Culture bias

• How can culture be defined?

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

  Culture bias is the tendency to interpret behaviour through one’s own cultural assumptions, ignoring the effects cultural differences might have on behaviour.
• What group of people are most likely to be studied by psychologists?

  Westernised, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democracies. This can be remembered using the acronym: WEIRD
• What does it mean when a theory is described as universal?

  This means that it can be applied to all people, irrespective of gender and culture.
• What does ethnocentrism mean?

  Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct.
• What can Ethnocentrism lead to?

  This may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures e.g. outside the US/Europe
• What does cultural relativism insist?

  Cultural relativism insists that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
• How can culture bias be avoided?

  A way to avoid cultural bias is by being aware that behaviours discovered may only make sense from the perspective of the culture within which they were discovered.
• What is an emic approach to studying behaviour?

  Looks at behaviour from inside a culture, identifying behaviours that are specific to that culture.
• What is an etic approach to studying behaviour?

  Looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture, attempting to describe those behaviours as universal.
• What is an imposed etic approach to studying behaviour?

  Arguing that theories/findings are universal when they actually came about through emic research inside a single culture.