Cultural Bias Flashcards
What is culture?
The knowledge and values shared by a society
What is cultural bias?
Cultures may differ from one another in many ways, so the findings of psychological research conducted in one culture may not apply directly to another
What must psychology address?
The huge diversity in people around the globe. Each individuals behaviour us shaped by a huge number of factors e.g. their genes, upbringing and individual experience
People affected by range of factors specific to the cultural group in which they developed and within which they live so psychologists should always attempt to account for the ways culture effects behaviour
Why has the acknowledgement of cultural factors not always been the case?
Psychology is a discipline that evolved within a very specific cultural context. It is a predominantly white Euro-American enterprise (64% of psychological researchers from the US, samples predominately white middle class, some texts have it 90% of studies have US participants
Therefore is had incorporated a particular world view (of the industrialised west) into the way it tries to understand people
What are the consequences of psychology being predominately western?
Psychologists may overlook the importance of cultural diversity in understanding human behaviour, resulting in theories that are scientifically inadequate
They may also privilege their own world view over those that emerge from other cultures, leading to research that either intentionally or unintentionally supports racist practices in the real world
What is universality and bias?
Many would say that models and studies in psychology only relate to certain groups in society as only particular people are studied
Critics argue that mainstream psychology ignores cultural differences and studies that are carried out I western cultures should not be generalised e.g. Milgram as any differences based on cultures are therefore viewed as abnormal
When does ethnocentrism occur?
When a researcher assumes that their own culturally specific practices or ideas are ‘natural’ or ‘right’
The individual uses their own ethnic group to evaluate and make judgements about other individuals from other ethnic groups. Research which is centred on one ethnic group is ethnocentric
In ethnocentrism what happens when other cultures observed differ from the researchers own?
They may be regarded in a negative light e.g. ‘primitive’, ‘unsophisticated’ etc
Becomes racist when other cultures are denigrated
To counteract ethnocentrism = cultural relativism - treats each culture as unique and worthy of study
What is cultural relativism?
The principle of regarding the beliefs, values and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself
The principle sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research as well as to avoid judging another culture by the standards of ones own culture so it has been considered an attempt to avoid ethnocentrism
What is an emic?
An emic construct is one that is applied to only one cultural group so they vary in different places (differences between cultures)
What is an emic approach?
Refers to the investigation of a culture from within the culture itself. e.g the research of European society from a European perspective is emic
It is more likely to have ecological validity as the findings are less likely to be distorted or caused by a mismatch between the cultures of the researchers and the culture being investigated
When can cultural bias occur? (emic)
When a research assumes that an emic construct is actually an etic (universal behaviour) e.g. emic constructs are likely to be ignored or misinterpreted as researchers from another culture may not be sensitive to local emics so their own cultural filters may prevent them from detecting or appreciating the emics significance
What is an etic construct?
A theoretical idea that is assumed to apply in all cultural groups, therefore etic constructs are considered universal to all people, and are factors that hold across all cultures
Etic constructs assume that most human behaviour is common to humans but that cultural factors influence the development or display of this behaviour
When can cultural bias occur? (etic)
When emics and etics get mistaken for eachother
Making the assumption that behaviours are universal across cultures can lead to imposed etics, where a construct from one culture is applied inappropriately to another e.g. although basic human facial expressions are universal there can be subtle cultural variation
What is an example of culturally bias research?
Ainsworth’s Strange Situations - the procedure is not appropriate for assessing children from non-US or UK populations as it is based on western childrearing ideas (ethnocentric)
The original study only used American, middle class, white, home-reared infants and mother, therefore the generalisability of the findings could be questioned as well as whether this procedure would be valid for other cultures too
