Culture bias

• 4 definitions of cultural bias

  • giving advantage to one culture over another
  • Ignoring differences between cultures
  • Imposing understanding of one culture onto another
  • Thinking that one culture is superior
• problems of cultural bias

  can cause conflict , prejudice and superiority between groups
• americanisation

  America tries to impose their own cultural norms onto other cultures
• how is psychology culturally biased?

  it is a predominantly white, Euro / American subject
• examples of studies of white middle class Americans

  • zimbardo
  • Milgram
  • asch
• evidence for cultural bias

  • Jahoda’s mental health criteria - can criteria in the US be applied to other cultures?
  • attachment - the strange situation doesn't apply accurately to all cultures e.g. Germany
• Etic approach

  looks at behaviour from outside a culture and tries to identify universality
• Emic approach

  studies behaviour from within the culture and looks for behaviours that are specific to that culture
• imposed etic

  psychologists impose their materials in research or apply their theories to people from other cultures
• ethnocentrism

  the belief that an ethnic group a person identifies with is superior to other groups
• example of ethnocentrism

  in white western cultures, eye contact is seen as a sign of respect, however in African caribbean cultures eye contact is seen as challenging and disrespectful - African children were seen as being rude in western cultures when they avoided eye contact
• cultural relativism

  a behaviour can only be properly understood if the cultural context is taken into consideration
• ways to reduce cultural bias

  • cross cultural research
  • interactional conferences where cross cultural perspectives can be discussed
  • Afrocentrism: African contexts and behaviours should be explored further
  • using a derived etic: series of emic studies occur in a local setting