2. Cultural bias

• Universality and bias

  • Henrich et al - 68% of research pps from the US and 96% from industrialised nations
  • 80% are undergraduates studying psychology
  • WEIRD - pps are most likely to be westernised, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic
  • This is seen as the 'norm' and generalises anything else as 'abnormal'
• Ethnocentrism

  • Form of cultural bias and is the belief in the superiority of one's own cultural group
  • Suggests people from US and Europe have presented an ethnocentric view of human behaviour
  • Ainsworth's Strange Situation - only reflected norms and values of western culture and assumed secure attachment was the norm everywhere
  • Japanese infants more likely to be insecurely attached (Takahashi)
• Cultural relativism

  • Berry has drawn a distinction between etic and emic approaches in the study of human behaviour
  • Etic - behaviour outside of a given culture to describe those behaviours as universal and can be generalised everywhere
  • Emic - functions from inside a culture and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture
  • Ainsworth's research - imposed etic as they only conducted a study in US and UK and generalised attachment type everywhere
• AO3 - Amplifies and validates stereotypes

  • US army used an IQ test before WW1 that was culturally biased towards the dominant white majority eg. assuming everyone would know US presidents
  • Recruits from south-eastern Europe and African Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale subjecting them to negative attitudes from white Americans
  • Form of ethnocentrism and highlights that culturally biased research reinforces prejudice and discrimination
• AO3 - Findings and conclusions unrepresentative of real life

  • Ainsworth's study of attachment, Adorno's f-scale study and Milgram's obedience study, all US pps were used from middle class backgrounds and conducted in only individualistic cultures
  • Henrich et al. WEIRD acronym
  • Imposed etic approach allows findings to not be generalised and lacks universality
  • Lack of understanding surrounding collectivist cultures meaning there may be implications around certain topics
• AO3 - Counterpoint of replication to reduce cultural bias

  • Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg successfully replicated Ainsworth's Strange Situation across a range of different cultures, including collectivist ones
  • Discovered secure attachment was not the norm everywhere and in places such as Japan, insecure attachment was more common (Takahashi)
  • Milgram's obedience study replicated as a French gameshow which validated original findings as pps behaved same
  • Allows for more varied research and reduces ethnocentrism
  • More nuanced understanding