Gender & Culture in Psychology: Cultural Bias

Question 1

Define ‘culture bias’.

Answer 1

• A tendancy to ignore all cultural differences & interpret all phenomena through the lens of ones own culture

Question 2

What are the 3 types of biases in culture bias?

Answer 2

• Alpha Bias
• Beta Bias
• Ethnocentrism

Question 3

What is alpha bias?

Answer 3

• Exaggerating the differences between cultures

Question 4

What is beta bias?

Answer 4

• Minimising or ignoring differences between cultures

Question 5

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 5

• Seeing behaviour from one cultural perspective & judging ‘normal’ to be based on that perspective- anything else is ‘abnormal’, ‘inferior’ or ‘deviant’

Question 6

What study is an example of ethnocentrism?

Answer 6

• Ainsworths strange situation is an e.g of this, criticised as reflecting only the norms & values of what is sometimes called ‘Western’ culture
• Conducted research on attachment type, suggesting that ‘ideal’ attachment was characterised by babies showing moderate amounts of distress when left alone by their (secure attachment) mother.
• However this led to misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries which were seen to deviate from the American ‘norm’
• For example, Japanese infants were much more likely to be classed as insecurely attached because they showed considerable distress on seperation (Takashi 1986)
• It is likely that this finding was due to the fact that Japanese babies are rarely separated from their mother

Question 7

Name a study to do with cultural bias around the world.

Answer 7

• Smith & Bond (1998)
• Looked over two psychology textbooks
• Found 89% of studies from USA majority of studies outside of europe
• 2-3% of the 11% of studies conducted outside the USA came from outside of UK, Australia or NZ

Question 8

What study was conducted for cross cultural research in intelligence testing?

Answer 8

• Cole et al 1971 presented an African tribe, the Kpelle with pictures of 20 objects & asked them to put them into groups
• The Kpelle did not put objects into categorical groups as the researchers expected but put them into functional groups e.g. an orange with a knife
• When asked to put them as a ‘stupid’ person might, they put these into expected categorical groups
• Idea of mental quickness as being a characterisitc of intelligence is universally accepted
• Except the Banganda tribe in Uganda associate intelligence with slow, deliberate thought

Question 9

What are the problems with doing research in different cultures?

Answer 9

• Participants: Backrounds & types of participants
• Translation: Problems that may lead to misunderstanding or incorrect analysis
• Manipulation of variables: Operationalisation may be different
• The research tradition: The concept of scientific research may not be familiar leading to trust issues & reactions of ppts

Question 10

Define cultural relativism.

Answer 10

• The idea that norms & values as well as ethics & moral standards can only be meaningful & understood within specific social & cultural contexts

Question 11

What did John Berry conclude about cultural relativism?

Answer 11

• Drawn a distinction between etic & emic approaches in study of human behaviour
• An etic approach looks at behaviour from outside a given culture & attempts to describe those behaviours as universal
• An emic approach functions from inside a culture & identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture.

e.g. strange situation is imposed ETIC they studied behaviour inside one culture, assumed their ideal attachment type & applied it universally
Berry argues that often psychology has been guilty of an imposed ETIC approach

Question 12

What cultural differences are there in understanding depression?

Answer 12

• Cross cultural research shows that there are substantial variations in depressive experience & disorder
• For example, is some cultures depression may be experienced largely in somatic terms rather than w sadness or guilt
• Complaints of nerves & headaches (in Latino & Medeterranian cultures)
• Weakness, tiredness or imbalance (in Latino & Medeterranean cultures)
• And problems of the heat (In Middle Eastern Cultures) may express depressive experiences

Question 13

Give one limitation of culture bias.

Answer 13

• Many of the most influential studies in psychology are culturally- biased
• CB is a feature of many classic studies in social influence e.g. both Asch & Milgram were conducted exculsively w US ppts- replications of these studies in different countries produced rather different results
• For instance, Asch type experiments in collectivist cultures found significantly higher rates of conformity than original studies in the US, an individualist culture
• Suggests our understanding of topics such as SI should only be applied to individualistic cultures

Question 14

Give one strength of cultural bias.

Answer 14

• OS is the emergence of cultural psychology
• Cultural (sometimes multi cultural psychology is study of how people shape & are shaped by their cultural experience
• Its an emerging field & incorporates work from researchers in other disciplines like anthropology, socilogy & political science
• Cultural psychologists strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach & conducting research from inside a culture, often alongside local researchers using culturally-based techniques
• This suggests modern psychologists are mindful of dangers of cultural bias & are taking steps to avoid it

Question 15

Give another limitation of cultural bias.

Answer 15

• OL: It has led to prejudice against groups of people
• Gould (1981) explained how the 1st intelligence tests led to eugenic social policies in the US. Psychologists used opportunity of WW1 to pilot their first IQ tests on 1.75m army recruits
• Many of items on test were ethnocentric e.g. assuming everyone would know names of the US presidents
• The result was that recruits from SE europe & African Americans recieved lowest scores
• The poor performance of these groups was not taken as sign of the tests inadequacy but was instead used to inform racist discourse about the genetic inferiority of particular cultural & ethnic groups
• Ethnic minorities were deemed as ‘mentally unfit’ & ‘feeble-minded’ in comparison to white majority & were denied educational & professional opportunities as a result.

• This illustrates how cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice & discrimination towards certain cultural & ethnic groups