#14 Cultural emphases

Social Basis Article Review

Lukas Otteson

Professor Price

PSYC 495-6381 Senior Seminar in Psychology

University of Maryland Global Campus

February 16, 2020

Introduction & Hypothesis

Causadias, Vitriol, and Atkin posed the question of whether or not a tendency to overemphasize the role of culture in the behavior of racial/ethnic minorities and underemphasize it in the behavior of Whites might be present in the United States (2018). The whole project consisted of two studies: one journal analysis and one experiment/survey with psychologists.

For the journal analysis, Causadias et al. asked “To what degree do studies of culture, ethnicity, and race differ from comparison studies?” and hypothesized that “Studies of culture, ethnicity, and race will have a higher percentage of minority participants than comparison studies,” (2018). Their second research question was “To what degree does the sample composition found in each set of studies deviate from what would be expected from a random sample drawn from the US population?” and they hypothesized that “In contrast with the ethnic distribution of the United States, studies of culture, ethnicity, and race will have a higher percentage of minorities in their samples, whereas comparison studies will have a lower percentage,” (Causadias et al., 2018).

For the experiment and survey, Causadias asked “To what extent do psychologists in the United States value a sample composed of minorities as more appropriate for a research study on culture?” and “To what degree do psychologists value a sample composed of Whites as more appropriate for psychological research?” (2018). They hypothesized that psychologists would more favorably rate a sample composed of minorities (relatvive to one of Whites) for a research study examining cultural processes and that this effect wouldn’t be moderated by ethnic self-identification of psychologists (Causadias et al., 2018). Regarding the second research question, Causadias et al. expected psychologists to more favorably rate White samples when examining psychological processes and that this effect wouldn’t be moderated by the psychologist’s own ethnicity (2018). Regarding the surveys, Causadias et al. hypothesized that psychologists would indicate that psychological processes are more influential in shaping the behavior of Whites than minorities and that this effect would not be moderated by the ethnic self-identification of psychologists, that psychologists would indicate that cultural processes are more influential than psychological processes in shaping the behavior of minorities than Whites and that it would not be moderated by psychologists’ ethnicity, and that psychologists would indicate that other psychologists believe psychological processes are more important for Whites (but cultural processes would be seen as more important for minorities) and this effect would also not be moderated by psychologists’ ethnicity (2018).

Methodology

The whole study was divided up into the journal analysis, the experimentation with psychologists, and the surveying with psychologists. 361 psychologists participated and 434 articles were analyzed (Causadias et al., 2018). The articles reviewed were centered around race, ethnicity, and culture (Causadias et al., 2018). The psychologists were asked to evaluate two research proposals from a team of American psychologists, completed responses to both studies in random order, and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions within each study: all White or all minority sample (Causadias et al., 2018). The psychologists were asked to respond to a series of questions designed to measure the extent to which they believed that two psychological processes (both personality & cognitive factors) and two cultural processes (group membership and social identity, & culture, ethnicity, and race) influence behavior of Whites and/or minorities, with items being “blocked by reference group and presented in random order to minimize social desirability or spillover effects in responding,” (Causadias et al., 2018). Following that, the psychologists were asked to report the extent to which other psychologists believed these factors influenced the behavior of Whites or minorities (Causadias et al., 2018).

Results

From the journal analysis, Causadias et al.’s findings were able to support their hypothesis, with studies in the culture, ethnicity, and race group having a significantly higher percentage of minorities than the non-culture-ethnicity-race group (44% versus 31%) (2018). They found that the culture, ethnicity, and race group had significantly less patterns of missing data (22%), whereas the non-culture-ethnicity-race group had 51% missing (Causadias et al., 2018). The findings supported the idea that psychologists tend to target minority samples disproportionately more than White samples when they study culture, but noncultural psychological studies were not seen as differing from the U.S. population in terms of minority composition (Causadias et al., 2018). Both White and minority psychologists more favorably rated a sample composed of minorities for the study of culture and less favorably rated the sample with minorities and reported that personality is more influential for the behavior of Whites (compared with minorities) and that culture, ethnicity, & race are more influential on the behavior of minorities (Causadias et al., 2018). The researchers also saw that both White and minority psychologists believed that other psychologists held the belief that personality and cognitive factors are less influential on behavior, but that group membership and social identity and culture, ethnicity, and race are more influential, in minorities (Causadias et al., 2018). Cognition wasn’t seen as more important for Whites, group membership & social identity were only viewed as marginally more influential of minority behavior, and that minorities are approaching numerical representation in mainstream psychological research, with the percentage of minorities in the non-culture-ethnicity-race group at 31% and the U.S. ethnic distribution at 36% (Causadias et al., 2018).

Personal Opinion

            This study asked important questions and shed light on some biases that may still exist within the U.S. culture, and explores the consequences of such biases on the attitudes of psychologists. With some of the data being gathered being somewhat swayed by social desirability (due to the self-reporting in the methodology), it is hard to call the data gathered generalizable. Even if the study was bigger and showed consistency, it would still be able to be argued against as something that is subjective. That said, even though it is subjective, that doesn’t make their subjective findings worthless. Psychology being a field that was almost solely a field comprised of white males, it is important to ask these questions to ensure that minorities are being represented fairly in the research conducted (and the subsequent conclusions that will be used to mold society further). Overall, this ambitious study was able to find creative ways to answer difficult questions.

References

Causadias, J. M., Vitriol, J. A., & Atkin, A. L. (2018). Do we overemphasize the role of culture in the behavior of racial/ethnic minorities? Evidence of a cultural (mis)attribution bias in American psychology. American Psychologist, 73(3), 243–255. https://doi-org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/10.1037/amp0000099.supp (Supplemental)