Asch’s study on majority influence is also culturally biased in a similar way to Friedman and Rosenman’s study. The aim was to see many people would conform to give the wrong answer about line length when the right answer was unambiguous. Eagly and Carli claim that the task involved an activity that was more familiar to men and so the experiment was beta biased. All participants were also male, and so this uses a biased sample group and then generalises the results to the whole population. A meta-analysis found that in conformity experiments, male experimenters typically find a difference in male and female conformity levels whereas female experimenters don’t. Eagly and Carli suggest that the researcher is an important social influence and must be taken into account when interpreting findings.
Gender bias can also be seen in Milgram’s study of obedience. This is an example of beta bias because although the experiment only used male participants, the results were generalised to the whole population including women. This therefore lacks validity because women act in different way to men; it could be that women were more obedient to men. Research by Eagly has found that women were actually more conformist, however this has only been undertaken in certain situations. However, Smith and Bond argue that this study has been undertaken all over the world with both male and female participants and similar results have been found everytime. Despite this, the cultural and social reasons in other countries for obedience might be different to the UK. For example, a meta-analysis by Stebley found that altruism levels vary between rural and cultural settings, thus the findings still cannot be generalised to the whole population. Other studies, such as Asch and Zimbardo’s studies, have also only used male participants and have assumed that the results fit with women as well.
One study that has cultural bias is Holland et al’s study into anorexia. This was carried out in a Western society, for example America, where anorexia is more common. It therefore takes the emic approach because the findings from the experiment cannot be generalised to other cultures. This is because although we are genetically similar, culturally we are different and anorexia is lower in other cultures, indicating that maybe both sets of twins’ results would be lower, or that fraternal twins’ concordance rate would be lower because they wouldn’t be as influenced by their culture. The study focuses on biological factors and doesn’t take into account social factors; people in countries such as Japan may have the same genes, but have different exposure to TV and they don’t have anorexia. This links in with the diathesis stress model, which suggests that we have to take into account biological and social factors. The study also ignores sub-cultures within the Western society that are not middle class; therefore this study is not representative of non-middle class cultures. For example, it has been found that lower classes watch more TV and therefore have more media exposure; this has been found to influence eating disorders, and so if the study had been undertaken in lower classes then the results would have been different. The concordance rate between non-identical twins may have been higher due to more media exposure, because the other twin may have seen thinner people in the media and aspired to be like them and their twin.
Asch’s study to see how many people would conform to give the wrong answer when the right answer was unambiguous also holds cultural bias. This study is historically biased because it was set in the 1950s in the USA. This was a period of high conformity, so therefore people would be more likely to conform. If the study were to be repeated today, the percent of people who conformed would have possibly been lower due to the fact that people are more independent. Therefore the study cannot be generalised to today’s society. The study was also based on students and therefore has an emic approach because it assumes that all classes act the same, whereas in fact students may be more independent than other classes. However, this study does use neutral stimuli, for example, the length of a line is unambiguous and does not change over time; whereas values such as views on abortion do. On the other hand, it is only neutral if you understand the concept, for example, in societies without a system of primary education, it may not be normal to study line lengths.
Ainsworth’s theory into attachment types also holds cultural bias and has an imposed etic approach because she has assumed that culture doesn’t affect the attachment of an infant and the behaviour they show. She developed research that allowed infant’s attachment types to be found out. The strange situation procedure used to discover the children’s attachment types was made in a Western society, thus when it was tested on children from other cultures, they were found that patterns of insecurity differed. For example, in Germany, more avoidant infants were found and in Japan more resistant infants were found. This was because it is more culturally ‘normal’ for mothers in Germany to leave their children with baby-sitters and so, during the strange situation procedure, German children would have probably been more likely to happily leave their mothers, thus suggesting they had an insecure attachment when in fact they didn’t. Therefore this theory is ethnocentric because it implies that the Western society is normal and other cultures aren’t. Ainsworth aimed to cause the child ‘mid stress’ but the level of stress a child experienced would depend on the child’s cultural background and hence its behaviour would be affected differently. It is also Eurocentric because it suggests that Western societies are superior to other cultures. This holds ethical issues because it may suggest that insecure attachment types mean bad parenting, but this isn’t the case; other cultures are just different.
Moghaddam suggests that economic theories of relationships, such as the social exchange theory and the equity theory can only be applied to western relationships. This is because the theories only reflect the charecteristics of individualistic societies in which group members are mostly concerned with their success, for example getting the most out of the relationship that they can. In collectivist societies, group members are more concerned with the success of a group so ‘equity’ and ‘costs and rewards’ in personal relationships are less important. Also, in arranged marriages, it isn’t possible for them to leave when the costs are high and the rewards low, as this is perhaps what it is like at the start of their marriage, but they are unable to leave. This is an example of eurocentrism.