, Issues: culture bias 🔥🔥
Culture bias =
• when psychological research o ers a view that does not represent all cultures because cultural di erences have been ignored and ndings have been interpreted through the lens
of ones own culture - this threatens universality of research which aims to develop theories that apply to everyone
• Majority of ppts in psychological research are considered to be westerners; particularly americans and students are over represented in research; a review found that 68% of
research ppts came from the US, and 96% from industrialised nations - another review found that 80% of research ppts were undergraduates studying psychology
• In psychological research WEIRD people/samples are seen as the norm and set the standard - it stands for westernised, educated people from industrialised, rich democracies - if
the norm or standard for a particular behaviour is set by WEIRD people, then behaviour of people from non-western, less educated, agricultural and poorer cultures are seen as
abnormal/inferior/unusual
Ethnocentrism=
• judging other cultures according to the norms and standards of ones own culture - at the extreme level it is believing in the superiority of ones own culture (believing your culture is
the best one)
• An example of ethnocentrism - the strange situation; Ainsworths research on attachment type re ected the norms of US culture - they suggested that ideal/secure attachment was
de ned as a baby showing moderate distress when left alone by the mother gure - this has led to interpretation of child-rearing (raising) practices in other countries which deviated
from the US norm, e.g Japanese babies rarely left on own, more likely to be classes as insecurely attached as they show distress on separation
• Another example of ethnocentrism - how abnormality is de ned in psychology, e.g using deviation from social norms to measures abnormality; e.g some cultures may nd it normal
to walk around barefoot
Cultural relativism =
• The idea that a behaviour can only be properly understood/only has meaning/makes sense in the context of the norms and values of the society or culture in which it occurs
• an example of the issue of cultural relativism is that ainsworth tried to say that there are 3 universal types of attachment, however, the strange situation test was not culturally
relative, it was designed by western child-rearing practices and then used all over the world. Japanese children appeared highly resistant in the strange situation, but this could’ve
been due to the fact that in japan they value close physical contact with baby as much as possible. Therefore the baby is not used to being separated, thus they will have extreme
separation anxiety - the strange situation ignores that di erent cultures have di erent child-rearing practices
• A behaviour is either culturally relative (speci c to one culture) or is a universal behaviour ( ts to every culture) - e.g an example of universality is that globally we seem to have the
same facial emotions/express the same set of facial emotions & we seem to have the same mate preferences (Buss)
Imposed etic/emic approaches =
• etic approach - looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal (Is a bad thing - they are not going to enter the culture, they
have made their test/assumption and say that what they found in their culture will t other cultures) - e.g ainsworth is an example/is guilty of an imposed etic approach as it
assumed that the US based model for classifying attachment was the norm. Ainsworth then imposed her own cultural understanding on the rest of the world
• Emic approach - functions from inside a culture and identi es behaviours that are speci c to that culture (is a good thing) - e.g mead had an emic approach to psychological
research. She was interested in looking at gendered behaviour. She went to papa New Guinea and examined those di erent tribes from the inside. Her results said that they were all
di erent and that there is no gendered norm
How to reduce culture bias =
• do not attempt to extrapolate ndings/theories to cultures that are not represented in the research sample
• use researchers who are native to/familiar with/immersed in the culture being investigated
• carry out cross-cultural research rather than research with a sole culture (Western culture)
Evidence to support the view that psychological research is culturally biased =
1) attachment - Ainsworth strange situation was devised in the US - the research in the USA concluded that secure attachment was ideal. However, van Ijzendoorn and
kroonenberg (1988) showed that there are variations in atttahcment type across cultures. E.g they found a high % of insecure avoidant infants in Germany, leading to the
misinterpretation that German mothers were cold and rejecting, but the mothers argued that they were bringing their children up to be independent
2) de nitions of abnormality - e.g in deviation from ideal mental health de nition, personal autonomy is seen as essential for adequate mental health. However, this is based on
the western view that values independence. In deviation from social norms, the norms relating to abnormality are dependent on culture, e.g hearing voices may be valued in one
culture but seen as evidence of Sz in another
3) gender - mead had an emic approach to psychological research. She was interested in looking at gendered behaviour. She went to papa New Guinea and examined those
di erent tribes from the inside. Her results said that they were all di erent and that there is no gendered norm — however, mead also has been criticised of an etic approach -
mead studied gender in 3 di erent social groups in Papua New Guinea. Her ndings were interpreted using the western views of masculinity and femininity.
4) Sz - validity of diagnosis - there is a culture bias of diagnosis of Sz. Keith et al found 2.1% of African Americans are diagnosed with Sz compared to 1% of the white
population. This suggests that behaviours and beliefs shown by people from other cultures are being misinterpreted as Sz
— = bias in research methods - smith and bond surveyed research in one European text book on social psychology and found that 66% of the studies were American, 32%
European and 2% from the rest of the world - this suggests that research is severely unrepresentative and that there is almost an institutionalised cultural bias in psychology as
students would be learning about universal behaviours that were demonstrated only in certain cultures
— = culturally biased research can have signi cant real world e ects, e.g amplifying and validating damaging stereotypes - the US army used an IQ test before WW1 which was
culturally biased toward the dominant white majority - this showed that African-Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale - this had a negative e ect on the attitudes of
Americans toward this group of people, which highlights the negative impact that culturally biased research can have
+ = cultural psychology - addressing culture bias/bring more awareness of the importance of cultural relativism has led to the deveopment of cultural psychology as a eld - this is a
strength because researchers now adopt emic approaches, studying behaviour within speci c cultures and working with local researcher to avoid ethnocentric assumptions and
enable us to conduct valuable cross cultural research - this means that modern research is more culturally sensitive and produces ndings that are more valid and representative of
di erent societies
+ = not all human behaviour is culturally relative - e.g stages of kohlbegrs cogntiive theory of gender development in gender have been demonstrated across a wide range of cultures
- this means that a full understanding of behaviour would require universal and cross cultural research - also, facial expressions for emotions have been found to be the same all over
the world - thus this is also universal
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Culture bias =
• when psychological research o ers a view that does not represent all cultures because cultural di erences have been ignored and ndings have been interpreted through the lens
of ones own culture - this threatens universality of research which aims to develop theories that apply to everyone
• Majority of ppts in psychological research are considered to be westerners; particularly americans and students are over represented in research; a review found that 68% of
research ppts came from the US, and 96% from industrialised nations - another review found that 80% of research ppts were undergraduates studying psychology
• In psychological research WEIRD people/samples are seen as the norm and set the standard - it stands for westernised, educated people from industrialised, rich democracies - if
the norm or standard for a particular behaviour is set by WEIRD people, then behaviour of people from non-western, less educated, agricultural and poorer cultures are seen as
abnormal/inferior/unusual
Ethnocentrism=
• judging other cultures according to the norms and standards of ones own culture - at the extreme level it is believing in the superiority of ones own culture (believing your culture is
the best one)
• An example of ethnocentrism - the strange situation; Ainsworths research on attachment type re ected the norms of US culture - they suggested that ideal/secure attachment was
de ned as a baby showing moderate distress when left alone by the mother gure - this has led to interpretation of child-rearing (raising) practices in other countries which deviated
from the US norm, e.g Japanese babies rarely left on own, more likely to be classes as insecurely attached as they show distress on separation
• Another example of ethnocentrism - how abnormality is de ned in psychology, e.g using deviation from social norms to measures abnormality; e.g some cultures may nd it normal
to walk around barefoot
Cultural relativism =
• The idea that a behaviour can only be properly understood/only has meaning/makes sense in the context of the norms and values of the society or culture in which it occurs
• an example of the issue of cultural relativism is that ainsworth tried to say that there are 3 universal types of attachment, however, the strange situation test was not culturally
relative, it was designed by western child-rearing practices and then used all over the world. Japanese children appeared highly resistant in the strange situation, but this could’ve
been due to the fact that in japan they value close physical contact with baby as much as possible. Therefore the baby is not used to being separated, thus they will have extreme
separation anxiety - the strange situation ignores that di erent cultures have di erent child-rearing practices
• A behaviour is either culturally relative (speci c to one culture) or is a universal behaviour ( ts to every culture) - e.g an example of universality is that globally we seem to have the
same facial emotions/express the same set of facial emotions & we seem to have the same mate preferences (Buss)
Imposed etic/emic approaches =
• etic approach - looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal (Is a bad thing - they are not going to enter the culture, they
have made their test/assumption and say that what they found in their culture will t other cultures) - e.g ainsworth is an example/is guilty of an imposed etic approach as it
assumed that the US based model for classifying attachment was the norm. Ainsworth then imposed her own cultural understanding on the rest of the world
• Emic approach - functions from inside a culture and identi es behaviours that are speci c to that culture (is a good thing) - e.g mead had an emic approach to psychological
research. She was interested in looking at gendered behaviour. She went to papa New Guinea and examined those di erent tribes from the inside. Her results said that they were all
di erent and that there is no gendered norm
How to reduce culture bias =
• do not attempt to extrapolate ndings/theories to cultures that are not represented in the research sample
• use researchers who are native to/familiar with/immersed in the culture being investigated
• carry out cross-cultural research rather than research with a sole culture (Western culture)
Evidence to support the view that psychological research is culturally biased =
1) attachment - Ainsworth strange situation was devised in the US - the research in the USA concluded that secure attachment was ideal. However, van Ijzendoorn and
kroonenberg (1988) showed that there are variations in atttahcment type across cultures. E.g they found a high % of insecure avoidant infants in Germany, leading to the
misinterpretation that German mothers were cold and rejecting, but the mothers argued that they were bringing their children up to be independent
2) de nitions of abnormality - e.g in deviation from ideal mental health de nition, personal autonomy is seen as essential for adequate mental health. However, this is based on
the western view that values independence. In deviation from social norms, the norms relating to abnormality are dependent on culture, e.g hearing voices may be valued in one
culture but seen as evidence of Sz in another
3) gender - mead had an emic approach to psychological research. She was interested in looking at gendered behaviour. She went to papa New Guinea and examined those
di erent tribes from the inside. Her results said that they were all di erent and that there is no gendered norm — however, mead also has been criticised of an etic approach -
mead studied gender in 3 di erent social groups in Papua New Guinea. Her ndings were interpreted using the western views of masculinity and femininity.
4) Sz - validity of diagnosis - there is a culture bias of diagnosis of Sz. Keith et al found 2.1% of African Americans are diagnosed with Sz compared to 1% of the white
population. This suggests that behaviours and beliefs shown by people from other cultures are being misinterpreted as Sz
— = bias in research methods - smith and bond surveyed research in one European text book on social psychology and found that 66% of the studies were American, 32%
European and 2% from the rest of the world - this suggests that research is severely unrepresentative and that there is almost an institutionalised cultural bias in psychology as
students would be learning about universal behaviours that were demonstrated only in certain cultures
— = culturally biased research can have signi cant real world e ects, e.g amplifying and validating damaging stereotypes - the US army used an IQ test before WW1 which was
culturally biased toward the dominant white majority - this showed that African-Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale - this had a negative e ect on the attitudes of
Americans toward this group of people, which highlights the negative impact that culturally biased research can have
+ = cultural psychology - addressing culture bias/bring more awareness of the importance of cultural relativism has led to the deveopment of cultural psychology as a eld - this is a
strength because researchers now adopt emic approaches, studying behaviour within speci c cultures and working with local researcher to avoid ethnocentric assumptions and
enable us to conduct valuable cross cultural research - this means that modern research is more culturally sensitive and produces ndings that are more valid and representative of
di erent societies
+ = not all human behaviour is culturally relative - e.g stages of kohlbegrs cogntiive theory of gender development in gender have been demonstrated across a wide range of cultures
- this means that a full understanding of behaviour would require universal and cross cultural research - also, facial expressions for emotions have been found to be the same all over
the world - thus this is also universal
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ff fi ff fi fi ff ff fififf fi fifi ff fi fi fi fi flff
