gender and culture bias in diagnosis

• Cultural bias is the tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through the ‘lens’ of ones own culture.
• Ethnocentrism is the act of judging other cultures by the standards/values of your own culture
• Positive symptoms (e.g. hearing voices) may be accepted in African cultures due to cultural beliefs (e.g. communication with Ancestors), meaning they are more ready to acknowledge these experiences
• Escobar (2012) – White psychiatrists may over-interpret symptoms of black people during diagnosis due to cultural differences in language and mannerisms.
• Cultural bias reduces the validity of diagnosis as psychiatrists may impose their own cultural standards for Schizophrenia onto those from other cultures and are therefore biased towards what’s ‘normal’ for their culture (ethnocentric). Therefore, the diagnoses may not be valid across cultures
• Gender bias results when one gender is treated less favourably than the other
• 290 psychiatrists were shown 2 cases of patient behaviours. When the patient was described as male 56% were diagnosed with SZ, however this was only 20% where described as female.