Gender + Culture In Psychology - Cultural Bias Flashcards
Define cultural bias
-Tendency to interpret all phenomena through the ‘lens’ of ones own culture , ignoring the effects that cultural differences may have on behaviour
What similar issue arises with culture like with gender
-Universality + bias
-was reported psychology has been dominated by men + made assumptions on human behaviour based on male behaviour
Whats meant by universality + bias in psychological research for culture
-Henrich et al reviewed hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals ,found 68% research p/s came from US
-96% from industrialised nations
-another review found 80% research p/s were undergraduates studying psychology
- findings suggest what we know of human behaviour has strong cultural bias, psychologists claim to have discovered ‘facts’ about universal human behaviour
What term did Henrich come up with to reflect this cultural bias
-Henrich coined the term ‘WEIRD’ to describe group likely to be studied by psychologists - Westernised, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich, Democracies
-if norm for particular behaviour set by WEIRD people, then behaviour of non-westernised, less educated, agricultural, poorer cultures is seen ‘abnormal’ ‘inferior’
Whats meant by ethnocentrism
-form of cultural bias
-judging other cultures by standards / values of ones own culture
-in extreme form, belief of superiority of own culture leading to prejudice and discrimination
How might Ainsworth research be considered ethnocentric
-Strange situations criticised as reflecting only norms of ‘western’ culture
-suggest ‘ideal’ attachment is characterised by babies showing moderate distress when alone - secure
- misinterpretation of child rearing practices in other countries which were seen to ‘deviate’ from American norm
-eg Japanese infants more likely to be classed insecurely attached , showing lots of distress on separation
Who drew a distinction between etic + emic approaches in study of human behaviour + what is the difference?
-John Berry
-etic approach looks at behaviour from outside a given culture , attempts to describe behaviour as universal
-emic approach functions from inside culture + identifies behaviours specific to only that culture
Give an example of research that is guilty of imposed etic
-Ainsworths and Bells research , studied behaviour inside of one culture (America) and assumed ideal attachment type + method of assessing it could be universally applied
-another eg of imposed etic is how we define abnormality
-deviation from ideal mental health - (link back)
What is meant by cultural relativism
-Idea that norms + values + ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful + understood within specific social/cultural contexts
What suggestion is there that psychologists should be more culturally relative
-Berry argues psychology often guilty of imposed etic arguing that theories, models are universal when hey actually came about through emic research inside a single culture
-should be more mindful of cultural relativism of their research
-things they discover may only make sense form perspective of culture within they were discovered
- being able to recognise this is a way of avoiding cultural bias in research
-emic approach more preferential
Whats meant by culture bounds syndrome
-group of syndromes classified as treatable illnesses in certain cultures that aren’t recognised as such in the West
Whats meant by an individualist culture
-Refers to western countries like the US that are thought to be more independent
Whats meant by collectivist culture
-refers to cultures such as India + china that are said to be more conformist + group-orientated
Whats meant by research tradition
-the familiarity of a certain culture has with taking part in psychological investigation
Whats a limitation in that many classic studies in psychology are culturally biased
cultural bias is a feature in studies of social influence
Eg Asch + Milgram conduced exclusively with American p/s - most of whom were white, middle-class students
Replications of studies in different countries produced diff results
Eg asch-type experiment in collectivist culture found significantly higher conformity rates than original studies in US , and individualist culture
Suggests our understanding of topics like social influence should only be applied to individualist cultures
Whats the counterpoint to the limitation that many classical studies in psychology are culturally biased
In age of increased media globalisation , argued that individualist-collectivist distinction no longer applies
Traditional argument is that individualists value individuals + independence , whilst collectivists value society + needs of group
However, Takano + Osaka found 14/15 studies that compared US and Japan, found no evidence of individualism / collectivism , describing distinction as lazy/simplistic
Suggest cultural bias in research may be less of an issue in more recent psychological research
Whats a strength of identifying cultural bias
Emergence of cultural psychology
Cultural/ multicultural psychology according to Cohen is the study of how people shape , + are shaped by their cultural experience
This is an emerging field , + incorporates work form researchers in other disciplines including anthropology , sociology + political science
Cultural psychologists strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking emic approach , conducting research from inside culture, with local researchers , culturally based techniques
Cross-cultural research focuses on 2 cultures instead of larger scale studies with 8 cultures/countries
Suggests modern psychologists mindful of dangers of cultural bias, + try avoid it
Whats a further limitation of cultural bias in psychology
Has lead to prejudice against groups of people , ethnic stereotyping
Gould explained how fist intelligence tests led to eugenic social policies in US
Psychologists used opportunity of WW1 to pilot first IQ test
Many items on test ethnocentric , eg assuming everyone would know names of US presidents
Result was recruits from SE Europe + African Americans received lowest scores
Poor performance of groups not taken as sign of inadequacy but used to inform racist discourse about the genetic inferiority of particular cultural + ethnic groups
Ethnic minorities deemed ‘mentally unfit’ ‘feeble-minded’ in comparison to white majority, + were denied Educational/professional opportunities as a result
Illustrates how cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice + discrimination towards certain cultural/ethnic groups
