In one line: Cultural bias is judging one culture by the standards of another.
Imagine a personality test written in one country. It assumes that a confident person speaks up and stands out.
Now use it in a country that values modesty and fitting in. Quiet, respectful people score "low in confidence".
They are not less confident. The test was built for a different world.
Two words for it: Cultural bias: one culture is measured by another's standards.
Ethnocentrism: the habit behind it, treating your own culture as the normal one.
Cultural bias is one type of research bias. It can sit in the questions a researcher asks, in the tools used to measure, in the sample, and in the way results are read.
Remember: Whose "normal" is being used?
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Key idea: There are two ways to study a culture: from the inside and from the outside. Cultural bias appears when the two are mixed up.
Emic: from the inside
- Studies a culture on its own terms
- Uses ideas and words that make sense within it
- Rich and fair, but hard to compare with other cultures
- Asking a community what they mean by "a good life"
Etic: from the outside
- Compares cultures with one shared measure
- Looks for patterns across cultures
- Good for comparing, but the measure must suit every culture
- Giving the same life-satisfaction scale in ten countries
The danger is the imposed etic: a tool made inside one culture is used everywhere as if it were neutral.
The personality test is an imposed etic. It looks like a measure for everyone, but it carries one culture's idea of confidence.
Exam tip: When one culture's test is used on another and the scores are treated as fair, say imposed etic.
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Key idea: Cultural bias matters most where it touches people's health. It can change who is diagnosed, what the statistics show and which treatment is offered.
Three places it shows
Diagnosis
The lists of symptoms that doctors use were mostly written in Western countries.
In some cultures, people who are depressed describe headaches, tiredness and poor sleep, not sadness. A doctor looking for sadness can miss the depression.
Prevalence statistics
Prevalence means how common a disorder is.
If a disorder is missed in one culture, its numbers there look low. The statistics then show how doctors label people, not how many people are ill.
Treatment
A therapy built on talking openly to a stranger about your feelings suits some cultures better than others.
Treatment that is adapted to a person's culture and language tends to work better.
Diagnosis · Statistics · Treatment
One well-known comparison showed the same recorded patients to psychiatrists in New York and in London. The New York doctors diagnosed schizophrenia about twice as often.
The patients were the same. The difference lay in the doctors' training and culture.
Watch out: A difference in numbers between cultures is not always a difference between people.
It may be a difference in how symptoms are expressed, or in how they are read.
Key idea: Cultural bias is reduced by bringing the culture being studied into the research.
Four ways
Start from the inside
Use an emic study first, to learn what a behaviour means in that culture, before comparing anything.
Work with local researchers
People from the culture notice questions that do not fit and meanings an outsider would miss.
Translate and back-translate
Translate the questions, then have someone else translate them back. If the meaning has changed, the question is rewritten.
Widen the sample
Most psychology has studied WEIRD samples: people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic societies.
Testing an idea in other cultures shows whether it is true of people in general.
Inside first · Local researchers · Translate twice · Wider samples
None of this means cultures cannot be compared. It means a fair comparison takes more work than handing out the same test everywhere.
In a clinic: The same ideas apply to diagnosis: a clinician who knows the patient's culture, an interpreter, and questions about how distress is usually expressed there.
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How this is asked: Cultural bias is asked as part of the concept bias: in a 15-mark essay set in a context, such as health and well-being, and as one of the concepts in the 15-mark question on a study you are given.
The essay pattern
- Say what the bias is and where it enters.
- Give one or two clear examples, real or made up.
- Say what the bias does to diagnosis, to the statistics or to treatment.
- Give the other side: what reduces it, or where it matters less.
- Finish with a judgement.
The trap: "it is biased" and nothing more: Saying a study or a diagnosis is culturally biased is only a label.
Say whose standard was used, and what that changed.
In the context of health and well-being, discuss how cultural bias can affect the diagnosis of mental health disorders.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.