cultural bias

• P: one way to counter ethnocentrism in psychology is to encourage indigenous psychologies - the development of different groups of theories in different countries

  E: afrocentrism is a movement whose central proposition is that all black people have their roots in africa and that psychological theories concerning such people must be african centred and express african values. afrocentrism disputes the view that european values are universally appropriate descriptions of human behaviour. these are irrelevant to the life and culture of people of african descent
• link for indigenous psychologies

  L: this has led to the development of theories relevant to the life and culture of people of african descent
• P: a real danger of culturally biased research is that it helps create or reinforce stereotypes

  E: the US IQ army test showed that european immigrants fell slightly below white americans in terms of IQ and african americans were at the bottom of the scale with the lowest mental age. the data from these tests had a profound effect on the attitudes held by americans towards certain groups of people - black and southeastern people

  L: therefore the consequence was enduring stereotypes concerning certain ethnic groups and their IQ
• P: researchers in psychology, travel much more now than they did 50 years ago

  E: this means they have an increased understanding of other cultures at a personal level but also at a professional level. academics hold international conferences where researchers from many different countries and cultures regularly meet to discuss and exchange ideas

  L: this means there is a much greater exchange of ideas, which should reduce ethnocentrism in psychology, enable an understanding of cultural relativism and mean that real differences are identified and valued