Issues and debates
* Gender bias
* Reductionism vs holism ✔️
* Socially sensitive research ✔️
* nature vs nurture ✔️
* Nomothetic vs idiographic ✔️
* Determinism vs free will ✔️
* Culture bias ✔️
Culture bias
* A tendency to interpret all phenomena through the lens of one's own culture,
ignoring the effects that cultural differences have on behaviour.
* Alpha bias occurs when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly
different and that recognition of these enduring differences must always inform
psychological research and understanding. DIFFERENT
* Beta bias occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised, and all
people are assumed to be the same, resulting in universal research designs and
conclusions that mistakenly assume that all cultures are the same. NOT DIFFERENT
* Henrich 2010 reviewed hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals and
found the following: 68% of research participants came from the US, 96% of
participants came from an industrial nation. Arnett found that 80% of participants
were undergrad psychology students.
* Such findings suggest that what we know about human behaviour has a strong
cultural bias. Psychologists suggest they find universal truths but they do not.
* Henrich coined a term to describe these people:
* Westernised
* Educated
* Industrialised
* Rich
* Democracies
* If you are not WEIRD then you do not get studied. If you don't get studied you
are then known as abnormal, inferior and not worth studying.
* Ethnocentric is judging other cultures by the standards and values of one's own
culture. In the extreme form it is the belief in the superiority of nes own culture
which may lead to prejudice nd discrimination towards other cultures.
* People of the US and Europe have provided an ethnocentric view of behaviour this
is due to the studies only being conducted in people from WEIRD backgrounds. Your
perspective is normal, ignorance.
* Strange situation by ainsworth. The research has the same meaning in all
cultures. Norms and values of western cultures such as what is the ideal attachment
style? Secure children. How do they behave? Upset if mother leaves, happy with
stranger with mother present. Happy when mother returns. What is the problem with
this? japanese- resistant kids, extreme distress when mother left. Bad parents
because of insecure resistant kids.
* Cultural relativism is the idea that a behaviour can only be properly understood/
only has meaning/ only makes sense in the context of the norms and values of the
society or culture in which it occurs. Need to be in the culture to fully
understand the culture.
* Berry illustrated the difference between emic and etic in the study of human
behaviour. An imposed etic bias occurs when an observer attempts to generalise
observations from one culture to another. Across cultures. Emic approach functions
within certain cultures, aiming to identify behaviours relative to that culture.
Within cultures
* Psychologists should therefore be more mindful of cultural relativism of their
research and that the things they discover may only make sense from the perspective
of that culture where they were discovered. If they acknowledge this they will then
, reduce cultural bias.
* How can we reduce cultural bias? Do not attempt to extrapolate findings to
culture that are not represented in the research sample. Use researchers who are
native to the culture being investigated. Carry our cross cultural research rather
than with a sole culture. Do not assume universal norms. Be sensitive to cultural
norms when designing research. Study single cultures. Take a reflexive approach
Evaluations of culture bias
* One weakness is that many psychological pieces of research are conducted in the
US/UK societies which are individualistic cultures. Including many influential
studies into social influence. For example the work of; Milgram, Zimbardo and Asch.
When these studies were completed on collectivist cultures they found different
findings such as; people conformed and obeyed more. Therefore it is only possible
to generalise the findings to individualistic cultures.
* However, this is not totally true of today's society because of globalisation.
For example, Osaka 1999 compared studies conducted on both individualistic and
collectivist cultures and found that 14/15 studies showed no difference within the
results. Therefore, the concept of cultural bias is not necessarily evident within
current research.
* One way to deal with cultural bias is to recognise when it occurs. Smith and Bond
found, in their 1998 survey of European textbooks on social psychology, that 66% of
the studies were American, 32% European, and only 2% from the rest of the world.
This suggests that psychological research is severely unrepresentative and can be
greatly improved by simply selecting different cultural groups to study. Therefore,
just by appreciating and understanding cultural bias can help psychologists to
avoid and overcome this issue
* One issue is that culturally biassed research can have significant real-world
effects by, for example, amplifying and validating damaging stereotypes. The US
army used an IQ test before WW1 which was culturally biassed toward the dominant
white majority. Unsurprisingly, the test showed that African-Americans were at the
bottom of the IQ scale. This matters because this had negative effects on the
attitudes of Americans’ toward this group of people, which highlights the negative
impact that culturally biassed research can have.
* One strength of developing knowledge of culturally biassed research is that this
has heightened awareness of cultural diversity which has led to the development of
indigenous psychologies’: theories drawing explicitly on the particular experiences
of people in different cultural contexts. One example is Afrocentrism, 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. This
matter is because it has led to the emergence of theories that are more relevant to
the lives and cultures of people not only in Africa, but also to those far removed
from their African origins. The development of indigenous psychologies is often
seen as a strength of cultural relativism. However, this could create
ethnocentrism as this would only apply to African cultures.
With regards to A2 spec, look through all of the year 2 stuff and identify where
culture bias can be found.
* Perspectives: humanistic self actualisation (Maslow)
* Social influence: milgram, asch and zimbardo
* Memory: Americans remembered images with more perceptual detail than East Asians
Millar et al
* Attachment: ainsworth and bowlby
* Psychopathology: deviation of social norms, deviation if ideal mental health,
failure to function
* Relationships: online relationships,
* Schizophrenia: western treat it as illness, eastern treat it as supernatural.
African origin more likely to be diagnosed (Escobar)
* Gender bias
* Reductionism vs holism ✔️
* Socially sensitive research ✔️
* nature vs nurture ✔️
* Nomothetic vs idiographic ✔️
* Determinism vs free will ✔️
* Culture bias ✔️
Culture bias
* A tendency to interpret all phenomena through the lens of one's own culture,
ignoring the effects that cultural differences have on behaviour.
* Alpha bias occurs when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly
different and that recognition of these enduring differences must always inform
psychological research and understanding. DIFFERENT
* Beta bias occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised, and all
people are assumed to be the same, resulting in universal research designs and
conclusions that mistakenly assume that all cultures are the same. NOT DIFFERENT
* Henrich 2010 reviewed hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals and
found the following: 68% of research participants came from the US, 96% of
participants came from an industrial nation. Arnett found that 80% of participants
were undergrad psychology students.
* Such findings suggest that what we know about human behaviour has a strong
cultural bias. Psychologists suggest they find universal truths but they do not.
* Henrich coined a term to describe these people:
* Westernised
* Educated
* Industrialised
* Rich
* Democracies
* If you are not WEIRD then you do not get studied. If you don't get studied you
are then known as abnormal, inferior and not worth studying.
* Ethnocentric is judging other cultures by the standards and values of one's own
culture. In the extreme form it is the belief in the superiority of nes own culture
which may lead to prejudice nd discrimination towards other cultures.
* People of the US and Europe have provided an ethnocentric view of behaviour this
is due to the studies only being conducted in people from WEIRD backgrounds. Your
perspective is normal, ignorance.
* Strange situation by ainsworth. The research has the same meaning in all
cultures. Norms and values of western cultures such as what is the ideal attachment
style? Secure children. How do they behave? Upset if mother leaves, happy with
stranger with mother present. Happy when mother returns. What is the problem with
this? japanese- resistant kids, extreme distress when mother left. Bad parents
because of insecure resistant kids.
* Cultural relativism is the idea that a behaviour can only be properly understood/
only has meaning/ only makes sense in the context of the norms and values of the
society or culture in which it occurs. Need to be in the culture to fully
understand the culture.
* Berry illustrated the difference between emic and etic in the study of human
behaviour. An imposed etic bias occurs when an observer attempts to generalise
observations from one culture to another. Across cultures. Emic approach functions
within certain cultures, aiming to identify behaviours relative to that culture.
Within cultures
* Psychologists should therefore be more mindful of cultural relativism of their
research and that the things they discover may only make sense from the perspective
of that culture where they were discovered. If they acknowledge this they will then
, reduce cultural bias.
* How can we reduce cultural bias? Do not attempt to extrapolate findings to
culture that are not represented in the research sample. Use researchers who are
native to the culture being investigated. Carry our cross cultural research rather
than with a sole culture. Do not assume universal norms. Be sensitive to cultural
norms when designing research. Study single cultures. Take a reflexive approach
Evaluations of culture bias
* One weakness is that many psychological pieces of research are conducted in the
US/UK societies which are individualistic cultures. Including many influential
studies into social influence. For example the work of; Milgram, Zimbardo and Asch.
When these studies were completed on collectivist cultures they found different
findings such as; people conformed and obeyed more. Therefore it is only possible
to generalise the findings to individualistic cultures.
* However, this is not totally true of today's society because of globalisation.
For example, Osaka 1999 compared studies conducted on both individualistic and
collectivist cultures and found that 14/15 studies showed no difference within the
results. Therefore, the concept of cultural bias is not necessarily evident within
current research.
* One way to deal with cultural bias is to recognise when it occurs. Smith and Bond
found, in their 1998 survey of European textbooks on social psychology, that 66% of
the studies were American, 32% European, and only 2% from the rest of the world.
This suggests that psychological research is severely unrepresentative and can be
greatly improved by simply selecting different cultural groups to study. Therefore,
just by appreciating and understanding cultural bias can help psychologists to
avoid and overcome this issue
* One issue is that culturally biassed research can have significant real-world
effects by, for example, amplifying and validating damaging stereotypes. The US
army used an IQ test before WW1 which was culturally biassed toward the dominant
white majority. Unsurprisingly, the test showed that African-Americans were at the
bottom of the IQ scale. This matters because this had negative effects on the
attitudes of Americans’ toward this group of people, which highlights the negative
impact that culturally biassed research can have.
* One strength of developing knowledge of culturally biassed research is that this
has heightened awareness of cultural diversity which has led to the development of
indigenous psychologies’: theories drawing explicitly on the particular experiences
of people in different cultural contexts. One example is Afrocentrism, 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. This
matter is because it has led to the emergence of theories that are more relevant to
the lives and cultures of people not only in Africa, but also to those far removed
from their African origins. The development of indigenous psychologies is often
seen as a strength of cultural relativism. However, this could create
ethnocentrism as this would only apply to African cultures.
With regards to A2 spec, look through all of the year 2 stuff and identify where
culture bias can be found.
* Perspectives: humanistic self actualisation (Maslow)
* Social influence: milgram, asch and zimbardo
* Memory: Americans remembered images with more perceptual detail than East Asians
Millar et al
* Attachment: ainsworth and bowlby
* Psychopathology: deviation of social norms, deviation if ideal mental health,
failure to function
* Relationships: online relationships,
* Schizophrenia: western treat it as illness, eastern treat it as supernatural.
African origin more likely to be diagnosed (Escobar)
