cultural bias

• culture refers to a set of customs, social roles or behavioural norms
• how do we have bias - researchs assume cultures generalise - assumed non western cultures were less wothy of study and primitive - harder to do cross cultural research due to time and money
• ethnocentrism - our own culture is taken as the norm that we judge other cultures against
• asch - ethnocentric - variations in conformity may be affected by culture
• milgram - ethnocentric - didn't consider cultural differences between us and germany when using study to explain nazi soldiers behaviour
• cultrally biased studies can lead to issues - example influencing psychological practise - understanding and treating abnormality
• issues with cross cultural research - cross cultural research can help to reduce cultural bias but results aren't always valid
• cultural relativism - behaviour can only be properly understood with its cultural context
• ethnocentrism example - ainsworth strange situation
• alpha bias - when the theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different
• beta bias - real cultural differences are ignored or minimsied
• cultural bias - judging people in terms of our own cultural assumptions