Cultural Bias Flashcards
What is Cultural Bias?
A tendency to interpret all phenomena through the lens of one’s own culture, ignoring the effects of cultural differences on behaviour.
What was outlined by Henrich (2010) in his meta-analysis of studies?
Henrich analysed hundreds of studies from leading psychology journals: 68% of research participants came from the USA, and 96% were from industrialised nations.
What are WEIRD samples and why was it coined by Henrich?
WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic, describing the people most likely to be studied by psychologists.
What is Ethnocentrism?
A form of extreme cultural bias where people believe their culture is superior to others.
What is one example of ethnocentrism in a research study?
Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation (1970) suggested ideal attachment involved distress upon the mother’s exit, leading to misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries, as seen when Japanese children were found to be insecurely attached due to considerable distress.
What is cultural relativity?
The idea that norms, values, ethics, and moral standards can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts.
What did John Berry (1969) distinguish between etic and emic approaches?
Etic looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and attempts to describe findings as universal, while emic looks at behaviour within a given culture and identifies behaviours as specific to that culture.
What issue does imposed etic propose?
It suggests behaviours, concepts, and models are universals when they come from research that originates from a single culture.
What is one strength of cultural bias in psychology?
The emergence of cultural psychology: Dov Cohen (2017) noted that cultural psychology examines how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experience, avoiding ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach.
What are the limitations of cultural bias in psychology?
- Ethnic stereotyping: Jay Gould (1981) explained how early intelligence tests were used on 1.75m army recruits in ww1 led to eugenic social policies, using ethnocentric items e.g that everyone would know US presidents. Results from non-american places were the worst and they were labelled as “Feeble-minded” which informed racial discourse. Therefore cultural bias can be used to marginalise people.
- Classic studies: Influential studies like Milgram and Asch were culturally biased, with different results in collectivist cultures.
However, in the age of media globalisation, distinctions between individualistic and collectivist cultures are less clear, as shown by Takano and Osaka (1999).
