Psychology's Cultural Bias Problem (Issues & Debates) | A-level Psychology

psychology is weird no not that kind of weird weird in a way that makes the behavior of some people in certain cultures look abnormal in a way that can lead some people to be diagnosed with a mental health disorder when they are actually perfectly normal hey everyone welcome back to Bear it in mind this video is part two in a series exploring the issues in debates Topic in Psychology in this video we're going to explore the issue of cultural bias cultural bias refers to the tendency to interpret and judge behavior in terms of the values and beliefs of your own society and culture this sometimes leads people to form views about the behavior of others without any actual experience with them as we saw in the previous video one of the key parts of the issues and debates topic is the use of key terminology and the issue of cultural bias is no different one of the key terms we considered with gender bias that also applies to cultural bias is universality universality for this issue refers to the belief that some behaviors are the same for all cultures in addition to understanding universality you need to understand the following two terms ethnocentrism this refers to viewing your own culture as the standard by which other cultures are judged you may have heard someone be called egocentric before which refers to how they are self-centered and and feel Superior to others so ethnocentrism involves the tendency to judge your own culture as Superior to others the other key term is cultural relativism this refers to the idea that a behavior can only be properly understood in the context of the norms and values of the society or culture in which it occurs in other words it relates to hence the word relativism the culture being studied and not another culture it's the rejection of behaviors being Universal let's now explore examples of cultural bias in Psychology and consider what can be done about it in 2010 Joseph Henrich and colleagues published a piece of research entitled the weirdest people in the world in which he argued that the majority of claims about human psychology and behavior are based on Research that are study participants who are what they call weird you're really weird no not that kind of weird weird as in Western educated industrialized rich and Democratic societies for example they reported from their analysis that of published psychology studies 68% of the participants in those studies came from the USA and 96% of participants were from Western industrialized nations such as North America Europe and Australia when this was released it made a profound impact particularly when they concluded findings suggests that members of weird societies including young children are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans consider some of the most famous psychological studies that you learn about Ash zimbardo mgram what do they have in common well research based on participants derived from a weird sample could what we understand about Conformity and obedience be very different is studied with non-weird participants therefore it could be argued that applying the findings from research universally to all cultures could be biased because it's based on Research using weird samples it could lead to the behavior of people from non-westernized less educated Agricultural and poorer cultures being seen as abnormal not because they are but because one culture is being used as the standard by which others are judged and that's cultural bias that's ethnocentrism so what can be done about this perhaps it could be argued that psychology needs to be more culturally relative and either only apply the results of their research to the culture of the participants studied or ensure that cross-cultural research is conducted where different samples are studied particularly with non-weird participants as a side note if you're interested Henri's research was turned into a book that explores the issue at greater length and I've link that down below for you for another example let's consider the topic of attachment and specifically the types of attachment Mary anworth created The Strain situation as a technique of measuring attachment where a mother and her child enter a playroom where they were observed through a one-way mirror during a series of episodes The Strain situation was focused on the idea of separation distress being fundamental to the definition of a secure attachment in other words how how attached the child was to the mother was based on how the child responded to their mother leaving the room and a stranger entering and according to answorth secure attachment is characterized by moderate stranger anxiety and moderate separation anxiety however this assumption about attachment is based on one culture the study was created by a researcher based in America using American participants as a result when the strange situation as a measurement of attachment is used to study attachment in different cultures it can potentially lead to bias for example you may remember the study of tahashi 1990 that found that during the episode of The Strange situation where the mother leaves so that the baby's left on their own they had to stop the study for 90% of the children because of how extreme their anxiety became because this was so unnatural and unusual for the children separation distress as a measurement of attachment does not not reflect their child rearing practices therefore the use of the strain situation in such cultures will be an example of ethn centrism because they are imposing their own cultural standard and Norms on other cultures failing to consider the norms and values of the culture they are studying so what can be done about this well perhaps it could be argued that psychology needs to be more culturally relative so that when measuring attachment psychologists take into account cultural norms and standards of the mothers and their children for a third example of cultural bias in Psychology consider the topic of Psychopathology and the definitions of abnormality deviation from social norms defines abnormality from the point of view of what behaviors are socially acceptable this means that if someone behaves in a way that does not fit within what Society expects as normal behavior then it would be considered improper or abnormal the problem with this definition is that behaviors that are abnormal from the expected standards of society in one culture may be considered normal in another culture for example one of the symptoms of schizophrenia is hallucinations such as claiming to hear voices researched by Fernando in 1998 found that people from afro Caribbean Heritage who were now living in the UK were seven times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia now why might this be well for these afro Caribbean cultures spiritual practices including hearing voices are part of their culture and typical behaviors rather than abnormal however the West misinterprets this as a hallucination and therefore a sign of mental illness therefore by applying the definition universally across cultures psychologists can end up being culturally biased and potentially misdiagnosing people as mentally ill so what can be done about this well perhaps once again it could be argued that psychology needs to be culturally relative and carefully consider how mental health issues may vary between cultures rather than applying a universal approach to all mental health conditions across all cultures now at this point from the examples we've looked at one of the solutions we have seen to cultural bias is to not make Universal claims about human behavior and instead to be culturally relative to understand behavior in the context of the norms and values of the society or culture being studied does that therefore mean there are no Universal behaviors at all well here's one example researched by Dr Paul emman established that basic facial expressions for emotions are Universal the same all over the world he studied Western and Eastern cultures including a people group in New Guinea who were living in an isolated preliterate culture who had never seen any Outsiders before here's an example from his research see if you can name the facial expression on the man photographed in one of the tribes Dr Ekman asked the man to show what his face would looked like if one friends had come two his child had just died three he was about to fight and four he stepped on a smelly dead pig in 1972 he published a paper called universals and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion in which he concludes that the evidence is remarkably consistent from the four experiments and conclusively proves that there are Universal facial expressions of emotion so whilst it's clear that psychology needs to be careful about making Universal claims about human behavior because of how it can lead to ethnocentrism that doesn't mean there are no Universal behaviors as seen in the work of Dr Paul ecan in the next video we're going to explore some of the most controversial research conducted in psychology that in some cases led to horrific harm to other people to watch that video you can click on the screen now or I'll Linked In the description below I hope you found this video helpful and we'll see you in the next one

Channel: Bear it in MIND

Views: 1,514

Keywords: Cultural bias in psychology, ethnocentrism, univeralisty, cultural relativism, issues and debates revision, psychology revision AQA, A-level psychology

Id: ltVoQIX6mYU

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2024