Culture Bias Flashcards
Culture Bias
Def: The tendency to ignore cultural differences & interpret all phenomena through the lens of one’s own culture.
Research conducted in one culture & findings generalised & applied to other cultures. It’s seen when designing research, process of obtaining data can lead to C bias.
Why Only Western Cultures?
1) Psychologists may have viewed other non-Western cultures as being ‘primitive’ or not worthy of study.
2) Cross-cultural research is expensive, time consuming, and demands many resources –> challenging to conduct.
3) The assumption that other cultures were the same as their own –> behaviours and norms had the same meaning so no point in studying them.
ETIC & EMIC
Berry identified two approaches in research: etic and emic.
1) Etic - looks at behaviours from the outside of a given culture & generalises to other cultures (universal laws).
2) Emic - looks within cultures & identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture so results should not to be applied to other cultures.
E.g. Etic - Ainsworth’s Strange Situation illustrated imposed etic –> studied behaviours inside a single culture & assumed their findings could be applied universally.
Etic Evaluation
STRENGTH:
1) Humans from various cultures do have similarities e.g. human physiology.
2) Certain behaviours are also universal: language development, aggression levels, and cognitive development.
WEAKNESS:
1) Challenging to apply the principles and conclusions drawn from these studies with samples to all cultures –> So researchers can be biased due to imposed etic.
Emic Evaluation
STRENGTH:
1) Can avoid cultural bias and bias from imposed etic - since they are not trying to generate universal laws.
WEAKNESS:
1) But bias can still happen - from researchers over-emphasising the differences between the cultural groups.
Ethnocentrism
Refers to the use of own cultural groups as basis for judgements about other groups. View own beliefs as ‘normal’ & even superior, whereas others are seen as ‘strange’ or deviant.
Alpha & Beta Bias
Ethnocentrism can lead to:
Alpha Bias - when one’s culture is considered different & better –> other cultures & practices are devalued.
Beta Bias - If psychs were to believe their world view is the only view. (Western IQ testing)
Ethnocentrism example
Ainsworth’s Strange Situation:
1) Research on attachment reflected norms of US culture which led to misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries.
E.g. Viewed German & Japanese babies’ attachment as abnormal due to differences in behaviour.
Asch’s Study
1) The study tested whether people would conform to the majority// Confederates placed in the study to deliberately give wrong answers to the task given// Asch concluded that people will conform to majority opinion (even if the answer is wrong).
Asch: Only used university aged american males, so it is also an example of gender bias.
–> To avoid this ethnocentrism, further research on different cultures should be conducted to draw truly universal conclusions on conformity.
Social Implications
1) IQ Testing:
- Army recruits completed IQ tests but the test items were ethnocentric.
- Showed white Americans were at the top and Afro-Americans were bottom
–> could mislead to think one is less ‘intelligent’.
–> can reinforce pre-existing discrimination, this could be used to prevent them from being assigned certain jobs.
2) Schizophrenia testing:
- Cochrane and Sashidharan examined diagnosis rates of schizophrenia in the UK & compared rates of Afro-Caribbean origin to the rest of the population.
- Found Afro-Caribbeans were 7 times more likely to be diagnosed.
–> But by looking at the rates of SZ in the Caribbean, they are no higher than the UK.
So people could have a misconception about schizophrenia rates in African-Caribbean’s.
Cultural Relativism
It Helps Avoid Cultural Bias:
The idea that things observed in research may only make sense from the perspective of the culture being observed - There is no universal standard to behaviour.
Reducing Culture Bias
1) Hold conferences where researchers from diff countries & culture regularly meet to discuss so they can identify C bias when exchanging ideas.
2) Recognising cultural relativism - no universal standard to behaviour.
3) Sampling should be representative of all sub-groups from which you want to draw conclusions –> allows for generalisability.
Cross-Cultural Research - Criticism
Difficulty in interpretation:
1) Communication between two different languages is challenging, even with a translator.
2) Proverbs, beliefs and customs can be difficult to translate or understand.
–> So findings and data can be misinterpreted which can result in ethnocentric bias.
Difficulty in replicability:
1) Can be difficult to replicate because of a decreased ability to properly translate procedures.
Strength - Cultural Psych
Emergence of Cultural Psychology:
1) Cultural psychology is study of how ppl shape & are shaped by their cultural experience - emic approach.
2) Research is conducted from inside a culture often alongside local researchers.
–> Suggest modern psychologists are mindful of dangers of cultural bias & are taking steps to avoid it.
