culture bias

• what is an issue?

  • something to consider when looking at contributions made to understanding behaviour
  • can be from perspective of who conducts research/how research is conducted/who it applies to
• define culture?

  • all knowledge & values shared by a society
  • may differ from one another in many ways so that findings of psychological research conducted in 1 culture may not directly apply to another
• define culture bias?

  • tendency to ignore cultural differences & interpret all behaviour & theories through 1 culture
• culture bias in diagnosis of sz?

  • luhrman et al 2015 interviewed 60 adults diagnosed with sz - 20 each in ghana/india/usa
  • each asked about voices they heard
  • many african & indians reported positive experiences with their voices - playful/offering advice
  • usa reported voices as violent/hateful - may not be inevitable feature of sz
  • shows sz had lack of consistent characteristics & western countries are biased towards treating hallucinations as symptom of sz when in non western seen as sign of spirituality
• define ethnocentrism?

  • seeing world from ones own cultural perspective & believing that this 1 perspective is normal & correct - use as standard
• imposed etic?

  • using ones cultures views & norms as standard to compare others to
  • leads to assumption that 1 ethnic group is superior to another/to all other ethnic groups
  • 1 ethnic group is normal & others that do not display same behaviour are abnormal/deficient
• emic construct?

  • theory/explanation that is applied to only 1 cultural group so they vary from place to place - differences between cultures
• emic approach?

  • refers to investigation of a culture from within culture itself
  • more likely to have ecological validity as findings are less likely to be distorted/caused by mismatch between cultures/researchers & cultures being investigated
• ethnocentrism in obedience?

  • milgrams research into obedience found that 65% of americans would deliver maximum shocks to learner just because they received orders from legitimate authority
  • this american finding has been used as universal standard of dangerous obedience since 1960s
  • dolinski et al 2015 found 90% of polish p shocked to highest level possible
  • unfairly labels polish as even more obedient than rest of world
  • ethnocentric as it uses milgrams american findings as standard to compare everyone else to
• define cultural relativism?

  • idea that theres no global right/wrong
  • its important to consider behaviour of individual within their culture before making judgements
  • context is vital!!
  • social norms are culturally relative as what is considered to be normal in 1 culture may differ from another
• cultural relativism in attachment?

  • van ijzendoorn & kroonenbergs meta analysis found that japanese studies showed higher rate of insecure resistant attachment types than other cultures
  • rothbaum investigated why this was happening & so went to interview japanese mothers about findings
  • argued that they wanted child to be extremely upset when mum left room & upset when stranger interacted with them
  • concept of amae - child is totally dependent on pcg & cannot survive alone
  • worse by fact mum have 2 years paid mat leave so child used in ss not used to mum leaving/left with stranger
• what did rothbaums investigation show?

  • took time to understand concept of amae - adopted emic approach
  • means he utilised knowledge of cultural differences to understand why japanese children appeared more resistant
  • allowed him to investigate genuine differences in attachment styles without child rearing practices impacting findings
• define universality?

  • belief that some behaviours are same for all cultures
  • this is when study/theory can be applied across all cultures
• universality in attachment?

  • van ijendoorn & kroonenbergs meta analysis dd uncover some genuine cultural differences in atttachment types
  • notably in japan & germany & israel where insecure attachments were higher than other countries
  • consistent findings in each culture was that secure attachment type was most common in each culture
  • supoports bowlbys monotropic theory of attachment that secure attachments are an evolved behaviour
• X consequence of socially sensitive conclusions?

  • studies/theories which are ethnocentric can often lead to conclusions which may label/stereotype 1 culture as abnormal/inferior
  • eg shown in vi & k meta analysis in att has meant that japanese & german mums be labelled as inferior as incidence of insecure att is higher than in uk/usa studies
  • important as it means that certain cultures could be offended/upset by this research
  • may result in people from certain cultures being discriminated against
  • prevents people taking part in future research & impact rep of psych as scientific discipline
• * development of indigenous psychologies - fix?

  • theories drawing from experiences of people in diff cultures
  • afrocentrism - movement that suggests as all black ppl have roots in africa theories about them must recognise african contexts of behaviours & attitudes - emic approach - emphasises uniqueness of every culture
  • important - led to development of theories relevant to lives & cultures of people in africa as well as those who are now removed from african origins
  • minimises risk of inaccurate findings being published & socially sensitive claims being published - lead to discrimination
• * inclusion of culture bound syndromes in classification - fix?

  • early versions of DSM did not include disorders that are found exclusively in non american cultures
  • dsm 4 did include appendix on certain culture bound syndromes that appear in other parts of world
  • important as it helps reduce culture bias & prevent certain cultures from being ignored by mental health literature HOWEVER
  • has been criticised as "little more than an enticement thrown to cultural psychiatrists" - so short & doesnt include many disorders found in certain cultures - brain fag in west africa
  • more needs to be done