cultural bias

• key terms


  culture= rules, customs and morals of a society

  cultural bias= tendancy to judge all cultures in terms of own cultural assumptions, biasing judgement

  cultural relavisim=view that cultural behaviour cannot be judged properly unless they are viewed in context of culture they originate
• example cultural relativism

  • Milgram’s study into obedience was originally conducted using 40 male American participants, but then also replicated using.
  • Spanish students -found over 90% obedience rates in Spanish students) 
  • Australian students- only 16% of female participants continued to the highest voltage setting, this suggests that Milgram’s original results were specifically bound to American cultures. 
• key words


  imposed etic- when research designed by one culture is then incorrectly applied to another eg Ainsworth attachment types were generalised despite being from American families

  ethnocentrism- seeing things from fixed cultural point of view and that it is the normal way- seeing other cultures as abnormal as a result
• etic constructs

  • analyses behaviour focusing on universality
  • univeral factors found across all cultures
  • look at behaviour from outside our culture
• emic constructs

  • specific to a given culture and vary from one culture to another
  • view behaviour inside cultural systems