Culture Bias

Culture bias

Beliefs that psychologists hold may be biased- leaning towards a subjective view that may not reflect reality. 

Individualistic cultures- cultures that value the individual over the group. Mostly Western (e.g. USA, UK, France). Majority of importance placed on individual success and independence. 

Collectivist cultures- cultures that value the group over the individual. Mostly Eastern (e.g. Russia, China). Majority of importance placed on honouring the community and family. Group success valued over individual success. 

Culture bias in Psychology

Psychology can be criticised for being culturally biased. This is because phenomena can be interpreted through the lens of one’s own culture and researchers may ignore the effects that culture may have on behaviour. While psychology is supposed to be the study of the human mind and behaviour, it can tend to lean towards studying small groups or individual people. This means that research conducted may not be generalisable to the whole population.

WEIRD people are a category of people that make up the majority of participants for psychological research. WEIRD stands for westernised, educated people from industrialised rich democracies. An example of a WEIRD person could be someone from the United States of America with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. This person is westernised due to their geographical location, they are educated due to their degree and their country (USA) is an industrialised, rich democracy. As WEIRD people make up the majority of participants in psychological research, people who fall outside of this category may be deemed as abnormal.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the act of taking one’s own cultural norms and using these as a basis to judge other cultures. This can result in other cultures being deemed as ‘strange’ or ‘abnormal’.

Ainsworth and Bell’s (1970) strange situation is an example of ethnocentrism. This study is criticised for only reflecting the social norms and values of America. The ‘secure’ attachment was deemed as such due to those behaviours being deemed as desirable. However, in cultures such as Japan, babies are rarely separated from their mothers. Therefore, Japanese babies are more likely to be classed as insecurely attached, as the classifications from the strange situation reflect American cultural norms. 

Cultural Relativism 

Cultural relativism is the opposite of ethnocentrism. This is when we interpret behaviours within the context in which they occur. This approach does not relate all cultures to one culture’s norms in the way that ethnocentrism does. 

Universality

Universality is the idea that conclusions drawn regarding behaviour can be applied to everyone, regardless of time or culture. Ideas such as culture bias and gender bias threaten the universality of findings in Psychology. 

Emic and Etic

Etic are culturally general concepts or universal behaviours. These are behaviours that exist in every culture. An example of etic would be the concept that murder is morally wrong, as this belief is held consistently throughout the vast majority of cultures. 

Emic are culturally specific concepts or behaviours. These are relevant and specific to a small number of cultures.…