Topic Summaries

Cultural bias

A-Level > Psychology > AQA > A-Level Psychology Topic Summaries > Issues and debates > Cultural bias
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Addiction

  • Universality: the aspiration that psychological findings apply to all humans. However, this is frequently undermined by reliance on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic) samples, raising issues with generalisability. The majority of psychological research and researchers have either been with American participants which makes it liable to WEIRD bias.
  • Ethnocentrism: the belief that one’s culture is superior to another. When you judge cultures by the same standard as your own culture (i.e.using an imposed etic) it can result in inappropriate research.
  • Etic approach: looks at behaviour outside of the culture and it attempts to explain and identify behaviour as universal. This can raise issues with validity (e.g.using IQ tests that are subject to WEIRD bias to assess intelligence in another culture will result in invalid data).
  • Emic approach: looks at behaviour within the culture and attempts to explain and identity behaviour specific to that culture. This approach advocates for understanding behaviour within its cultural context and resisting universal judgments.
  • Cultural relativism: behaviour cannot be judged unless it is judged in the context of its culture.
  • Evaluation of cultural bias debates:
    • Identifying bias has led to a move towards more culturally sensitive research (e.g. indigenous psychologies, cross-cultural studies), reducing the risk of ethnocentrism and enhancing universality. However, some research risks treating all behaviours as equally valid, making it difficult to draw conclusions.
    • Western psychology still dominates academic publishing and theory-building, limiting global perspectives.

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