Lesson 2 - Culture Bias Flashcards
Define culture
This can be defined as the norms, values, belief and patterns of behaviour shared by a group of people.
Define Culture Bias
Cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions, and a tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all psychological research findings through the lens of one’s own culture.
Define Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct. An ethnocentric perspective can also take the stance that one’s own culture is superior to other cultures.
Define Cultural Relativism
This is the idea that a behaviour can only be properly understood and only truly makes sense when in the context of the norms and values of the society or culture in which it occurs.
Define Universality
This is when a theory is applicable to all people, regardless of their culture.
Define Etic Approach
An etic approach looks at behaviour from the outside of the culture
Define Emic Approach
An emic approach considers behaviour from the inside of the culture.
What study gives an example of cultural relativism?
Sternberg (1985)
The meaning of intelligence is different in every culture. Sternberg pointed out that coordination skills may be essential to life in a preliterate society (e.g the ability to shoot a bow and arrow) may be mostly irrelevant with what is relevant in a literate and more “developed” society.
Evaluation of Culture Bias - Real world effects
Culturally biased research may have real world effects, such as amplifying and validating cultural or racial stereotypes. For example, the US army used an IQ test before WW1 which was culturally biased toward the dominant white majority. This test showed that African-Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale, and this resulted in more negative attitudes towards African-Americans from White Americans.
Evaluation of Culture Bias - Recognising the Issue
Psychological research is severely unrepresentative of the rest of the world. Smith and Bond found in their 1998 survey of European textbooks on social psychology. They found that 66% of the studies were American, 32% were European, and only 2% came from the rest of the world. This issue can be greatly improved by simply selecting different cultural groups to study on.
Evaluation of Culture Bias - Contemporary psychology
Contemporary psychologists are significantly more open minded and come from many different backgrounds, and the understanding of other cultures has increased at both a personal and professional level. International psychology conferences increase the exchange of ideas between psychologists, which has helped to reduce ethnocentrism.
Evaluation of Culture Bias - Indigenous psychologies
Indigenous psychologies are theories that come explicitly from people in different cultural contexts. For example, Afrocentrism is 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.
Evaluation of Culture Bias - Diagnosing mental disorders
The American DSM system virtually ignored mental disorders that are found mainly or exclusively in non-American cultures. Kleinman and Cohen (1997) pointed out detailed work in several non-Western cultures had uncovered many disorders ignored by DSM-IV in 1994. These consisted of Pa-fend (fear of wind) found in China, Amafufunya (violent behaviour caused by spirit possession) found in South Africa, and brain fag (problems in concentrating and thinking produced by excessive study) found in West Africa.
