cultural bias A03 Flashcards
classic studies
P) One limitation is that many of the most influential studies in psychology are culturally-biased.
E) Cultural bias is a feature of many classic studies of social influence. For instance, both Asch’s and Milgram’s original studies were conducted exclusively with US participants (most
of whom were white, middle-class students)
E) Replications of these studies in different countries produced rather different results. For instance, Asch-type experiments in collectivist cultures found significantly higher rates of conformity than the original studies in the US, an individualist culture (e.g. Smith and Bond 1993).
L) This suggests our understanding of topics such as social influence should only be applied to
individualist cultures.
counterpoint for classic studies
However, in an age of increased media globalisation, it is argued that the individualist-collectivist distinction no longer applies. The traditional argument is that individualist countries (such as the US) value individuals and independence, whilst collectivist cultures/countries, such as India and China, value society and the needs of the group. However, Yohtaro Takano and Eiko Osaka (1999) found that 14 out of 15 studies that compared the US and Japan found no evidence of individualism or collectivism - describing the distinction as lazy and simplistic.
This suggests that cultural bias in research may be less of an issue in more recent
psychological research.
cultural psychology
P) one strength is the emergence of cultural psychology
E) Cultural (sometimes multicultural) psychology is, according to Dov Cohen (2017), the study of how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experience. This is an emerging field and incorporates work from researchers in other disciplines including anthropology, sociology and political science.
E) Cultural psychologists strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach and conducting research from inside a culture, often alongside local researchers using culturally-based techniques. Cross-cultural research tends to focus on just two cultures instead of larger scale studies with maybe eight or more countries/cultures.
L) This suggests that modern psychologists are mindful of the dangers of cultural bias and are taking steps to avoid it.
Ethnic stereotyping
P) One limitation of cultural bias in psychology is it has led to prejudice against groups of people.
E) Stephen Jay Gould (1981) explained how the first intelligence tests led to eugenic social policies in the US. Psychologists used the opportunity of World War I to pilot their first IQ tests on 1.75 million army recruits. Many of the items on the test were ethnocentric, for example assuming everyone would know the names of the US presidents. The result was that recruits from south-eastern Europe and African-Americans received the lowest scores.
E) The poor performance of these groups was not taken as a sign of the test’s inadequacy but was instead used to inform racist discourse about the genetic inferiority of particular cultural and ethnic groups. Ethnic minorities were deemed mentally unfit and feeble-minded in comparison to the white majority and were denied educational and professional opportunities as a result.
L) This illustrates how cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice and discrimination towards certain cultural and ethnic groups.
