Culture Bias Flashcards
What is culture?
-The values beliefs and behaviours shared by a group of people.
What is culture bias?
-Cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions.
What is cultural relativism?
- Cultural relativism insists behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
What is ethnocentrism?
-Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct.
What is universality?
When a theory is described as universal, it means it can apply to all people, irrespective of gender and culture.
What is alpha bias when discussing culture?
-When a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different, and that recognition of these enduring differences must always inform psychological research and understanding.
What is beta bias when discussing culture?
-Beta bias occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised, and all people are assumed to be the same, resulting in universal research designs and conclusions that mistakenly assume that all cultures are the same.
Give me an example of ethnocentric research?
-Sandra Bems research on androgyny was only conducted on American participants suggesting someone displaying androgyny is considered to be psychologically healthy
Identify AO3 point for cultural bias
- Cultrural bias and stereotypes (WWI)
- Smith and Bond
- Indeginous psychologies
Give example of Cultural relativism research
-Sternberg provided research evidence that intelligence is different in every culture. He pointed out that having really developed coordination skills that may be essential for life in a preliterate society such as motor skills required for shooting a bow and arrow is considered intelligent. Which would not be considered to be required to be intelligent in a developed literate society.
Outline Smith and Bond’s research?
P: To prevent cultural bias occurring we must be able to recognise it when it occurs.
E: Smith and Bond found that European textbooks on social psychology, found that 66% of the studies were American, 32% European and only 2% from the rest of the world.
E: This suggests that psychological research is severely unrepresentative and can be greatly improved by simply selecting different cultural groups to study. Therefore, just by acknowledging cultural bias is a problem it can help psychologists to avoid and overcome this issue.
Outline how culturally biased research can lead to stereotypes
P: Culturally biased research has had negative real life effects by developing certain stereotypes of people from certain cultures.
E: The US army used an IQ test before WWI which was culturally biased toward dominant white majority. It showed black Americans were at the Bottom of the IQ scale.
E: This has had a negative impact on the attitudes of Americans’ toward this group of people, which highlights the negative impact that culturally biased research can have.
Outline how the heightened awareness of cultural diversity has led to the development of ‘indigenous psychologies’
P: heightened awareness of cultural diversity has led to the development of ‘indigenous psychology’ which are theories drawing explicitly on the particular experiences people in different cultural contexts.
E: One example is Afrocentrism, a movement which suggests that because all black people have their roots in Africa, theories about them must recognise the African context of behaviours and attitudes.
E: This is important because it has led to the emergence of theories that are more relevant to the lives and cultures of people not only in Africa, but also to those far removed from their African origins. The development of indigenous psychologies is seen as a strength of cultural relativism
