Cultural Bias in Psychological Research
Cultural Bias in Psychological Research
The Facts
▪ 64% of the worlds 56000 researchers in Psychology are American.
▪ Rosenzweig (1992)
▪ 94% of studies in classic American social psychology textbook were N.American, 2% European, 1% Australasian and 3% rest of world.
▪ 68% in a classic British textbook were American!
▪ 82% studies of psychological use university students, 51% use psychology students
If most of the work in psychology if culturally biased, we need to understand what this means by asking what is a culture and what types of bias exist in psychology.
What is a culture?
▪ “a relatively organised system of shared meanings” Smith and Bond (1993)
▪ “collective programming of the mind which distinguishes members of one group from another.” Hofstede (1980)
▪ Culture: the beliefs, attitudes, customs and practices not the people themselves
▪ Culture is about shared meanings: for example in Chinese ‘crisis’ can mean ‘new opportunities’ and ‘love’ can mean infatuation, unrequited, and sorrow and is seen as suspicious, illicit and socially disruptive,, In Japan ‘work’ refers not just to your job but implies time spent in leisure pursuits with colleagues as well.
Why do cross cultural research?
▪ Interesting in its own right
▪ To validate theories derived in one culture in terms of the external validity (i.e. to combat cultural bias in psychological theories and studies)
▪ To explain whether a behaviour is universal principle and art of our human heritage (nature/biology) or whether it is shaped by differing child rearing practice, social practices and customs, (environmental determinism).
Cultural biases
Some research suggests that world cultures can be roughly divided into two categories; Individualist and Collectivist.
Since Europe and The States are part of the Western, industrialised and ‘developed’ world, and these are the countries have dominated Psychology the first century of Psychological research, theories and studies tend to be individualist and therefore may not provide comprehensive explanation of behaviour in collectivist societies.
Recapping Individualism and Collectivism
Hofstede (1980) supported the notion that cultures can be assessed in terms of individualism or collectivism. A positive correlation was found between modernity as measured by national wealth, (+0.82) and degree of individualism.
Further biases
BETA BIAS: Minimising differences
▪ When we assume that a finding in one culture is representative of everyone we may be guilty of minimising differences across cultures
▪ we may not have carried out cross cultural research as we don’t think it will make any difference.
ALPHA BIAS: Belief that there are real and enduring differences between cultures
▪ When we carry out research in cultures that are different to our own, we may assume that we will find differences
▪ These differences become exaggerated in our findings and conclusions
These so-called cultural differences may be false due to poor methodology
It is may be very difficult for Western researchers to shed their cultural lens when viewing Pps from different backgrounds to their own; especially when the devices for measuring peoples’ behaviours have been created and standardised for a completely different target population.
It is all to easy for our own cultural expectations to affect observations we make of Pps from cultures other than our own; these expectations can lead to misinterpretation of cultural practices and erroneous conclusions.
These problems coupled with
▪ small samples sizes,
▪ unrepresentative sample which may reflect only one subculture
▪ possibility for the Hawthorne effect and ...
▪ evaluation apprehension
mean that conclusions from cross cultural research can be beset with problems.
Effect of cultural bias on psychological theories
Theories based on research from one culture only may be culturally biased. They sometimes minimize cultural differences (beta bias) assuming that behaviours in all cultures will be described as effectively. Psychological theories are also often individualist due to the Eurocentric bias of many researchers, trained in the West.
Effects of cultural bias on psychological research
Sometimes we assume that an emic from our own culture is in fact an etic and this is when we become guilty of Eurocentrism.
Imposed and derived etics
Cross cultural research often aims to reveal behaviours which may be universal and potentially biological but when imposed etics are part of the research design than conclusions can be very misleading.
Combating Eurocentrism and imposed etics in cross cultural research
Psychologists have a moral obligation to challenge cultural bias, (Howitt and Owusu-Bempah, (1994).
There are a variety of ways through which this can be achieved:
▪ Cultural relativism; recognising that there are no universal standards all behaviours are relative to the cultural context in which they originate.
▪ Abandoning etic approach: inevitably biased; conduct all research using emic approach, start with Pp observation, gain qualitative data, uses local sources and researchers, (borrow methodology from ethnographic approach in anthropology)
▪ Careful operationalisation of culture and further research into sub-cultures: operationalising culture as country can lead to erroneous conclusions since the findings may relate to one sub-culture only and this approach ignores the fact that within any culture there will be diversity and individual differences.
o One psychology textbook verges on racism when it uses the term ‘African tribes’ collectively without quoting which tribes, thus implying that they are ‘all the same’. Howitt and Owusu-Bempah (1990)
o
▪ Reporting individual differences within cultures as well as main effects across cultures.
▪ Indigenous psychologies:
o Many more countries are now actively producing psychological research within their own countries
o Will provide a greater cultural balance in time
o may provide greater insights into emic approaches which can be employed when carrying out overseas investigations
o Yamagishi (2002) comment that there are now more social psychologists in Asia than in Europe.
Conclusion
▪ Psychological knowledge and understanding pervades everyday life for everyone through mass media, shaping attitudes worldwide toward other cultures and ourselves
▪ Disproportionate number of American and European psychologists in the first 100 years of Psychology means this knowledge and understanding is Eurocentric.
▪ Tendency to assume that European, white culture is the norm and anything else is then compared to this
▪ “Cultures that fall short of this arbitrary Eurocentric standard are frequently described as ‘primitive’, ‘underdeveloped’ or at best developing. Religion, morality, community spirit etc are ignored in this racist ideological league table”. Owusu-Bempah and Howitt (1994)
▪ Afrocentrism movement are challenging the Eurocentric position in attempt t redress the balance and highlight the cultural bias in the majority of existing psychological studies and theories, underlining that much of Psychology does little to explain the experience of Black Africans.
-----------------------
! COMMENT: What do these facts imply?
! Research: What is meant by...
a) ethnocentrism
b) eurocentrism
Try to write about 100 words altogether by referring to examples if necessary.
! Research: Read the boxes about Hofstede (1980) and Noble’s (1976) to gain further insight into this distinction.
! Assess: Complete the table to summarise your knowledge of individualist and collectivist cultures:
|Individualist |Collectivist |
|Europe, The States | |
| |Interdependent |
|Competitive | |
| |Oneness with nature |
| |‘We’ |
|Individual goals | |
|Autonomy and individual responsibility | |
| |Survival of the tribe |
|Industrialised | |
| |Rural |
! Explain: How does sense of self differ between individualist 湡潣汬捥楴楶瑳挠汵畴敲㭳栠睯搠敯桴獩搠癥汥灯搠晩敦敲瑮祬愠牣獯畣瑬牵獥ി䌍慬獳捩攠慸灭敬›慍杲牡瑥䴠慥ㄨ㌹⤵ഠ伍獢牥敶″牴扩獥椠敎and collectivist cultures; how does this develop differently across cultures?
Classic example: Margaret Mead (1935)
▪ Observed 3 tribes in New Guinea, here are her findings:
▪ The Mundugumor: very aggressive regardless of gender (typically masculine)
▪ The Arapesh: warm, emotional and non-aggressive (more feminine)
▪ The Tchambuli: reversal of typical gender roles; women involved in commerce outside the tribe; men emotional, artistic, spent time chatting while making decorative jewelry and other social pursuits.
▪ Observer-bias: Mead was influenced in the way she recorded her observations by culturally-constructed gender roles from her own experience which then shaped the way she recorded further observations;
▪ Top-down processing; active interpretation due to motivation, past experience culture, which shape the way we perceive information ;
▪ She imposed meaning on ambiguous behaviour.
Examples of the cultural bias in theories
! Describe the cultural assumptions and bias inherent in each of the following theories. Consider whether superiority of Western behaviour/thinking is implied in any of these theories.
▪ Freudian theory of psychosexual stages, esp. the Oedipus Complex
▪ Fundamental attribution error – in relation to breakdown of relationships and also depression
▪ Economic theories of relationship formation, maintenance and breakdown:
▪ Humanistic theories such as Maslow’s basic human need to self- actualization, you can link this with the ‘ideal mental health’ definition of abnormality
▪ Milgram’s Agency theory: The agentic and autonomous state
▪ Medical model of psychopathology; diagnosis of ‘conditions’ which individuals would be better without this was not the case.
! Research: Berry (1969) distinguished between the ‘emic’ and ‘etic’ approaches to cross cultural research; what is meant by these terms? You will need approx 100 words which can include examples.
! Comment: What is the problem with taking an etic approach?
! Think: You want to adopt the emic approach in your cross cultural study; what ideas do you have about how to achieve this and discover the most possible information; use as much terminology as you can?
! Research: What is meant by an ‘imposed etic’; you came across this term at AS and should be familiar with it already.
! Example: What happened when the ‘Strange Situation’ was exported to Japan in a study conducted by Takahashi? Explain the problem of using an imposed etic such as the SSC and link with findings of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)
! Example: Explain why it may be unfair to export traditional IQ tests. You may want to research this further, e.g. in Gross. How has this been resolved?
! Example: Explain why cross cultural comparisons of prevalence of different mental health conditions may be biased.
Further examples of bias in research
▪ Intelligence testing
o Pps from the Kpelle tribe (in Africa) asked to sort familiar objects into groups,
o Westerners sorted by categories (food, tools etc).
o Kpelle sorted into complementary function (orange and knife).
o They could sort by category but it wasn’t natural to them.
o Had this been a test of intelligence by Western standards they may have failed.
▪ Personality testing:
o Yang and Bond (1990) looked at copies of British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology (1962-80) and noted that Western personality tests were often applied in Non-Western cultures
o there were no studies where they assessed personality using the cultures own constructs.
Practice Question
Many psychological theories are based on research with ‘Western’ Pps but accepted as explanations of human behaviour. We probably haven’t begun to understand the effects that’s such generalisations have had on modern life.”
Discuss cultural bias in psychology, with reference to the issues raised in the quotation above (30 marks)
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