Ethnocentrism in Psychology.
~75% of all Psychological research has been conducted on America Undergraduate
students. What impact will this have?
Most psychological studies tend to use ppts from their own culture, and within that
culture from their own ethnic group, and then applying these results to everyone.
However these results may not be true of everyone and the variable being studied may
not be universal.
Think of some clinical disorders that aren’t universal. Can the results of studies into
these disorders be said to be true for everyone.
Most studies and therefore theories that are supported by them in textbooks tend to
come from the USA or Europe, but are said to be true for everyone in the world. The
assumption is that basic psychological processes are not affected by culture.
This is an ethnocentric bias.
Thinks of two theories (and supporting studies) from AS and 1 from health and criminal
that have been based in USA or Europe but have been applied to the world. Then think
of possible reasons why this may not be true.
This means that psychology has a lack of balance and is focussed mainly on American and
European views and that as psychologists we fail to recognise and understand the
perspectives of people from different cultures, so minimising their experiences.
Think of at least 1 example of a psychological issue where a different culture has a
different attitude or opinion to us.
This can be got round by carrying out cross cultural research. However this may also be
problematic if we assume that there are universals in human behaviour, and therefore
look for similarities with our culture and regard the others as an outsider may. This can
lead to us criticising their way of doing things and seeing ourselves as better. If we use
the same tools to study other cultures we are imposing our beliefs about how humans
should work, we assume that the tool is as valid in their culture as it is in ours.
Give an example of a tool that has been used across a variety of cultures, and what
results were found and how these have been interpreted. (Use the handout given.) What
other explanation/ways of seeing the results are there?
If it is so difficult to not be ethnocentric why bother? By attempting to understand
someone else’s point of view we can avoid some bias, indeed by knowing bias is possible
we are less likely to be biased and more likely to take a persons culture into account. So
even if we do not fully understand them we won’t be as biased against them.
Also by studying different culture we can see if a characteristic is indeed universal, or
is it specific to certain cultures.
What is the probable cause of a characteristic if it is universal, and what is the
probably cause if it is not universal?
However some psychologists try to study each culture as an individual culture in its own
right and they will only generalise their findings to the culture they have been studying.
They do not try and generalise to everyone. A problem with this is that it is very hard to
get a true understanding of the culture if you are not a member of it, especially when
carrying out experiments where there is limited contact, and usually a small sample.
Describe two examples of the application of cross-cultural studies in Psychology and
discuss the potential effect of cultural bias in their interpretation (12 marks)