PSYCH; Cultural Bias

whats cultural bias

applying behaviours/theories set by one culture to all cultures, ignoring cultural differences

what did Henrich et al suggest about culture bias

Henrich proposed the term ‘WEIRD’ to describe the group of people most likely to be studied by psychologists

WEIRD - Westernised, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich Democracies

if the norm/standard for a behaviour is set by WEIRD people then the behaviour of people from non westernised, less educated, agricultural and poorer cultures will be seen as ‘abnormal/unusual’

what does WEIRD stand for

Westernised, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich Democracies

whats meant by ethnocentrism

a form of culture bias;

belief in the superiority of one cultural group

e.g. where people from the US and Europe have presented an ethnocentric view on human behaviour

an example of Ethnocentrism from Western Views

Ainsworth & Bell’s Strange Situation;

reflects only norms/values from Western Culture

suggested that ‘ideal’ attachment was shown when babies demonstrated moderate amount of distress when left alone by their mother-figure

but this overlooked child rearing practices in other countries, which differed from American norms

e.g. Takahashi (1986) Japanese infants were more classed as insecurely attached bc they shown higher distress when separated from mother — suggesting Japanese babies are rarely separated from their mother

whats cultural relativism

the idea that norms/values and ethics/moral standards can only be understood within specific cultures

whats an etic approach

looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture, and attempts to describe these behaviours as universal (can be applied to all cultures)

whats an emic approach

looks at behaviour from inside a culture

and identifies that behaviours are specific to a culture

whats meant by imposed etic

when behaviour is studied inside one culture but assumes that this behaviour can be applied universally (to all)

e.g. Ainsworth’s strange situation studied behaviour inside one culture (USA) and assumed their ideal attachment style can be applied universally.

what did Berry (1969) propose

drew a distinction between etic and emic approaches in study of human behaviour;

and argued that psychology has been guilty of an imposed etic approach, argues that theories/models cannot be applied universally

suggested that psychologists need to be mindful that theories may only make sense from the perspective of the culture they discovered it in.

limitaiton of culture bias - findings often suffer from low population validity due to unrepresentative samples

E; Smith &Bond (1998) surveyed a European social psychology textbook, found that 66% of studies were American, 32% European and only 2% from rest of world.

E; This means that many foundational theories, like conformity/obedience are based on specific, privileged cultures of the human population, which don’t reflect these behaviours in unprivileged cultures

L; Therefore, generalising these findings globally, is invalid and suffers from severe culture bias which limits the understanding of human behaviour in a global context

stength - research int culture bias has introduced a more open minded, International approach to psychology

E; modern researchers like Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) conducted a meta analysis across various cultures to test the universality of theories in attachment

E; This increased awareness of cultural diversity. meaning theories are now more likely to be checked up against other cultural contexts rather than assuming theyre universal

L; This demonstrates a positive change promotes a more valid, cross culturally sensitive psychology .