Cultural bias

For systemic bias on Wikipedia and how to reduce it, see Wikipedia:Systemic bias.

Cultural bias is the phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to one's own culture. The phenomenon is sometimes considered a problem central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Some practitioners of the aforementioned fields have attempted to develop methods and theories to compensate for or a culture make assumptions about conventions, including conventions of language, notation, proof and evidence. They are then accused of mistaking these assumptions for laws of logic or nature. Numerous such biases exist, concerning cultural norms for color, location of body parts, mate selection, concepts of justice, linguistic and logical validity, acceptability of evidence, and taboos. Cultural bias extends on many more fields in the globalizing world. Ordinary people may tend to imagine other people as basically the same, not significantly more or less valuable, probably attached emotionally to different groups and different land.

Examples

People who read English often assume that it is natural to scan a visual field from left to right and from top to bottom. In the United States it is typical for the "on" position of a toggle switch to be "up", whereas in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand it is "down." Also, in these countries, North is the top of a map, up is usually the larger quantity and better, as well. As another example, Japanese do not place an X in a check-box to indicate acceptance—this indicates refusal.

These conventions are generally useful, as once one is used to light switches behaving a certain way one does not need to learn a per-light switch rule but just a general rule. Unfortunately, when people move between cultures or design something for a different group they often do not attend to which conventions remain and which change.

Linguistic and ethnic groups often do not share these notational assumptions. Notational and operative assumptions can change control systems if the users implement, from a different culture than the designers, funnel interpretations from their original world view. Safety-critical systems, according to Seidner (pp. 5–7), become responses to threats of control. Through the emergence of majority and minority categories in society, cultural biases ensue.

Notes

References

Douglas, Mary (1982). "Cultural Bias," in: Douglas, M.: In the Active Voice, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; 183-254.
Seidner, Stanley S.(1982). Ethnicity, Language, and Power from a Psycholinguistic Perspective. Bruxelles: Centre de recherche sur le pluralinguisme.

Biases

Cognitive biases	List Acquiescence Anchoring Attentional Attribution Belief Choice-supportive Confirmation Congruence Correspondence Halo effect Hindsight Hostile attribution Memory biases Outcome Response Self-serving Status quo Survivorship

Statistical biases	Estimator Information Lead time Omitted-variable Sampling Selection Self-selection Social desirability Spectrum Systematic error Systemic

Other biases	Academic FUTON Media Publication Reporting

Culture

Outline

Sciences	Anthropology Cultural astronomy Cultural ecology Cultural neuroscience Cultural studies Culturology Culture theory Neuroculture

Subfields	Bioculture Cultural analytics Cultural anthropology Cultural economics Cultural entomology Cultural geography Cultural history Cultural mediation Cultural psychology Culturomics Cross-cultural psychology Intercultural relations Philosophy of culture Popular culture studies Semiotics of culture Sociology of culture Sound culture Theology of culture Visual culture

Types	Constructed culture Dominant culture Folk culture High culture Individualistic culture Legal culture Low culture Official culture Political culture Civic Popular culture Urban Primitive culture Subculture Alternative culture list Super culture Vernacular culture Culture by location

Aspects	Acculturation Cultural appropriation Cultural area Cultural artifact Cultural baggage Cultural behavior Cultural capital Cultural communication Cultural conflict Cultural cringe Cultural dissonance Cultural framework Cultural heritage Cultural icon Cultural identity Cultural industry Cultural invention Cultural landscape Cultural learning Cultural leveling Cultural memory Cultural pluralism Cultural practice Cultural property Cultural reproduction Cultural system Cultural technology Cultural universal Cultureme Degeneration theory Enculturation High- and low-context cultures Interculturality Manuscript culture Material culture Non-material culture Organizational culture Print culture Protoculture Safety culture Technoculture Trans-cultural diffusion Transculturation

Politics	Colonial mentality Consumer capitalism Cultural assimilation Cultural attaché Cultural backwardness Cultural Bolshevism Cultural conservatism Cultural deprivation Cultural diplomacy Cultural environmentalism Cultural exception Cultural feminism Cultural genocide Cultural globalization Cultural hegemony Cultural imperialism Cultural intelligence Cultural liberalism Cultural nationalism Cultural pessimism Cultural policy Cultural radicalism Cultural retention Cultural Revolution Cultural rights Cultural safety Cultural silence Cultural Zionism Culture change Culture minister Culture of fear Culture war Dominator culture Interculturalism Intraculturalism Monoculturalism Multiculturalism Security culture

Related	Animal culture Archaeological culture Bennett scale Bullying culture Coffee culture Cross-cultural Cultural bias Cultural center Cultural Christian Cultural Mormon Cultural competence Cultural critic Cultural diversity Cultural encoding Cultural evolutionism Cultural institution Cultural Judaism Cultural lag Cultural literacy Cultural mosaic Cultural movement Cultural Muslim Cultural probe Cultural relativism Cultural tourism Pop-culture Cultural translation Cultural turn Cultural sensibility Culture gap Culture hero Culture industry Culture shock Children's culture Culturalism Cyberculture Death and culture Disability culture Deaf culture Emotions and culture Insects in culture Intercultural competence Languaculture Media culture Oppositional culture Participatory culture Permission culture Rape culture Remix culture Tea culture Transformation of culture Urban culture Welfare culture

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Cultural bias

Examples

See also

Notes

References