests modern psychologists are mindful of the dangers of cultural bias and are trying to avoid it