Culture Bias

Question 1

How does Universality and Bias apply in regards to culture?

Answer 1

• Henrich conducted a meta analysis of hundreds of studies and found 68% of pps came from the USA and 96% for industrialised nations
• Coined the term WEIRD to describe those most likely to be studied, Westernised, Educated, Industrialised, Rich Democracies
• If the norm of behaviour is based solely on research conducted on WEIRD people, than those form alternative socioeconomic backgrounds and cultures are labelled abnormal.

Question 2

What is Ethnocentrism?

Answer 2

• Belief in the superiority of ones own cultural group e.g those form Europe and the US have an ethnocentric view of human behaviour

Question 3

What is an example of Ethnocentrism?

Answer 3

• Ainsworth et al strange situation reflects the norms and values of western cultures, securely attached (positive connotations) were seen as exhibiting moderate distress when mother left the room as western, individualistic cultures prioritise relative independence.
• Whereas Japanese babies who showed considerable distress were labelled as insecurely attached (negative connotations) when this is thought to be due to the more collectivist culture in which they were raised

Question 4

What is Cultural Relativism?

Answer 4

• Berry drew a distinction between etic and emic approaches.
• An etic approach looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempt to describe those behaviours as universal
• Emic approach functions inside a culture and identifies a behaviour specific to that culture
• Imposed etic refers to studying behaviour in one culture and assuming the findings can be universally applicable

Question 5

What is an example of Imposed Etic?

Answer 5

• Psychopathology and ideal mental health. Jahoda’s criteria and the idea of self actualisation as a western and individualist concept when it claimed to be universally applicable.

Question 6

What is a consequence of ignorance regarding culture bias?

Answer 6

• Only now have people begun to realise that majority of influential psychological studies are culturally biased. For example Milgrams study was conducted exclusively with Americans (most of whom were white, middle class, students). When the study was repeated in Australia and Germany the results found were different. Shows we’ve been accepting these statistics as universal facts when they are not

Question 7

How has awareness of culture bias improved research in the psychological field?

Answer 7

• Development of cultural psychology. Cultural psychologists strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach, (inside a culture) often alongside local researchers. Awareness has improved the validity of cultural research as paints a more accurate picture of how behaviour varies form culture to culture.

Question 8

How has Culture Bias lead to harmful stereotyping?

Answer 8

• Led to prejudice against some groups of people. Gould explained how the first IQ test conducted were ethnocentric e.g knowledge of US Presidents and therefore the tests suggested that African Americans and Eastern European citizens has the lowest IQ, created the stereotype that Caucasian people are more intelligent than other races.
• This shows how culture bias and ethnocentrism can lead to the spread of harmful misinformation and dangerous stereotypes