An understanding of Cultural Bias

Understanding Cultural Bias

A series of bullet-points detailing key features and understanding of cultural bias:

What is Cultural Bias?

Cultural bias is a concept denoting prejudice or favoured views concerning one’s own culture, often to the detriment of other cultures.
It becomes a challenge in psychology when researchers generalise findings from one culture, often Western societies, to people and cultures around the globe; an approach commonly referred to as ethnocentrism.

Forms of Cultural Bias

Ethnocentrism is the practice of viewing one’s own culture as superior and using it as the standard by which other cultures are judged.
Cultural relativism is the view that behaviours and practices within cultures should not be judged by standards of another culture.

Cultural Bias in Research

Bias from research samples occurs when researchers draw upon a small, non-representative sample for their study, such as university students from a western culture.
The universality assumption suggests that basic psychological processes are universal and that human psychology is essentially the same everywhere.
Characteristics of one’s culture can significantly influence the participant’s response style, such as tendency to select socially desirable responses or refrain from expressing negative emotions, which may result in biased and invalid data.

Impacts of Cultural Bias

Cultural bias in research can lead to misinterpretation of data and could develop theories that present only a partial or distorted view of psychological phenomena.
It may also result in stereotyping or discrimination. When certain characteristics or behaviours are assumed to be universal, they are often applied to individuals who do not fit these generalisations.

Overcoming Cultural Bias

Researchers should adopt a cross-cultural perspective where the aim is not to generalise findings to all cultures but to understand and respect cultural differences.
Use of indigenous psychologists, researchers who understand and are part of the culture being studied, can provide insights that reduce cultural bias.