Issues And Debates– culture bias Flashcards
What is culture bias?
The tendency to judge people in terms of ones own assumptions. Most of psychological research tends to suffer from a western bias, and it is assumed the findings can be applied to tether cultures.
What is meant by weird people?
(Westernised, educated people from industrial, rich democracies)
What did Henrich et al note?
‘WEIRD’ persons are were likely to be studied by psychologists.
What is ethnocentrism?
Seeing the world only from ones own cultural perspective and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct. This is an example of cultural bias.
What is an example of Ethnocentrism?
Ainsworth & Bell’s (1970) strange situation:
- developed to assess attachment types
- many researchers assume that the strange situation has the same meaning for infants from other cultures, as it does for American children.
- German children: higher rates of insecure-avoidance attachment, not because German mothers are more insensitive. Instead, they value and encourage independent behaviour, and therefore their children react differently in the strange situation.
What is cultural relativism?
Insists that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
What is an example of cultural relativism?
- the meaning of intelligence is different in every culture. For example:
- Sternberg (1985) pointed out that coordination skills that may be essential to life in a preliterate society may be mostly irrelevant to intelligent behaviour for most people in a literate and more “developed” society.
- therefore the only way to understand intelligence is to take the cultural context into account.
What did Berry identify about cultural bias?
Etic approach
Emic approach
Impose etic
What is the etic approach?
Looks at behaviour from outside a culture and identifies behaviour that are universal.
What it the emic approach?
Function from inside a culture, and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture.
What is imposed etic?
Ainsworth & Bell studied behaviours inside as single culture assumed the ideal attachment type could be applied universally.
What is alpha bias in terms of culture bias?
Occurs when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly.
What is beta bias in terms of culture bias?
When real cultural differences are ignored or minimised and all people are assumed to be the same, resulting in universal research designs and conclusions.
What is universitiality in terms of culture bias?
Idea that conclusions drawn in psychological research can be applied to everybody, everywhere, regardless of time or culture.
What is the strength of culture bias?
Growing influence of cultural psychology.
