Culture bias Flashcards
What is cultural bias?
- The tendency to interpret all phenomena through the lens of one’s own culture
What did Henrich et al find about cultural bias in their review?
- Reviewed 100s of studies in leading psychology journals
- 68% of research participants came from the US, and 96% from industrialised nations
What did Arnett’s review find?
- 80% of research participants were undergraduates studying psychology
- Suggests research has a strong cultural bias
What term did Henrich use to describe most likely groups being studied?
WEIRD
- Westernised
- Educated
- Industrialised
- Rich
- Democracies
If the norm is set by WEIRD, behaviour from other cultures is seen as: abnormal, inferior, unusual
What is ethnocentrism?
- Judging other cultures by the standards and values of one’s own culture
- A form of cultural bias- belief in the superiority of one’s own cultural group
What is an example of ethnocentrism?
- Ainsworth and Bell’s strange situation= reflects only the norms and values of Western culture
- Research on attachment type suggests the ideal type is characterised by moderate separation distress- led to misinterpretations of child-rearing practices in other countries
- E.g: Takahashi= Japanese infants were more likely to be classified as insecurely attached (high separation distress)
What is cultural relativism?
- The idea that norms, value, ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful within specific social/cultural situations
What did Berry say about cultural relativism?
- Draws distinctions between etic and emic in behaviour studies
- Psychology is guilty of imposed etic= theories, models, concepts are universal, despite coming about through emic research
- Psychologists should be mindful of cultural relativism
What is the difference between emic and etic approaches?
- Etic= looks at behaviour outside a given culture, describes these behaviour as universal
- Emic= looks at behaviour inside a culture, identifies behaviours specific to the culture
What is an example of imposed etic?
- Ainsworth and Bell’s strange situation= studied behaviour in US only, assumed attachment type could be universally applied
What are the main ways to reduce cultural bias?
CRRISSE
- Cross-cultural research
- Representative samples
- Reflexivity
- Immersion
- Standards
- Sensitive research
- Emic approach
What did the APA apologise for in 2022?
- Contributing to eugenics
- Gatekeeping (keeping people of colour out of jobs of influence)
- Presenting results as evidence of innate differences
- Scientific racism
- Positioning white people as the ‘norm’
Limitation-
I- Many influential studies are culturally biased
D- Asch and Milgram’s studies were conducted on exclusively American participants. Cultural replications produces different results. E.g: Smith and Bond’s Asch replication in collectivist cultures found significantly higher conformity rates than OG study in individualist cultures
E- Suggests our understanding of social influence can only be applied to collectivist cultures
Strength-
I- Individualist-collectivist distinctions no longer exist
D- The traditional arguement is that individualist cultures value individuals and independence, whereas collectivist cultures value society and group needs. However, Takano and Osaka found that 14/15 studies comparing US and Japan found no evidence of individualism or collectivism, so descrives the distinction as lazy/simplistic
E- Suggests cultural biase in research is less of an issue in recent research
Strength-
I- Emergence of cultural psychology
D- Cohen defines cultural psychology as the study of how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experiences. This is an emerging field, incorporating work from researchers of other disciplines (i.e. anthropology, sociology, social sciences). Strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions, by taking an emic approach, alongside local researchers, using culturally-based techniques. Cross-cultural research tends to focus on 2 cultures only
E- Suggests that modern psychologists are mindful of dangers of cultural bias, and take steps to avoid it
Limitation-
I- Ethnic stereotyping
D- Gould explained how the first intelligence test led to eugenic social policies in the US. Used WW1 to pilot IQ tests on 1.75 million army recruits. Many items on the test were ethnocentric (i.e. name US presidents). Result showed that those from South-Eastern Europe and African-Americans received lowest scores. Poor performance was not seen as a sign of the test’s inadequacy, but used to inform racist discourse about genetic inferiority. Ethnic minorities were deemed mentally unfit and feeble minded vs white majority, and were denied educational/professional opportunities
E- Shows how cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice/discrimination towards certain ethnic/cultural groups
Evaluation extra-
I- Relativism vs universality
D- Cross-cultural research challenges long-standing ways of thinking/viewing the world, so provides a better understanding of human nature. This counters the charge of ethnocentrism and means conclusions are likely to have more validity. However, we should not assume all psychology is culturally relative. Ekman suggests basic facial expressions for emotions are the same culturally. Attachment criticisms should not obscure the fact that some aspects are universal
E- Suggests a full understanding of human behaviour requires both, but for too long, the universal view dominated
