A01

• What is culture bias?

  A tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through the lens of one's own culture - this distorts your judgement
• What is Ethnocentrism?

  Refers to the belief of superiority of one's own culture
• What is an etic approach?

  Looks at behaviours from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours that are universal (doesn't take into account cultural differences)
• What is an example of an etic approach?

  • DSM-5 and ICD-10 assume no difference between cultures
  • When used to classify and diagnose in non-western cultures = an imposed etic - may not be measuring what they claim to be measuring
• What is an emic approach?

  Looks at behaviours within certain cultures and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture
• What is an example of an emic approach?

  Afrocentrism = movement which proposes that all black people have their roots in Africa and that psychological theories concerning them must be African-centered and express their African values .
• What is cultural relativism?

  Opposite of ethnocentrism = the view that behaviour cannot be judged properly unless it is viewed in the context of the culture in which it originates
• What is a piece of psychological research which is ethnocentrically biased?

  Ainsworth's Strange Situation
• What is an example of the social implications of culturally biased research?

  African Americans were at the bottom of the scale on the US army IQ test leading to negative attitudes towards this group of people by Americans
• How has contemporary psychology attempted to become more open-minded towards other cultures?

  Academics hold international conferences where researchers from different countries meet to discuss and exchange ideas
• Where in the world do most studies take place?

  • Henrich et al. (2010) reviewed hundreds of studies
  • Found 68% of participants were from the US and 96% from industrialised nations
  • Another review found that 80% of research participants were undergraduates studying Psychology
• What did Baron and Byrne do?

  • Baron and Byrne wrote a social psychology textbook in 1991
  • 94% of studies referred to were from North America, compared with 2% from Europe, 1% from Australia and 3% from the rest of the world
• What did Lonner find?

  • Lonner (2016)
  • An analysis of the cultural content of 35 introductory psychology textbooks, suggests that cultural diversity is underrepresented
  • Analysis of 13 full-length introductory psychology textbooks revealed that diversity in terms of ethnicity was the only topic without a chapter devoted to it