Gender And Culture Psychology: Culture Bias

What is culture bias?

A tendency to interpret all phenomena through the ‘lens‘ of one’s own culture, ignoring the effects that cultural differences might have on behaviour.

What did Henrich et al. review?

Hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals.

What were the findings of Henrich et al?

That 68^ of research participants came from the US, and 96% from industrialised nations. Another study found that 80% of research participants were undergraduates studying psychology.

What do the findings of Henrich et al suggest?

That what we know about human behaviour has a strong cultural bias. Psychologists routinely claim to have discovered ‘facts‘ about universal human behaviour.

What term did Henrich et al. coin?

WEIRD.

What does WEIRD stand for?

Western, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich Democracies.

What happens if the norm or standard for a particular behaviour is set by WEIRD people?

The behaviour of non-WEIRD people is seen as abnormal, inferior or unusual,

What is ethnocentrism?

Judging other cultures by the standards and values of ones own culture. In its extreme form, it is the belief in the superiority of one’s own culture which may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures.

What is an example of ethnocentrism in research?

Ainsworth and Bell’s Strange Situation: often criticised as reflecting only the norms and values of what is sometimes called ‘Western’ culture.

How is Ainsworth’s strange situation an example of ethnocentrism in research?

They conducted research on attachment type, suggesting that ideal' attachment was characterised by the babies showing moderate amounts of distress when left alone by their mother-figure (typical of secure attachment). However, this led to misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries which were seen to deviate from the American 'norm'.

For example Japanese infants were much more likely to be classed as insecurely attached because they showed considerable distress on separation (Takahashi 1986). It is likely that this finding was due to the fact that Japanese babies are rarely separated from their mother.

What is cultural relativism?

The idea that norms and values, as well as ethnics and moral standards, can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultual contexts.

What does Berry draw a distinction between?

Etic and emic approaches in the study of human behaviour.

What does an etic approach look at?

Behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal.

How does an emic approach function?

From inside a culture and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture.

What is the Strange Situation an example of?

An imposed etic - they studied behaviour inside one culture and then assumed their ideal attachment type, and the method for assessing it, could be applied universally.

What does Berry argue?

That psychology has often been guilty of an imposed etic approach - arguing that theories, models, concepts, ect., are universal, when they actually came about through emic research inside a single culture.

What is the suggestion to the imposed etic approach in psychology?

That psychologists should be much more mindful of the cultural relativism of their research.

What is the strength of research into culture bias?

• Cultural psychology.

How is cultural psychology a strength of research into cultural bias?

Cultural (sometimes multicultural) psychology is, according to Cohen, the study of how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experience. This is an emerging field and incorporates work from researchers in other disciplines including anthropology, sociology and political science. Cultural psychologists strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an eric approach and conducting research from inside a culture, often alongside local researchers using culturally-based techniques. Cross-cultural research tends to focus on just two cultures instead of larger scale studies with maybe eight or more countries/cultures.

What does cultural psychology suggest?

That modern psychologists are mindful of the dangers of cultural bias and are taking steps to avoid it.

What are the limitations of culture bias?

• Classic studies being culture biased.

• Ethnic stereotyping.

How is classic studies being culture biased a limitation of culture bias?

Many of the most influential studies in psychology are culturally-biased; cultural bias is a feature of many classic studies of social influence. For instance, both Asch's and Milgram's original studies were conducted exclusively with US participants (most of whom were white, middle-class students). Replications of these studies in different countries produced rather different results. For instance, Asch-type experiments in collectivist cultures found significantly higher rates of conformity than the original studies in the US, an individualist culture (eg. Smith and Bond ).

What does many of the classic studies being culture biased suggest?

This suggests our understanding of topics such as social influence should only be applied to individualist cultures.

What is the counterpoint to most of the classic studies being culture biased?

In an age of increased media globalisation, it is argued that the individualist-collectivist distinction no longer applies. The traditional argument is that individualist countries (such as the US) value individuals and independence, whilst collectivist cultures/countries, such as India and China, value society and the needs of the group. However, Takano and Osaka found that 14 out of 15 studies that compared the US and Japan found no evidence of individualism or collectivism - describing the distinction as lazy and simplistic.

What does the counterpoint to most of the classic studies being culture biased suggest?

That cultural bias in research may be less of an issue in more recent psychological research.

How is ethnic stereotyping a limitation of culture bias in psychology?

One limitation of cultural bias in psychology is it has led to prejudice against groups of people.Gould explained how the first intelligence tests led to eugenic social policies in the US. Psychologists used the opportunity of World War I to pilot their first IQ tests on 1.75 million army recruits. Many of the items on the test were ethnocentric, for example assuming everyone would know the names of the US presidents. The result was that recruits from south-eastern Europe and African-Americans received the lowest scores. The poor performance of these groups was not taken as a sign of the test's inadequacy but was instead used to inform racist discourse about the genetic inferiority of particular cultural and ethnic groups. Ethnic minorities were deemed 'mentally unfit' and 'feeble-minded' in comparison to the white majority and were denied educational and professional opportunities as a result.

What does ethnic stereotyping illustrate?

How cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice and discrimination towards certain cultural and ethnic groups.