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CULTURE BIAS - Coggle Diagram
CULTURE BIAS
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ethnocentrism: judging other cultures by the standards and values of one's own culture. In its extreme form it is the belief in the superiority of one's own culture which may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures
Ainsworth and Bell's (1970) strange situation: criticised for reflecting only the norms and values of western culture. concluded that secure attachment types was ideal but led to a misinterpretation of child rearing practises in other countries that deviate from the American norm.
Takahashi (1986): found that Japanese infants are ore likely to be classed as insecurely attached because they show considerable stress on sepration. However this is likely due to the fact that Japanese babies are rarely separated from their mothers
cultural relativism: the idea that norms and values, as well as ethics and moral standards, can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts
Berry (1969): argues psychology is guilty of an imposed etic approach and that psychologists should be more mindful of the cultural relativism of their research
emic approach: functions from inside a culture and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture
etic approach: looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal
example: Ainsworth and Bell's research shows imposed etic as they studied behaviour inside one culture (America) and then assumed their ideal attachment types could be applied universally.
culture bias: A tendency to interpret all phenomena through the 'lens' of one's own culture, ignoring the effects that cultural differences might have on behaviour
universality: is the idea that there are a range of psychological characteristic of human beings that can be applied to all of us despite differences of experiences, upbringing, gender, or cultural background
Henrich (2010): psychological findings are agued to be universal but are conducted on WEIRD participants (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic). 68% of research subjects in a sample of hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals came from the US and 96% form Western industrialised nations.
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strengths
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cross-cultural research
can challenge dominant individualist ways of thinking and viewing the world. Seeing that concepts are not hardwired may provide a better understanding of human nature
counterpoint: should not be assumed that all psychology is culturally relative and that there is no such thing as universal human behaviour. Ekman (1989) suggest that basic facial expression (e.g happiness or disgust) for emotions are the same all over the human and animal world. Therefore attachment research is correct to assume that some features of human attachment such as imitation and International synchrony are universal.
limitations
classic studies
many of the most influential studies in psychology are culturally biased. - Asch and Milgrams studies were conducted exclusively on US participants. - Smith and Bond (1993): replications carried out in different counters found different results e.g Asch experiment in collectivist cultures found higher rates of conformity than original US study.
counterpoint: increased media globalisation means its argued that individualist-collectivist distinction no longer applies. However Takano and Osaka (1999) found that 14/15 studies that compared the US and Japan found no evidence of individualism or collectivism - describing the distinction as lazy and simplistic. This suggests the cultural bias in research may be less of an issue in more recent reseach
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