Cultural Bias in Psychology
Cultural Bias
Culture can be defined as the values, belief, patterns of behaviour shared by a group of people. A
variety of factors shape culture, and these different factors are reflected in the differences between
various cultures.
In 1992, 64% of the world’s 56,000 psychology researchers were American. 94% of the studies cited
were conducted in North America. Statistics such as these suggest that, as well as being a male-
dominated discipline psychology is mainly the study of white American males.
Despite having enquires in parts of the world many psychologists routinely claim to have discovered
“facts” about human behaviour that are “universal.”
The acronym “WEIRD” has been used to describe the type of participants of Psychology studies.
Western
Educated
Industrialised
Rich
Democratic
Universality and Bias
Findings of psychological studies may only apply to the particular groups of people who were
studied, rather than apply to the entire world, some argue. Critics argue that mainstream psychology
has generally ignored culture as an important influence on human behavior and by doing so, has
mistakenly assumed that findings derived from studies carried out in Western culture can be
straightforwardly applied all over the world.
Classic social influence studies of conformity (Asch) and obedience (Milgram) were originally
conducted with US participants, but when replicated in other parts of the world, they gave very
different results. (Kilham and Mann 1974)
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Cultural Bias
Culture can be defined as the values, belief, patterns of behaviour shared by a group of people. A
variety of factors shape culture, and these different factors are reflected in the differences between
various cultures.
In 1992, 64% of the world’s 56,000 psychology researchers were American. 94% of the studies cited
were conducted in North America. Statistics such as these suggest that, as well as being a male-
dominated discipline psychology is mainly the study of white American males.
Despite having enquires in parts of the world many psychologists routinely claim to have discovered
“facts” about human behaviour that are “universal.”
The acronym “WEIRD” has been used to describe the type of participants of Psychology studies.
Western
Educated
Industrialised
Rich
Democratic
Universality and Bias
Findings of psychological studies may only apply to the particular groups of people who were
studied, rather than apply to the entire world, some argue. Critics argue that mainstream psychology
has generally ignored culture as an important influence on human behavior and by doing so, has
mistakenly assumed that findings derived from studies carried out in Western culture can be
straightforwardly applied all over the world.
Classic social influence studies of conformity (Asch) and obedience (Milgram) were originally
conducted with US participants, but when replicated in other parts of the world, they gave very
different results. (Kilham and Mann 1974)
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