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.
• Cultural bias is also called ethnocentrism.
• In order to fulfil its aspiration of explaining human thinking and behaviour, Psychology must address the huge diversity in people around the world.
• Behaviour is shaped by many factors, including genetics, upbringing and individual experiences.
• Psychological research is predominantly a western cultured discipline, and many studies are conducted in the USA and UK. This can result in biased findings.
• Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures by the standards and values of one's own, in the belief it is superior.
• Cross-cultural studies aim to reduce ethnocentric bias by including findings from other cultures.
• Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) conducted a meta-analysis to investigate cross-cultural variation in attachment types.
• Cross-cultural studies are less ethnocentric, however, often do not represent all cultures around the world.
• Cultural relativism is the idea that norms and values can only be understood with specific cultures. What is normal in one society may not be acceptable in another.
• Cultural relativism is the principle of regarding the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself.
• Cultural bias in psychological research refers to the tendency for research findings to be influenced by the cultural values, beliefs, and norms of the researchers or the culture in which the research is conducted.
• Nobles (1976) argues that western Psychology has been a tool of oppression and dominance.
• Cultural bias has also made it difficult for some psychologists to separate the behaviour they have observed from the context in which they observed it.
• According to Howitt & Owusu-Bempah (1994) equal opportunity legislation aims to rid Psychology of cultural bias and racism.
• IQ tests developed in the west contain assumptions about intelligence, but what counts as ‘intelligent’ behaviour varies from culture to culture.
• Non-westerners may be disadvantaged by the content of modern IQ tests and could subsequently be viewed as inferior when they fail to perform as most westerners do.
• Takahshi (1990) aimed to see whether the strange situation was a valid procedure for cultures other than the original American sample.
• In ethnocentric research the experimenters use their own ethnic group to evaluate and make judgments about individuals from other ethnic groups.
• There are different theoretical constructs for understanding cultural bias, such as emic and etic approaches.
• An emic construct is one that is applied to only in one cultural group, so they vary from place to place (differences between cultures).
• An emic approach refers to the investigation of a culture from within the culture itself.
• Etic constructs are considered universal to all people, and are factors that hold across all cultures (similarities between cultures).
• Etic constructs assume that most human behaviour is common to humans but that cultural factors influence the development or display of this behaviour.
• Culture bias can occur when emic constructs and etic constructs get mistaken for each other.
• Psychologists may overlook the importance of cultural diversity in understanding human behaviour, resulting in theories that are scientifically inadequate.
• Some psychologists may also privilege their own worldview over those that emerge from other cultures, leading to research that either intentionally or unintentionally supports racist and discriminatory practices in the real world.
• Henrich et al (2010) reviewed hundreds of studies in leading Psychology journals and found that 68% of participants came from the USA, and 96% from industrialised nations.
• The results from many psychological studies have a cultural bias, which may have skewed our understanding of human behaviour.
• Berry (1969) drew a distinction between emic and etic approaches in the study of human behaviour.
• An etic approach looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and sees behaviour as universal.
• An etic approach does not consider individual or cultural differences.
• An emic approach functions from inside a culture and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture.
• Ainsworth’s research using the strange situation is an example of an etic approach, as she only studied American children and assumed their attachment types could be applied universally.
• Most of the research in Psychology adopts an etic approach, assuming most behaviours are universal, when in fact they are culturally specific.
• Brislin (1976) claims that IQ tests are illustrations of ethnocentrism and adopt etic approaches.
• Gould (1982) highlighted the cultural bias of IQ testing by Yerkes in America during the first world war.
• Smith & Bond (1993) highlighted how differences were seen between collectivist and individualist cultures (like the USA) when performing Asch-type experiments on conformity.
• Gould explained how the findings from biased IQ testing resulted in social eugenics, like the American immigration restriction act (1924) preventing all non-Americans from seeking nationality.