Cultural bias A02

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Cultural Bias AO2

Most studies western - Smith and Bond found that 66% of studies in a European textbook were American. This means that most cultures are underrepresented in psychological research. Cultural bias is further identified by Sears who reported that 825 of studies used undergraduates as participants and 51% of them were psychology students. This means that the majority of the participants who we are basing explanations of all human behaviour off of are white, middle-class men.

Alpha bias - example of alpha bias would be assumptions about individualist and collectivist cultures. Collectivists value group norms more than individualists (who focus on the self) so it is largely believed that they would have higher rates of conformity. Smith and Bond suggested that there may be conformity differences between individualist and collectivist cultures, and their findings of a conformity experiment supported this. However, Takano and Osaka's analysis of 15 studies did not support this common belief. They found that 14 out of 15 studies did not suggests that collectivist cultures had higher levels of conformity. This example shows us how alpha bias can lead to incorrect assumptions about different cultures.

Beta bias - For example, just before world war one broke out, the US Army used an IQ test to determine intelligence. However, the test was based solely on white American norms and values. Intelligence is defined differently in other cultures. As a result, non-western participants did not perform as well as the white Americans, making them seem to be less intelligent. This reinforced racism in America and created negative stereotypes about intelligence because cultural differences were not taken into account.

Ethnocentrism AO2

Ainsworth's Strange Situation. The Strange Situation was developed to assess attachment types, and many researchers assume that the Strange Situation has the same meaning for the infants from other cultures, as it does for American children. German children, on average, demonstrate a higher rate of insecure-avoidant behaviour. However, it is not the case that German mothers are more insensitive than American mothers. Instead, they value and encourage independent behaviour, and therefore their children react differently in the Strange Situation.

The Strange Situation has been described as an imposed etic, where a technique or theory is developed in one culture and then imposed on another.

Alpha bias - individualist attitudes towards attachment where independence is valued and dependance seen as undesirable. In collectivist cultures dependance is more valued

Beta bias - The case of IQ testing above results from ethnocentrism where it was believed that it was appropriate to us American IQ tests all over the world because there was an assumption that the American standard was universal

Cultural Relativism A02

According to this viewpoint, the meaning of intelligence is different in every culture. For example, Sternberg (1985) pointed out that coordination skills that may be essential to life in a preliterate society (e.g., those motor skills required for shooting a bow and arrow) may be mostly irrelevant to intelligent behaviour for most people in a literate and more “developed” society.

Alpha bias - Margaret Meads research on Papua New Guinea where she initially concluded there were significant gender differences due to culture, but later recognised there were universals

Beta Bias - symptom of Schizophrenia is hearing voices, however it is common in some cultures. By assuming that the same rules apply universally ( a beta bias), we may diagnose some as mentally ill, but that diagnosis is relative to our culture