cultural bias Flashcards
ethnocentrism refers to judging
other cultures from your own pov and can lead to discrimination as other cultures may be viewed as inferior
ethnocentric research leads to
curtal bias
behaviour is interpreted through the values and standards of the researchers own culture , meaning different cultural behaviour get labelled as abnormal
cultural bias threatens
universality because if a theory is ethnocentric it may misrepresent certain cultures or seem inferior
an example of cultural bias leading to lack of universality is in
Mary ainsworths study , where the strange situation only viewed attachment behaviour from a US viewpoint and so is misjudged japanese babies as insecure resistant
cultural relativism is the idea that
behaviour can only be interpreted ad understood if it is regarded from the pov of the culture being studied
cultural relativism opposes
ethnocentric because it doesn’t regard any culture as superior
it accepts cultures are different and that behaviour may be relative to one specific culture
cultural relativism is particularly important in the diagnosis of
mental health illnesses
something considered in one culture may be considered pathalogical in another
despite cultural relativism aiming to combat cultural bias sometimes it can lead to bias for example
Margaret meads investigation of aggression in Papua New Guineas assumed cultural differences that didnt exist
a weakness is that researchers argue cultural bias may be an issue of the past as the stated differences between cultures ie individualistic/collectvist are too simplistic due to globalisation. a meta analysis of
15 studies comparing the USA and Japan found no evidence of a distinction between them , suggesting that cultural bias in research may be less of an issue than in the past
a strength is that indigenous psychologies counter enthocentlrism by being specifically designed for the people within a country or culture for example
afrocentrism believes psychological theories of African people should be developed in Africa and expresses African values , it disputes the view that European values and descriptions of human behaviour apply to people of African descent
a strength is that research has found evidence of cultural bias within textbooks , in one European textbook on social psychology 98% of the referenced studies were from Europe , or America . these results were also reflected in other textbooks with the
vast majority of studies also using male psychology students as participants
this suggests that a lot of psychological theory is based on middle class academic young men who are not only unrepresentative of the world , but also of western culture
furthermore a strength is that indigenous psychology is an example of the emic approach and epic approaches only tend to help us understand behaviour within that culture , on the other hand
epic approaches seek universal understanding of behaviour which means they are prone to claim universality while ignoring non western cultures
