culture bias

Question 1

culture

Answer 1

customs, social norms, behavioural norms and moral values that are shared by a group of people

Question 2

universality

Answer 2

any underlying characteristics of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing

gender bias and culture bias threaten the universality of findings in psychology

Question 3

bias

Answer 3

a leaning in a particular direction, a systematic distortion in one’s attitudes and beliefs based on prejudices or pre-existing ideas

Question 4

cultural bias

Answer 4

refers to a tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through the ‘lens’ of one’s own bias

Question 5

cultural relativism

Answer 5

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

Question 6

ethnocentrism

Answer 6

judging other cultures by the standards and values of one’s own culture

in its extreme forms it is the belief in the superiority of one’s own culture which may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures

Question 7

imposed etic

Answer 7

an attempt to explain behaviour in one culture using theories or other measures of behaviour developed with a completely different culture

• taking a culture specific idea, concept or test and inappropriately applying it to another culture

Question 8

etic

Answer 8

behaviour is universal; studying multiple cultures in order to understand things that apply across all cultures

eg the concept of intelligence

Question 9

emic

Answer 9

behaviour is culturally specific ie example of cultural relativism - the focus on a single culture enables us to understand it within a local context

eg. IQ, as a western concept of intelligence

Question 10

individualist culture

Answer 10

associated with western countries like the US - an individual’s identity is more define by personal achievement and independence; personal freedom is valued highly

Question 11

collectivist culture

Answer 11

associated with eastern countries like India - identity is defined by collective achievement and interdependence; the needs of the group are valued highly

Question 12

Asch and Milgram - classic studies eval

Answer 12

only used participants from the US

replications in different countries found different results

Asch-type experiments in collectivist cultures found significantly higher rates of conformity

suggests our understanding of topics such as social influence should only be applied to individualist cultures

Question 13

counterpoint of classic studies

Answer 13

there has been increased globalisation so the individualist-collectivist distinction no longer applies

Takano and Osaka - 14 out of 15 studies that compared the US and Japan found no evidence of individualism or collectivism

Cultural bias in research is less of an issue in more recent research

Question 14

cultural psychology evalution

Answer 14

strength - emergence of cultural psychology

Cohen - cultural psychology is the study of how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experience

cross-cultural research - focus on just two cultures instead of a larger scale

emerging field and incorporates work from researchers with other disciplines eg sociology

modern psychologists are mindful of the dangers of cultural bias and are taking steps to avoid it

Question 15

ethnic stereotyping evaluation

Answer 15

limitation - has led to prejudice against groups of people

WW1 - IQ test - results was that recruits from south-east Europe and African-Americans received lowest scores - deemed ‘mentally unfit’ and ‘feeble-minded’ - many of the items on the test were ethnocentric

illustrates how cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice and discrimination towards certain cultural and ethnic groups