Cultural bias in psychology

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What is the definition of Cultural bias?
a one sided, distorted view of human behaviour, caused by either the researcher's expectations and data collect methods
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What is another way of bias?
selection of pps from only one subtype of society, or nationality
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What examples are included?
alpha bias, beta bias
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What is alpha bias?
where differences between cultures are exagerated
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What is beta bias?
where differences are ignored to create universal, ethnocentric explanations of behaviour
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What is widely accepted?
cultural bias does occur in psychology
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What extent isnt known?
which this has an effect on understanding of human behaviour is unkown
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What is the question then?
What causes cultural bias and can the problems associated with it be overcome
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What can psychology aim to be?
objective, scientific study of behaviour that can be applied universally
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but if it is no then what?
difficult to see how out understanding of behaviour can be applied to all people and hence there are implications for treatments
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What can cultural bias be caused by?
the researcher as it is estimated that 90% of all psychological research is completed by western, male psychologists.
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What approach is this?
ETIC approach
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What is this?
looking at behaviour from an external/universal perspective
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What is this behaviour?
highly objective and scientific
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However what doesnt it account for?
cultural differences
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For example?
Bennet Levy and Marteau took an etic approach to the study of innate fears and biological preparedness
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What did they use?
a questionnaire based on 29 harmless animals where the hypothesis was imposed
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What did he use?
113 british pps and then applied the findings to the global populations
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What does this type of cultural bias mean?
the explanations for behaviour are therefore limited and reductionist
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However, what is this approach to research seen as?
'good science' which is a goal that psychology is trying to achieve
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Alternatively, what have some psychologists tried to eliminate?
cultural bias from their studies
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How?
doing cross-cultural research
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What is one example?
Buss' study
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What did bus do?
From a sample of 10.047 pps (33 countries/37 cultures) he found that sex differences in mate preferences across 3 variables (age, looks, and finances were strongly confirmed across all cultures
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If CCR has found that human behaviour is universal what wouldnt be a problem?
culture bias in research isn't a problem as we could still apply findings to all people reliably by using an etic approach
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However, How could Buss be criticised?
not evenly distributed across all cultures suggesting that even CCR is biased.
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What are problems with reliability?
due to issues with translation could have occured
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What else can cultural bias be caused by?
selection and demographic of the participants
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Many studies if not the most are completed on what?
white, male, middle class students
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What does it mwan if only on type of pps is used?
how can we then generalise these findings to the entire population
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Who was reasearch carried out by?
Ash
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What did he research?
social pressure from a majority initia;;y only used American pps finding 36.8% conformity in crticial trials
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Who carried out work that challenged this? and what did they find?
Perrin and Spencer, studies in England found conformity on just 1/396 trials
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What does this suggest?
perhaps studies carried out a beta biased way should not be taken at face value
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However, how can Perrin's study be criticised?
pps were science and engineering students so was not comparable to Asch
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What is one way to overcome cultural bias?
use indigenous psychological research
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Where the researcher does what?
studies their own culture
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To provide?
an alternative view of behaviour that is not generalised to an entire populations
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Why is this a problem?
due to a lack of potential applications
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What studies are used as an example?
Zimbardo's Stanfard Prison experiment could be incredibly useful in reforming the US prison service and were arguably successful because Zimbardo was immersed in the culture he was studying
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The problem arises when we try to apply the findings to what?
confined spaces in other cultures
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However what could we argue?
that his immersion in the study made findins less scientific and objective, so perhaps his findings are unreliable
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A final issue of cultural bias is within what?
the diagnostics system
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What are early issues of the ICD and DSM?
Is that they were widely criticised for taking a western approach to diagnosing disorders
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This is not what?
necessarily dependent on the psychologist/psychiatrist using it or the patient being diagnosed
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it is the fact that they were created to make symptoms universal what does this mean?
diagnosis is prone to culture bias when it is used on pateints from a non western origin
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For example?
UK Afro- Caribbean immigrants are at least 7 times more likely o be diagnosed as scizophrenic than white natives
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However this problem could be due to what?
racism induced stress which triggers the onset of psychological rather than cultural bias within the DS< disorders in minority groups,
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To overcome these biases in current editions, what is in the DSM-IV?
there is an inclusion of culture bound syndromes
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For example, what disease has been added?
Koro, a disorder that appears in Asia, involving fear of the penis retracting into the body, has been added to account for this specific cultural difference.
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Therefore, using what?
an EMIC approach appears to reduce or at least recognize, issues of cultural bias within the diagnostic system
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In addition to the problems associated with culture bias it is important to remember what?
other forms of bias will also affect research for example gender, attribution
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Without resolving all types of bias, attempting to overcome what?
cultural relativity will be futile, as essentially the research will still not be generalizable to the wider population
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What is one possible way to minimise cultural bias?
cross cultural teams of psychologists observing the same things with agreed procedures but within their own different cultures to create applications that are culturally specific
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However, outcomes of other controversies also have what?
implications for the impact of culture bias on findings
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What is an example?,
when considering whether freewill is an illusion
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If freewill exists then all psychological research could be what?
questioned even if it were carried out in an emic way
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If people are 'unique' then what will be futile?
indigenous research
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Therefore perhaps recognition of culture bias is what?
enough to maintain the potential applications that creating a universal theory brings
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What is another way of bias?

Back

selection of pps from only one subtype of society, or nationality

Card 3

Front

What examples are included?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is alpha bias?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What is beta bias?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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