Cultural Bias Flashcards
what does culture mean?
The rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting that bind together members
of a society or some other collection of people.
what is cultural bias?
The tendency to judge all cultures and individuals in terms of your own cultural assumptions. This distorts or biases your judgements.
what is cultural relativism?
The view that behaviour, morals, standards and values cannot be judged properly unless they are viewed in the context of the culture in which they
originate.
what is an example of cultural relativism?
Milgram’s study into obedience was originally conducted using 40 male American participants, but then also replicated using Spanish students (Miranda et al. found over 90% obedience rates in Spanish students) and Australian students (where only 16% of female participants continued to the highest voltage setting, as shown by Kilham and Mann). This suggests that Milgram’s original results were specifically bound to American cultures.
examples of cultural relativism- alpha bias
Cultural relativism can lead to an alpha bias, where the assumption of real differences lead psychologists to overlook universals.
what are some examples of beta bias in cultural relativism
Cultural relativism is often discussed in the context of defining mental
disorder. Behaviours that are statistically infrequent in one culture may be more frequent in another, i.e. schizophrenia is claiming to hear voices but this experience is more common in African cultures, where hearing voices is a sign of spirituality and so individuals are more likely to openly report these experiences to their psychiatrist. By assuming the same rules universally we may diagnose some people as mentally ill but relative to the culture they may not be.
the distinction between etic and emic approaches in the study of human behaviour
John Berry: The emic-etic distinction — Emic approach is one that emphasises the distinction of uniqueness in every culture, problem with this is that findings are only significant for that culture. The “etic” approach seeks universal aspects of behaviour - one way to do this whilst still avoiding cultural bias is to use indigenous researchers in each cultural setting.
example of imposed etic
Ainsworth and bells research: they studied behaviour inside one culture and then sassumed thier ideal attachment type could be applied universally. another example is how we define abnormality
what is ethnocentrism?
An example of alpha bias and leads to beta bias. Seeing things from the point of view of ourselves and our social group. Evaluating other groups of people using the standards and customs of one’s own culture. In its extreme form, ethnocentrism can
lead to prejudice and discrimination against ‘lesser’ cultures.
example of ethnocentrism
ainswirth and bells strange situation is criticised as reflecting only the norms and values of what is sometimes called “western culture”. they conducted studies in order to assess what behaviours are considered “secure” and “insecure” which was according to western norms which was applied universally. however further studies had shown the certain child-rearing practices from other countries deviated from the american norm e.g japanese study
what is research on cultural bias?
henrich et al. reviewed hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals and found that 68% of research participants came from the united states and 96% came from industrialised nations. another review found that 80% of research participants were undergraduates studying psychology. he coined the term WEIRD to describe the group of people most likely to be studied by psychologists- Westernised, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich Democracies
beta bias
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
alpha bias in cross cultural research
With regards to culture refers to the assumption that there are real and
enduring differences between cultural groups. An example is the distinction that is often made between individualistic and collectivist cultures. We would expect individualistic cultures to be less conformist as they are less orientated towards group norms and value the needs of the group over the individual. For example, Takano and Osaka reviewed 15 studies that compared the US and Japan in terms of collectivist/individualism and found
that 14 out of 15 studies did not support the common view about differences in
conformity. This suggests that there is less of a collectivist/individualist divide in an
increasingly global world.
beta bias in cross cultural research
An example is IQ tests. Psychologists use IQ tests to study intelligence in many different cultures as they assume that their view of intelligence applies equally to all cultures. However this may not always be the case. Western societies see intelligence as something within the individual whereas in a collectivist culture intelligence is a functional relationship depending on shared information between the
individual and society. The result is that non-western people may appear less intelligent. Such tests are described as taking an “imposed etic” approach, where a test is made in one group and then imposed on another. This approach studies behaviours outside a given group and behaviours which can be universally applied to all groups.
what are the evaluations of cultural bias?
- cultural bias in classical studies (limitation)
- cultural psychology (strength)
- ethnic stereotyping (limitation)
