Culture Bias

• Culture bias= a biased view in the set of beliefs, values & norms of a group of people.
• Most of psychology represents a Western bias, ie Europe & America has a biased world view, so cannot be universally applied to explaining human nature.
• Culture= the set of beliefs, values & norms of a group of people- doesn't necessarily mean race or ethnicity.
• Ethnocentrism= the process of viewing the world from the perspective of a particular culture & occurs when a researcher assumes that their own culturally specific practices or ideas are 'natural' or 'right'.
• Emic constructs= one that is applied to only one cultural group, so they vary from place to place.
• Etic constructs= a theoretical idea that is assumed to apply in all cultural groups.
• Imposed etic= a construct from one culture is applied inappropriately to another.
• Cultural relativism= the view that attitudes, behaviours, values, concepts & achievements must be understood in the light of their own cultural social environment & not judged according to the standards of a different culture.
• Culture bias occurs in etics, when it is assumed that all people are the same, & therefore theories and research are universally applied rather than important cultural differences acknowledges- this is known as imposed etic.
• Cultural relativism sees all cultures as worthy of respect & that we need to understand a particular culture's norms & values to make any conclusions about behaviours.
• Evaluation of culture bias- strength:

  • There's lots of evidence for the prevalence of culture bias in psychological research methods, ie it is a real & genuine issue that needs to be addressed.
  • Culture bias in researchers: Smith & Bond (1986) reviewed psychological test books & found that up to 66% of featured studies were American, 32% European & 2% from the rest of the world.
  • Culture bias in samples: Henrich et al (2010) found that 67% of PPs in psychological studies were American psychology students- indicates that psychological research findings are unrepresentative on a global scale.
• Evaluation of culture bias- strength:

  • It's good to study culture bias, because unchallenged culturally biased research has been used to perpetuate stereotypical assumptions & validate discrimination.
  • Gould looked at the IQ test to assess US army recruits in WW1. The tests contained questions that favoured the indigenous, white population. European immigrants (particularly those from Southern Europe) had IQ scores below white Americans, & African-Americans (typically been denied education) had lowest scores of all.
  • These results had a profound effect on the attitudes held by Americans & led to enduring stereotypes regarding intelligence in certain ethnic groups. Indicates the necessity for reducing culture bias in psychological research & its importance as an issue.
• Evaluation of culture bias- :/:

  • Psychology developing ways of challenging culture bias: studying a range of different cultures to find out about the variability of human behaviour, ie emic constructs (cross-cultural psychology), studying a range of different cultures to find out about the universal features of human behaviour ie etic constructs, developing indigenous psychologies, eg Buss (1989) studied >10,000 people from 37 different cultures using indigenous researchers to find out about cultural variations in mate preference.
  • These methodologies indicate the recognition of the issue within the industry along with real & valuable attempts to address it.
• Evaluation of culture bias- :/:

  • Psychology is developing ways of challenging culture bias- many argue that changes in travel, telecommunications & media mean an increased understanding of other cultures within psychology, eg academic conferences & working groups include people from many different cultures & countries.
  • This means that there is a greater exchange of ideas which should help reduce ethnocentrism & enable an understanding of cultural relativism.