Issues & Debate Flashcards
What is cultural bias
A tendency to ignore cultural differences & interpret all phenomena through the ‘lens’ of one’s culture
Universality
Psychology claims to have universality (when a theory/ concept/ research can be applied to everyone/ all irrespective of gender or culture
- in 1992, 64% of the worlds 56 000 psychology researchers were American
- a social psychology textbook had 94% of its studies conducted in North America
- these stats suggest that psychology is dominated by white American males
-yet we claim to know universal “facts” about human behaviour
Cultural bias in social influence studies
E.g. social influence research; Asch, milgram, zimbardo all used American male samples, yet generalised thief findings to every culture
- people conform due to NSI and ISI
- the power of the situation causes people to conform to their social roles
- people will harm others if ordered by an authority figure
- but when Milgrams study was replicated in Germany and Australia findings were difference , 87% 16%
Ethnocentrism
Judging other cultures by the standing values of one’s own culture (believing your own culture to be the norm and therefore superior compared to others)
e.g. defining abnormality - deviation from social norms (even failure to function adequately)
even diagnosis - Cochrane found that African Caribbean immigrants were 7 times more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder in the UK
Aithsworth’s strange situation
when she found out that 70% of children were securely attached in her study, she concluded this was the ‘healthy, desirable’ attachment style
but Van Ijendoorn conducted a meta analysis on 8 countries, 32 studies, that showed very different proportions of each attachment type
ainsworth was judging other cultures through her findings- believing the norms for every culture was the same as in Britain (Universal)
Culturalism relativism
the idea that norms, vales, ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful and understood within the social and cultural context that it originated
“it doesn’t need to make sense to the, only to us”
e.g. spirituality - often understood to differ across cultures, religious practices, Christmas
- lack of cultural relativism in psychology
- Evaluating cultural bias
Theoretical value
Many (classic studies) in psychology sffer from culture bias because they use ppts from one culture (usually american/western) and apply conclusions to all cultures
e.g. social influence , research by Asch and milgram was only conducted by Us white males, middle class
We must now question whether our understanding of social influence behaviour applies to anyone beyond that demographic (e.g. collectivist cultures)
lack of universality threatens the explanatory power and validity of most psychological research
e.g. smith and born found that conformity rayes in Asch-type studies were most higher in collectivist cultures (japan, hong kong, fiji) than individualistic ones (US)
however some large that the individualist - collectivist distinction doesn’t apply to cultures today)
- its traditionally believed that those from individualistic cultures value independence whilst those from collectivist cultures value the needs to the groups/ community more)
- this is due to increase in media globalisation- we can learn a lot more about differences across cultures through social media, youtube, so differences in behaviour may not be as significant
e.g. takaro & osaka looked at 15 studies that compared US and Japan for evidence of individualism/ collectivism - 14/15 studies found no evidence
Ethnic stereotyping
Cultural bias encyclical research has led to prejudice against particular groups of people
the first IQ test made were Piloted on US Army recruits where many items on the test were ethnocentric
E.g. Knowing the names of all the US presidents
- recruits with the lowest scores came from southeast and European and african-american backgrounds
- conclusions didn’t acknowledge that poor performance was due to issues with the test, instead it was concluded that people from those ethnic groups were generally inferior
- it was concluded to believe that the ethnic minorities were particularly mentally unfit and feeble-minded and comparison to the white majority
A solution? Cultural psychology
Engagement of cultural bias in research has led to the emergence of cultural psychology
- this study of how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experiences
this discipline involves working with sociologists anthropologists and political scientists as well as local psychologists ( from the same culture as participants studied)
this study specific cultural groups using culturally specific tools to investigate behavior
- results and conclusions are only applied to people from the culture that has been investigated ( cultural relevatism)
this is to avoid making ethnocentric assumptions about people’s behavior
gender bias
when psychological research or theory offers a view that doesn’t justifiably represents the experience as behaviours of all genders
universality in psychology research is threatened by gender ( and cultural) bias
bias against men
Isabella’s interactional synchrony study only looked as women as primary caregivers
bias against women
asch only looked at men
types of bias
alpha bias
beta bias
alpha bias
theories that exaggerate and overestimate differences between gender groups that are assumed to be real and enduring
e.g. attachment roles
beta bias
theories that ignore minimise differences between gendered that are assumed to be insignificant
social influence e.g. milgram, asch
Alpha bias in freuds psychosexal stages
He generally viewed femininity as ‘ failed masculinity’
- in the third psychosexual stage Freud went into detail about boys experiences of the oedipus complex
- he had a low Lester say about girls electra complex but once as far as to say that girls have penis envy
- boys experience fear of castration of their most prized possession and girls experience envy of not having one and just settle for being a woman as they grow up?
alpha bias in attatchment
Grossman found that Father’s attachment did not impact quality of attachment in their teen children but quality of play did( but mothers attachment did)
- maternal deprivation? why is there a theory on paternal deprivation
beta bias example
more apparent in psychology but harder to justify
- the fight or flight response : a supposedly universal Theory that was best purely on male animals
Why? it was suggested that because females had more hormones that flocked and consistently it was more reliable to study on male samples. nonetheless it was concluded that the fight or flight response was a universal response to threat
however Taylor (2000) found that female biology may have involved to inhibit the fight or flight response. with attention shifting towards caring for their offspring and have developed defensive strategies with other females
Androcentrism
Consequence of beta bias is androcentrism
male centered: when ‘ normal’ behavior is judged according to the male standard ( meaning that that’s the female behavior is abnormal or deficient in comparison
