Culture Bias Flashcards
what is cultural bias?
- a tendency to interpret all phenomena through the lens of one’s culture, ignoring the effects that cultural differences might have on behaviour
what is ethnocentrism?
- particular form of cultural bias and is a belief in the superiority of one’s own cultural group
what is cultural relativism?
- 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
what did Henrich et al find?
- review hundreds of studies inlaying psychology journal and found that 68% of research participants came from the US and, 96% form industrialised nations
what did Arnett et al find?
- found that 80% of research participants were undergraduates studying psychology
what do psychologists routinely claim to have found?
- discovered facts about universal human behaviour
who cam up with the term WEIRD?
Henrich et al
what is WEIRD?
- describes a group of people most likely to be studied by psychologists
- Westernised, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich Democracies
what type of people have presented an ethnocentric view of human behaviour?
- US and Europe
what researchers have been critiqued for their ethnocentrism?
Ainsworth and Bell
why are Ainsworth and Bell critiqued?
- their research led to the misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries which were seen to deviate form the American norm
- e.g. Japanese infants were more likely to be classed as insecurely attached as they showed considerable distress on separation = Takahashi
- it is likely that this finding is due to the fact that Japanese babies are rarely separated from their mothers
what did Ainsworth and Bell do?
- reflecting only the norms and values of Western culture
- conducted research on attachment type and suggested that the ideal attachment type was characterised by babies showing moderate amounts of distress when they are left alone by their mother figure = secure attachment
who drew a distinction between etic and emic approaches in the study of human behaviours?
- Berry
what is an etic approach?
- looks at behaviour from the outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal
what is an emic approach?
- functions from inside a culture and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture
what is Ainsworths’ and Bell’s research an example of?
imposed etic
why is Ainsworth and Bell’s research and example of imposed etic?
- studied behaviour inside one culture and then assumed their ideal attachment type (and the method of assessing it) could be applied universally
what does Berry argue psychology is guilty?
- psychology is guilty of an imposed etic approach, arguing that theories, models and concepts are universal, when they are actually came about through emic research inside a single culture
what is the suggestion for psychologists (cultural relativism)?
- psychologists should be much more mindful of the cultural relativism of their research
- things they discover may only make sense from the perspective of culture within which they were discovered and being able to recognise this is one way of avoiding cultural bias
