PYA5 - Cultural Bias Outline

Ok here goes.
For any issues question if it is a straight 30 mark outline and evaluate/discuss the extent/critiacally consider question i like to have 8 paragraphs and structure it accordingly.

Paragraph 1 - Introduction
It's always hard to write that first sentence in an essay so the way i look at it is, i always define the topic and what it is. In this case we are looking at cultural bias.Here define individualistic vs collectivist, ethnocentric and eurocentrism. These are examples of Theoritical Bias.

Individualistic is a term used by psychologists to describe alot of western cultures where a culture emphasises the importance of an indivudal wheras collectivist cultures (who are more specifically eastern societies) emphasise the importance of the group. Evaluate this as being too oversimplistic and ignoring individual and culturral differences.
Ethnocentric bias occurs when the views of one's culture are used in order to make a judgement on other cultures. (When views from one culture are made generalisable to an another)
Eurocentric Where research from european psychologists is imposed on other cultures.

Paragraphs 2 & 3
Outline methodological bias.

Etic - Where views from one culture are considered to be universal - Ainsworth & Bell's strange situation (Evaluate!!!)
Emic - This is where there are specific views that vary from culture to culture. These tend to have been ignored due to the increase of etic.
A study showing Emic was Cole's (1970) study of research into intelligence which investigated how objects were sorted into groups. Western sorted by category. African sorted by usefulness which suggests intelligence is different in various cultures.
Racial bias - In studies where tribes have been evaluated, the specific tribe names have not been specified which is seen as an insult. Also describing their behaviour as "primitive" is a cultural stereotype.

The next cultural bias topics can be put into a new paragraph as there alot of talking points

Selection of p's - Over 90% of studies have white middle - aged western men as their p's (evalute this by saying this ignores gender differences etc etc)
Interpretation of results. - Biases in cross cultural studies mean that bia interpretations of the result smay be made. This was evident in Eysenck's & Goddard's studies of racial differences in IQ.

Eysenck - Racial differences in IQ.
A01 points:
Found african americans had performend lower on IQ tests.
Believed this to be due to an innate difference in ability.
A02 points:
Sterotyping is unethical
Example of ethnocentric bias and imposed etics.
Goddard - IQ tests on immigrants.
A01 points:
Argued 87% of russians and 83% of Jews were "feeble - minded"
A02 points:
Example of an emic approach as it attempts to identify cultural differences.


Paragraph 4 & 5
Evaluating psycholigcal research and discuss how cross cultural research is limited

Due to all of this cultural bias we cannot be truely sure of results and interpretations. Therefore all of the research may lack some sort of validity.

Mead's study of tribes
A01 points: Mead studied tribes in New Guinea and reserached gender development
Mundugumor tribe - Exhibited masculine charactersitcis as both men and women were aggressive
Arapesh tribe - Exhibitied feminine traits as both men and women were emotional and nonaggressive.
Tchambuli - Reported a gender reversal! As it was found men did housework and gossiped while women hunted and ran the village!
A02 points:
This is an example of an imposed etic as she used her viws from western society to evaluate what she considered masculine and feminine behaviour
Also an example of eurocentric
Much of her data became lost in translation as the data was secondhand.
The cultural bias undermimes the validity of the research.

Ainsworth and Bell - Strange situation
I wont go into detail here as im sure everyone knows this study from AS. TPut soem good A01 points in and dont forget those A02's!


Paragraph 6
Racial bias - In studies where tribes have been evaluated, the specific tribe names have not been specified which is seen as an insult. Also describing their behaviour as "primitive" is a cultural stereotype. Also the word "tribe" is an issue as people typically think of very underdeveloped behaviour when thinking of tribes, which can lead to stereotypical views. Also no one refers to western cultures as tribes so this is another example of cultural bias.

A02: The change over time...
Views are beginning to change over time as racial bias and patronising approaches are less likely today than 50 years ago. So studies conducted today have less chance of racial bias. (also discuss what the future holds)

This can lead nicely into....

Paragraph 7
Historical bias - Alot of cross cultural reserach is very dated. Mead's study of tribes was conducted over 60 years ago so it is likely that behaviours have changed. ALL resarch is a product of tiem and will eventually become dated so discuss the importance of new areas being researched all the time to keep up with growing views and adapting behaviour.

Discuss Freud in some depth as many argue his theories to be very era dependant (IE: He studid Austrian women from an era that repression was more likely than today. His theory had face validity then but wouldnt neccessarily have now)

Also discuss the change in opinions of homosexuality. Was still considered an abnormailty 10-20 years ago and to this day is still not considered the "norm" What does the future hold?

Finally....

Paragraph 8 - Conclusion
Conclude what you have been talking about by assessing the extent of cultural bias and how much it still exists today. Future research must consider subcultural variations for it to be valid and reliable.

Phew! I had to rack my brains for that! lol. Anyway hope that helps some of you who are struggling with cultural bias. As you can see there are ALOT of things to discuss and i believe 30 marks can be achieved here. Dont fear it!

Also i am not a grade A psychology studnet by any means so this outline isnt guaranteed full marks. I am currently on for a B, so if you would like to take this outline on board and it helps you the please do.

(This information was revised from a revision textbook on A2 psychology)

Hope this helps!