Culture bias

• 1. In psychology, cultural bias takes the same two forms as gender bias. Alpha bias occurs when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different, and that recognition of these enduring differences must always inform psychological research and understanding. Beta bias, on the other hand, occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised, and all people are assumed to be the same, resulting in universal research designs and conclusions that mistakenly assume that all cultures are the same.
• 2. Another way to address cultural bias is through the distinction between ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct. Ethnocentrism is often inadvertent lack of awareness that other ways of seeing things can be as valid as one’s own.
• 3. Cultural relativism insists that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural context is taken into consideration. Therefore, any study which draws its sample from only one cultural context (like American college students) and then generalises its findings to all people everywhere, is suspect.
• Discussion 1


  Some behaviours are universal so cultural relativism isn't always an issue. Ekman suggests basic expressions for emotions such as happiness and disgust are the same across the worlds and are universal so can be studies without problem of cultural relativism. As well as this, some attachment behaviours like interactional synchrony is universal. Suggests full understanding of human behaviour requires study of universal behaviour and varying behaviours.
• Discussion 2

  Methodological problems because western pp's are more familiar with the research process. E.g., they are aware and have faith in the sciences as way of studying behaviour. It is assumed all cultures are aware of this but it isn't always the case. This suggests that there may be problems with conducting research in all cultures and that demand characteristics may be more exaggerated in some cultures, leading to invalid results.
• Discussion 3

  Difficult to operationalise variables in some cultures. There may be problems with how to study behaviours in a particular culture. There are certain behaviours that 'do not travel well'. E.g, if we were to use personal space as category for aggression this could be a problem. In the UK this would be seen as threatening but in China invasion of personal space is more acceptable. Raises issue in how different psychologists measure behaviours in cross cultural studies.