cultural bias

Culture:

Culture can be described as all the knowledge and values shared by a society. Cultures may differ from one another in many ways, so that the findings of psychological research conducted in one culture may not apply directly to another. In order to fulfil its aspiration of explaining human thinking and behaviour, psychology must address the huge diversity in people around the globe. Psychologists should always attempt to account for the ways in which culture affects thinking and behaviour.

Cultural bias

occurs when psychological research, theories, or practices are influenced by the culture in which they were developed, leading to distorted or unfair conclusions about people from other cultures.

Ethnocentrism:

Ethnocentrism occurs when a researcher assumes that their own culturally specific practices or ideas are ‘natural’ or ‘right’. The individual uses their own ethnic group to evaluate and make judgments about other individuals from other ethnic groups.

Being ethnocentric can mean that when other cultures are observed to differ from the researcher’s own, they may be regarded in a negative light.

Ainsworth’s Strange Situation for Attachment:

The strange situation procedure is not appropriate for assessing children from non-US or UK populations as it is based on Western childrearing ideals (i.e. ethnocentric). The original study only used American, middle class, white, home-reared infants and mothers therefore the generalisability of the findings could be questioned as well as whether this procedure would be valid for other cultures too.

emic approach

An emic approach studies behaviour from within a particular culture, seeking to understand behaviour according to that culture’s own values, beliefs, and norms. This helps reduce cultural bias, promotes cultural relativism and recognises that behaviours may be culturally specific rather than universal.

imposed etic

An imposed etic approach occurs when a researcher assumes that a theory, test, or behaviour developed in one culture can be applied directly to another culture. This is a major source of ethnocentrism and can produce invalid conclusions about other cultures.

what is the antidote to ethnocentrism?

The antidote to ethnocentrism is cultural relativism, which is an approach to treating each culture as unique and worthy of study.

Cultural Relativism:

This is the view that behaviour can only be understood in the context of the culture in which it occurs. The principle is sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research, as well as to avoid judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture. For this reason, cultural relativism has been considered an attempt to avoid ethnocentrism.

For example, Milgram replicated his research on a variety of different cultures and as a consequence, disproved his original theory that irrespective of culture, everyone in the same situation would destructively obey.

Universality

is the belief that any underlying characteristic of human beings is capable of being applied to all people, regardless of culture. In psychology, a theory is said to be universal if it claims that its findings apply equally to everyone. The problem is that psychologists may assume behaviour is universal when it has only been studied in one culture.

Fantz (1961)

found that babies from a variety of cultures would spend most of their time looking at images that resembled faces.

Yerkes Study

Background:

• Yerkes was a psychologist at Harvard University. At this time (early 1900s) psychology was perceived as a ‘soft’ science, so Yerkes wanted to improve its status by demonstrating that it could be as objective and quantifiable as the other scientific disciplines. Yerkes also believed that intelligence was inherited and therefore could not be changed (due to nature). With the outbreak of WW1, the now Colonel Yerkes, developed the idea that it might be possible to use recruits for the American army as a source of sufficient data to show that intelligence testing was scientific. Colonel Yerkes managed to persuade the American government to go along with his idea.

• This Core Study aimed to examine the early history of intelligence testing as conducted by Yerkes on army recruits in the USA during WW1. Gould aimed to identify the following issues in psychology

Sample: 1.75 million army recruits in the USA during WW1. The recruits included White Americans, Black Americans, and European immigrants.

Procedure: From May to July 1917, Yerkes, together with a number of colleagues who shared his views on the hereditary nature of intelligence, wrote the army IQ tests. Below are some examples of the tests:

THE ARMY ALPHA TEST

• This was designed for literate recruits. It consisted of eight parts. It included items with which we are totally familiar as part of intelligence testing: analogies, filling in the next number in a sequence etc. The following examples give some idea of the type of questions asked:

• Washington is to Adams as first is to …….

• Crisco is a: patient medicine, disinfectant, toothpaste, food product?

• The number of kaffir’s legs is 2, 4, 6, 8?

• Christy Matthewson is famous as a: writer, artist, baseball player, comedian

THE ARMY BETA TEST

• The instructions were written (in English), in three of the seven parts the answers had to be given in writing, yet this was a test for illiterates who may never have held a pencil beforehand!

• This was a test designed for people who were illiterate or failed the Army Alpha Test. It had seven parts and consisted of picture completion tasks.

Yerkes Findings:

• The data was analysed by Yerkes’ lieutenant, who manipulated the results. Selected data was converted to a common standard to look for racial and national averages.

• The data also showed that European immigrants could be graded by their country of origin with those with darker skin in Southern Europe being less intelligent than the fairer/lighter skinned people of Western and Northern Europe.

• White Americans had a mental age of a 13 year old. This indicated that the country was ‘a nation of morons’ and due to this, Yerkes was quoted to give the following reason for this was because ‘the poor, Negroes and feeble-minded had been interbreeding and lowering the overall intelligence of the population’

• Members of the black community were found to have an average mental age of 10.41.

Subsequent consequences:

• THE IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION ACT was passed in 1924 by the US Congress and was shaped by Yerkes’ findings. People from southern and eastern Europe and from the Alpine and Mediterranean nations who had scored very poorly on the army tests were no longer welcome in the USA. The way this was controlled was by looking at data from a census of immigrants, which had been conducted in 1890 when immigration from southern and eastern Europe was very low. It was decided that the quota of immigrants allowed into America would be 2% of each recorded nation taken from the 1890 figures. This obviously meant that the numbers of ‘the unwanted’ would be very low.

• These immigration restrictions were to have horrendous consequences as the immigration from southern and eastern Europe was all but ceased. The persecution of the Jews which started well before the actual beginning of the Second World War, meant that many Jews tried to escape from their homeland, but there was ‘no admittance’ to America!

Gould (1982)

Reviewed the research by Yerkes and provided an overwhelming amount of critique to highlight that the study was completely invalid. Below are some examples of his arguments:

• The instructions for the Beta test were written (in English), in three of the seven parts the answers had to be given in writing, yet this was a test was meant to be made for illiterates who may never have held a pencil beforehand!

• All of the tests were culturally specific and would have been extremely difficult to complete if participants had no knowledge of American culture.

• There were huge inconsistencies in the administration of the tests. One example of this was a discriminatory approach where black men, who failed the Alpha Test were not allowed to do the Beta Test.

• The evidence does not provide any support for intelligence being genetic.

Evaluation Cultural Bias:

• Cultural bias can lead to misdiagnosis of mental disorders. Research/example: Whaley (2004); schizophrenia diagnosed more frequently among Black Americans. Why it matters: Clinicians may interpret behaviour using their own cultural norms, reducing diagnostic validity.

• Recognising cultural bias improves psychological understanding.
  Research/example: Whaley (2004); diagnostic differences across cultures. Why it matters: Encourages culturally sensitive research and promotes cultural relativism.

• The distinction between individualist and collectivist cultures is often oversimplified.
  Research/example: Bond & Smith (1996). Why it matters: Behaviour varies within cultures as well as between them, so stereotypes may be inaccurate.

• Alpha bias can exaggerate differences between cultures. Research/example: Early intelligence testing Yerkes research. Why it matters: Can reinforce stereotypes and create the false impression that some cultures are superior to others.

• Psychology has improved by recognising cultural bias. Research/example: Smith & Bond (1998); most research originated from Western countries. Why it matters:Increased cross-cultural research improves representativeness and reduces ethnocentrism.

• Cultural bias can have harmful real-world consequences (socially sensitive). Research/example: Yerkes’ army intelligence tests. Why it matters: Biased conclusions may justify discrimination and reinforce prejudice.

• Beta bias ignores genuine cultural differences. Research/example: Ainsworth’s Strange Situation applied across cultures. Why it matters: Research methods developed in one culture may not be valid in another.

• Research suggests cultural differences are often more complex than assumed. Research/example: Van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988). Why it matters:Psychologists should avoid making simplistic assumptions about cultural groups.