Culture Bias

• define culture 


  Culture can be defined as the values, beliefs and patterns of behaviour shared by a group of people.
• define culture bias


  Cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural assumptions.
• define alpha bias 


  Alpha bias occurs when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different, and that recognition of these enduring differences must always inform psychological research and understanding.
• define beta bias 


  Beta bias occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised, and all people are assumed to be the same, resulting in universal research designs and conclusions that mistakenly assume that all cultures are the same.
• define ethnocentricism 


  Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct.
• define cultural relativism 


  Cultural relativism insists that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
• define universality 


  When a theory is described as universal, it means that it can apply to all people, irrespective of gender and culture.
• give an example of ethnocentrism in psychology

  • definitions of abnormality vary from culture to culture. Rack (1984) claims that African-Caribbeans in Britain are sometimes diagnosed as ‘mentally ill’ on the basis of behaviour which is perfectly normal in their subculture, and this is due to the ignorance of African-Caribbean subculture on the part of white psychiatrists.
• evaluation of culture bias in psychology (1)

  • Culturally biased research can have significant real-world effects by, for example, amplifying and validating damaging stereotypes. The US Army used an IQ test before WWI which was culturally biased toward the dominant white majority. Unsurprisingly, the test showed that African-Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale and this had a negative effect on the attitudes of Americans toward this group of people, which highlights the negative impact that culturally biased research can have.
• evaluation of culture bias in psychology (2)

  • One way to deal with cultural bias is to recognise it when it occurs. Smith and Bond found, in their 1998 survey of European textbooks on social psychology, that 66% of the studies were American, 32% European, and only 2% from the rest of the world. This suggests that much psychological research is severely unrepresentative and can be greatly improved by simply selecting different cultural groups to study.
• evaluation of culture bias in psychology (3)

  • Contemporary psychologists are significantly more open-minded and well-travelled than previously, and have an increased understanding of other cultures at both a personal and professional level. For example, international psychology conferences increase the exchange of ideas between psychologists which has helped to reduce ethnocentrism in psychology and enabled a more nuanced understanding and appreciation of cultural relativism