Cultural Bias AO1 Flashcards
Ethnocentrism
Type of cultural bias. Judging others by standards and values of one’s own culture. Lead to assumption one ethnic group is ‘superior’ and that the behaviour in that group is ‘norm’
What study is criticised for being ethnocentric?
Strange situation. Benaviours demonstrated in “securely attached” American infant were ideal. Misinterpretation of other cultures chid rearing practices
E.g Germany.
Strange situation + imposed epic.
Methodology used is based on US views and standards. The judgement of attachment types when using this methodology reflects US practices in child rearing. Ainsworth imposed her awn cultural understanding the upon rest of the world.
Japan + s.s
Infants from Japan judged as being ‘resistant’ due to distress in ‘separation phase’. But in Japan the practice is for caregiver t infant to spend all their time together (even co-sleep ) this upset due to lack of experience being separated from caregiver.
Berry
Made distinction between approaching the study of human behaviour: Etic approach and Emic approach.
whats the etic approach?
looks at universal behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe and explain those behaviours that are universal
e.g strange situation
whats the emic approach?
-looks at behaviour from within given culture and identifies behaviour specific to that culture.
what does operating under emic approach do?
-operating under this approach would so psychologists truly emerging themselves in specific culture
-developing understanding of that cultures practices and developing research procedures
-interpreting research findings with just that culture in mind
-psychological procedures wouldn’t be used across cultures where such research procedures might create invalid results
what does Berry say about cultural relativism?
-argues psychology has been guilty of imposing an etic approach
-argues that theories, models, concepts etc. thought to be universal, when actually came about through emic research in a single culture.
what does Berry suggest?
-that psychologists should be much more mindful of cultural relativism of their research.
-things that they discover may only make sense from perspective of the culture within which they discovered
-by recognising cultural bias cultural relativism can be reduced.
when is cultural relativism important?
when considering abnormal psychology and mental health disorders.
what did Davison & Neale (1994) explain?
-in Asian cultures , person experiencing emotional turmoil is praise + rewarded if they show no expression of their emotions
-in certain Arabic cultures, outpouring of public emotion understood +encouraged.
-without this knowledge, individual displaying overt emotional behaviour may be regarded as abnormal when in fact its not.
what are cross-cultural misunderstandings?
-common may contribute to unfair discriminatory treatment of minorities by majority.
-e.g high rate diagnosis rate of schizophrenia amongst non-white British people.
Corchane (1977)
Reported incidence of schizophrenia in West Indies and UK is 1% but ppl of Afro-Caribbean origin are 7 times more likely to be diagnosed as schizophrenic when living in UK
Eating disorders
-anorexia + bulimia occur in men + women of diff cultures.
-Caucasian females from Western societies tend to be most at risk.
-females between 15-19 most at risk
-eating disorders culturally bound phenomena that are related to messages of thin ideal often portrayed in popular media + the fashion world. (Smink et al, (2012)
