Cultural Bias

Question 1

Universality

Answer 1

Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all despite differences of experience and upbringing.

Question 2

Culture bias

Answer 2

Refers to a tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through the lens of one culture.

Question 3

Ethnocentrism

Answer 3

Refers to a particular form of cultural bias and is a belief in the superiority of one’s own culture group which may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures.

Question 4

Example of enthnocentrism

Answer 4

Strange situation only reflects norms and values of the American lifestyle making it an inappropriate measure of attachment for non- US children.

Question 5

Cultural relativism

Answer 5

The idea that the norms and values as well as ethics and moral standards, can only be meaningful and understood within the social and cultural contexts.

Question 6

Etic constructs

Answer 6

Believing that universal factors hold true across all cultures.

Question 7

Emic constructs

Answer 7

Recognising that cultures vary in terms of values and culturally relative designs may provide far more ecologically valid findings.

Question 8

Imposed etics

Answer 8

Imposing the judgements and values of one culture into another.

Question 9

Weaknesses of culture bias

Answer 9

Real-life implications - US army IQ test before WW1 was culturally biased towards the white majority which resulted in African Americans being at the bottom of the IQ scale.

Smith and Bond (1988) surveyed European textbooks and found that 66% of studies were American, 32% European and 2% rest of the world.

Question 10

Strengths of culture bias

Answer 10

Global connectedness means that such a simplistic distinction between cultures does not apply. Evidence has found that there is little evidence for traditional distinction between individualist and collectivist cultures suggesting culture bias in research is less of a problem.