Cultural Bias Flashcards
What is cultural bias?
Judging people’s behaviour against your own assumptions and expectations of behaviour, ignoring potential cultural differences. This can lead to misunderstanding people’s behaviour cross-culturally
What is ethnocentrism?
Emphasising the behaviour of your own culture, believing in the superiority of your own culture. This May enforce prejudice and stereotypes
What is the mnemonic for the typical psychology research sample, demonstrating why there is a problem of cultural bias in psychology?
W-estern
E-ducated
I-ndustrial
R-ich
D-emocratic
This sample is ethnocentric and typical of American society where a lot of research takes place and where most researchers are from
What is imposed etic?
Making the assumption that behaviors are universal across cultures can lead to imposed etics, where a construct from one culture is applied inappropriately to another. Imposed etics is when theories are considered to be universal based on emic research in one individual culture.
What is cultural relativism?
The idea that a behaviour can only be properly understood in the context of the norms and values of the society or culture in which it occurs. This arises from trying to explain behaviour from the viewpoint of the culture from which the research takes place, meaning it is culturally relative to the researches culture
What are the two studies that show cultural bias?
. Strange situation + Takahashi study
. Deviation from social norms (psychopathology)
How should we deal with cultural bias and ethnocentrism in research?
. When studying behaviour in the context of which the culture originates, don’t extrapolate the findings to other cultures if those other cultures aren’t represented in the sample
. Carry out cross-cultural research e.g Buss/Van Izenberg
. Take an emic approach - study a single culture and apply the findings to just that culture
How does the strange situation ethnocentric?
. Based on American ideas about separation anxiety, where it was rare to find resistant children
. The fact that all the participants were WEIRD means the findings are difficult to generalise universally
How did the Takahashi study reveal the problems with cultural bias in research?
. Study had to have 90% stop due to extreme separation anxiety in babies
. Separation from mother is very unusual in these collectivist cultures
This shows that WEIRD samples cannot generate universal findings as the findings are ethnocentric
What is an implication of cultural bias on mental health diagnosis?
. In some cultures, there is a belief that after someone dies, their soul is still alive and you may hear their voice
. Hearing these voices and talking to a dead person is often characterised as a symptom of schizophrenia, as Afro-Caribbean’s in UK are 7x more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia for this problem
. Clearly western social norms have an imposed etic and can lead to cultures because described as abnormal
What is a transcultural approach to cultural bias?
Studying many different cultures to identify the similarities
