Culture Bias Flashcards
What is culture bias?
The tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret the behaviour through the lens of ones own culture
What is universality?
Studies carried out in Western culture can be straightforwardly applied all over the world
How can universality affect the norms in a culture?
If the norm of a behaviour is judged from one culture, then any cultural differences in a behaviour that deviate from this norm will be seen as abnormal
What is ethnocentrism?
Judging other cultures by the standards and values of ones own culture
What is the first example of ethnocentrism?
Ainsworths strange situation was criticised for only reflecting the norms and values of an American culture. Anything that deviated from secure attachment was seen as abnormal p. For example, German mothers were seen as cold and rejecting because this is what they see as their norm so the theory should not be devised in one culture and applied to all
What is the second example of ethnocentrism?
Mallows hierarchy of needs
What is cultural relativism?
The things they discover may only make sense from the perspective of the culture within which they were discovered
What is an etic approach?
It looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal
What is an emic approach?
It functions from within or inside certain cultures and identifies behaviour specific to that culture. This should be done to avoid cultural bias
What are three limitations of cultural bias?
Culture bias is less of an issue,it shouldn’t be assumed that all psychology is culturally relative and there may be more demand characteristics if it is studied in other cultures
What is a strength of culture bias?
It’s difficult to look at research through objective, unbiased eyes but most researchers consider this and try to minimise the effects
