Cultural bias Flashcards
Universality
Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experiences and upbringing. Gender bias and culture bias threaten the universality of findings in psychology.
Universality- Heinrich et al.
Reviewed hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals and found that 68% of research participants came from the United States, and 96% from industrialised nations. Another reviewed found that 80% of research participants were undergraduates studying psychology (Arnett 2008).
These suggest that what we know about human behaviour has a strong cultural bias.
Ethnocentrism
Judging other cultures by the standards and values of one’s own culture. In its extreme form it is the belief in the superiority of one’s own culture which may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures.
Cultural relativism
The idea that norms and values, as well as ethics and moral standards, can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts.
Universality WEIRD (Henrich et al.)
He rich coined the term WEIRD to describe people most likely to be studied by psychologists- Westernised, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich Democracies.
If the norm or standard for a particular behaviour is set by WEIRD people, then the behaviour from non-Westernised, less educated, agricultural and poorer cultures is inevitably seen as ‘abnormal’, ‘inferior’, or ‘unusual’.
Ethnocentrism- Ainsworth’s Strange situation
Reflecting only the norms and values of what is sometimes called ‘Western’ culture.
They conducted on attachment type, suggesting that ‘ideal’ attachment was characterised by the babies showing moderate amounts of distress when left alone by their mother figure (typical of secure attachment. This led to a rearing of child-rearing practices in other countries which were seen to deviate from the American ‘norm’.
For example, Japanese infants were much more likely to be classed as insecurely attached because they showed considerable distress in separation.
Cultural relativism (Berry)
Berry has drawn a distinction between etic and emic approaches in the study of human behaviour. An etic approach looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal.
An emic approach functions from inside a culture and identifies behaviour that are specific to that culture.
Cultural relativism Example- Ainsworth
Ainsworth’s research is an example of an imposed etic- they studied behaviour inside one culture and then assumed their ideal attachment type could be applied universally.
EVAL LIMITATION- Classic studies
Many of the most influential studies in psychology are culturally-biased. For instance, Asch’s and Milgram’s original studies were conducted exclusively with US participants. Replications of these studies in different countries produced rather different results.
For instance, Asch-type experiments in collectivist cultures found significantly higher rates of conformity than the original studies in the US. an individualist culture.
