Culture bias

• culture bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of ones own cultural assumptions
• alpha bias occurs when theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different
• beta bias occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised and all people are assumed to be the same - mistakenly assume all cultures are identical
• ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from ones own cultural perspective and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct
• cultural relativism insist behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural context is taken into consideration
• brislen illustrates concepts of ethnocentrism and imposed etic using iq testing - demonstrates intelligence of western culture how they often involve completing tasks' against the clock' such as timed assessments
• cochrane and sashiharan found african american immigrants to US were 7 times more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness than other cultural groups

  • being recent immigrant to new country can be huge stressor - may have been risk factor for some mental illness
  • very likely behaviours of minority groups are interpreted as 'symptoms' whereas same behaviours are displayed by majority group would be considered normal
• culture bound syndromes in DSM-IV

  • koro
  • ghost sickness
  • brain fag syndrome
• DSM(IV) included 25 culture bound syndromes
• koro is a panic disorder discovered by chinese men

  • individual has belief their genitalia are retracting so will disappear
  • asians generally believe koro symptoms are fatal
  • panic disorder triggered by cultural beliefs
• ghost sickness is a cultural belief among traditional indigenous people in navajo

  • people who are preoccupied by deceased are believed to suffer from ghost sickness
  • reported symptoms - general weakness, suffocation feeling
• brain fag syndrome is from nigeria where school children and UNI students with symptoms such as head and neck pain alongside difficulty concentrating

  • caused by excessive external pressure to be successful among the young
• DSM-V states that these culturally specific symptoms were removed when DSM- v was introduced in 2015

  • replaced with guidance for practitioners around how many members of ethnic minorities may present symptoms differently
• examples of ethnocentrism - ainsworth strange situation

  • developed to assess attachment types which was then applied to all cultures
  • german children demonstrate higher rate of insecure avoidant behaviour but it does not mean mother are insensitive
  • german mothers are known to value and encourage independent behaviour so children react differently to other cultures when in the strange situation
  • strange situation has been described as imposed etic
• imposed etic means when a theory was developed relating to one culture but was then imposed to all cultures
• example of cultural relativism

  • meaning of intelligence is different in every culture
  • example - sternberg pointed out coordination skills that may be essential to life in preliterate society (motor skills for shooting bow and arrow)
  • may be irrelevant to what is considered intelligent behaviour for most people in literate and more developed society
  • only way to understand intelligence is to take the cultural context into account
• example of ethnocentrism - definitions of abnormality

  • definitions vary from culture to culture
  • rack claims african caribbeans in britain are diagnosed as mentally ill on basis of behaviour - perfectly normal in subcultures
• example of ethnocentrism - aschs research into conformity

  • originally carried out on american sample and findings were then generalised
  • smith and bond shown collectivist cultures exhibit higher levels of conformity than individualist
  • but takano and osaka found studies comparing collectivism and individualism dont support view about differences in conformity
  • findings suggest individualism and collectivism dimension may not be real distinction suggesting it is no longer useful
• evaluation - consequences of cultural bias - limitation

  • culturally biased research can be significantly real world effects - for example by validating damaging stereotypes
  • for example - us army used iq test before wwi which was culturally biased towards the dominant white majority
  • tests showed african americans were at bottom of iq scale which had negative attitudes of americans toward this group of people
  • highlights negative impact that culturally biased research can have
• evaluation - bias in research methods (how to improve) - strength

  • one way of dealing with cultural bias is to recognise it when it occurs
  • for example smith and bond found their social psychology textbook survey - 66% studies were american, 32% european and 2% from rest of the world
  • suggests much psychological research is unrepresentative and can be improved by selecting different cultural groups to study
  • by understanding cultural bias it can help psychologists to avoid and overcome the issue
• evaluation - indigenous psychologies - strength

  • contemporary psychologists are more open minded and have increased understanding of other cultures at both personal and professional level
  • example - international psychology conferences increase exchange of ideas between psychologists which helps to reduce ethnocentrism and enables greater understanding of cultural relativism
  • heightened awareness of cultural diversity has led to development of indigenous psychologies
• indigenous psychologies are theories drawn explicitly on particular experiences of people in different cultural context
• evaluation - progress in diagnosis

  • strength is there has been progress in field of diagnosing mental disorders
  • DSM-IV acknowledged inadequacy of that approach and included short appendix on culture bound syndromes found in other parts of the world
  • however - limitation is that not all cultural disorders are within DSM-IV - kleinman and cohen dismissed the appendix and pointed that detailed work in non western cultures has uncovered many disorders not in DSM-IV
  • examples - pa fend (fear of wind) found in china
• evaluation - emic etic distinction - research avoiding bias

  • strength
  • emic - approach emphasising uniqueness of cultures by focusing on culturally specific phenomena
  • etic - approach seeks universal of behaviour - use indigenous researchers in each cultural setting to avoid cultural bias
  • buss and co workers did this in their studies of mate preference - data collected from 37 countries -get universal look at behaviour - each cultural setting had 3 local researchers
  • using local researchers it allows there to be little or no cultural bias because all is taken into consideration
• what are the evaluation points for culture bias

  consequences of cultural bias

  bias in research methods

  indigenous people

  emic etic distinction

  progress in diagnosis