Culture bias

• Cultural bias


  Tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through the 'lens' of one's own culture
• Ethnocentrism


  Judging other cultures by the standards and values of one's own culture. In its extreme form it is the belief in the superiority of one's own culture which may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures
• Cultural relativism


  The idea that norms and values, as well as ethics and moral standards, can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts
• In 1992, 64% of the world's 56,000 psychology researchers were American. In Baron and Byrne's 1991 textbook on social psychology, 94% of the studies cited were conducted in North America
• Statistics such as these would suggest that, as well as being a male-dominated discipline, psychology is mainly the study of white American males
• Despite having restricted their enquiries to particular parts of the world, many psychologists routinely claim to have discovered 'facts' about human behaviour that are 'universal'
• Many argue that although psychology may claim to have unearthed 'truths' that say something about people all over the world, in reality, findings from studies only apply to the particular groups of people who were studied
• Critics argue that mainstream psychology has generally ignored culture as an important influence on human behaviour, and by doing so, has mistakenly assumed that findings derived from studies carried out in individualist cultures can be straightforwardly applied all over the world
• Classic social influence studies

  • Conformity (Asch)
  • Obedience (Milgram)
• Classic social influence studies, originally conducted with US participants, revealed very different results when they were replicated in other parts of the world, for example Kilham and Mann (1974)
• Cultural bias

  If the 'norm' or 'standard' for a particular behaviour is judged only from the standpoint of one particular culture, then any cultural differences in behaviour - that depart or deviate from this standard - will inevitably be seen as 'abnormal', 'inferior' or 'unusual'
• Ethnocentrism


  A belief in the superiority of one's own cultural group. In psychological research this may be communicated through a view that any behaviours which do not conform to the (usually individualist) model are somehow deficient, unsophisticated or underdeveloped
• Ainsworth's Strange Situation (1970)

  • Criticised as reflecting only the norms and values of American culture
• Ainsworth identified the key defining variable of attachment type as the child's experience of anxiety on separation. She suggested that 'ideal' (or secure) attachment was characterised by the infant showing moderate amounts of distress when left alone by the mother-figure
• This led to misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries which were seen to deviate from the American 'norm' - for instance, German mothers were seen as cold and rejecting rather than encouraging independence in their children
• The Strange Situation was revealed as an inappropriate measure of attachment type for non-US children
• Imposed etic


  Studying behaviour within a single culture (America) and then assuming the findings can be applied universally
• Etic approach


  Looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours that are universal
• Emic approach


  Functions from within or inside certain cultures and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture
• Psychology has often been guilty of imposing an etic approach - arguing that theories, models, concepts, etc., are universal, when they actually came about through emic research within a single culture
• The suggestion is that psychologists should be much more mindful of the cultural relativism of their research - that the 'things' they discover may only make sense from the perspective of the culture within which they were discovered - and being able to recognise this is one way of avoiding cultural bias in research
• Individualist culture


  Associated with countries such as the US which are thought to value personal freedom and independence
• Collectivist culture


  Associated with countries such as India and China which are said to place more emphasis on interdependence and the needs of the group
• Critics have suggested, in this age of global communication and increased interconnectedness, that such a 'lazy' and simplistic distinction between cultures no longer applies
• Yohtaro Takano and Eiko Osaka (1999) found that 14 out of 15 studies that compared the USA and Japan found no evidence of the traditional distinction between individualism and collectivism
• This could perhaps suggest that cultural bias in research is less of an issue than it once was
• Research (e.g. Ekman 1989) suggests that basic facial expressions for emotions (such as happiness or disgust) are the same all over the human and animal world
• Some features of human attachment - such as imitation and interactional synchrony - are universal
• A full understanding of human behaviour requires the study of both universals and variation among individuals and groups
• When conducting research in so-called 'Western cultures' the participants' familiarity with the general aims and objectives of scientific enquiry is assumed
• The same knowledge and 'faith' in scientific testing may not extend to cultures that do not have the same historical experience of research
• Demand characteristics (always an issue within any investigation) may be exaggerated when working with members of the local population (Bond and Smith 1996) - and this may have an adverse effect on the validity of the research