Culture bias

Cultural bias

Interpreting all cultures through the lens of your own culture and ignoring any differences

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures by the standards and values of your 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, e.g. the Strange Situation.

Cultural relativism

The idea that norms and values can only be meaningful and understood through specific social and cultural contexts

AO3

-Validates harmful and often racially motivated stereotypes

-is seen in most influencial studies and creates misconceptions

+cultural bias reduced in recent years

-Validated harmful and often racially motivated stereotypes

e.g. pre-WW1 US army included questionnaires abt naming presidents so south eastern europe and african american people struggled to answer

->put them bottom IQ scale (favoured Americans)

Reinforces stereotypes

-Is seen in most influencial studies and creates misconceptions

e.g. Asch and Milgram (social influence) used only US pps

-> limited generalisability

replicated research in other countries show collectivist culutres have higher conformity rates

-limits usefulness of research

+Cultural bias reduced in recent years

Contemporary psychologists more well travelled and connected to increased understanding of other cultures and greater appreciation for cultural relativism

-reflected in fields such as diagnosing mental disorders

DSM-IV changed in 1994 to include short appendix on culture based symptoms found in other countries (previously ignored)