Question

Why is culture important to consider when studying populations in experimental psychology?

Answer 1

Culture is an important factor when studying psychology. Culture shapes a individuals thoughts, beliefs, behavior and mentality and all these can be easily visible in their various functioning whether it be in solving problems or doing any action

The importance of culture in studying experimental psychology are as follows

1. Various cultures have different level of reactivity :

Various cultures have different level of reactivity when they respond to various elements (stress, problems , personal issues etc,) Some cultures make the person very well resilient to all type of stressors while other make the individual to act normally . So this makes the result vary when you are using the samples from various cultural background as their psychological makeup would be different.

2. Generalization becomes difficult :

The results of the experiment cant be generalized if the sample is multi cultural . This can be problematic as the soul purpose of the experiment is to arrive at a conclusion where the results can be generalized on a sample. The culturally different individuals in a sample can be problematic in finding the result .

3. Culture has its influence on the makeup of a person :

Every culture has its impact on the individual's abilities and mentality as well . So this is something which has to be kept in mind and non- stereotypical outcomes has to be there , the result should be culturally unbiased and at the same time against any particular culture as well( in terms of defaming).

4. Through culture the experimenter can get to know about :

The experimenter can get to know about the various factors like gender roles , child rearing , parental behavior, Mal-adaptive behavior , the prevalence of a particular illness , the behavioral dysfunctions of a society or a culture and the possible impact of it on the study . Here the extraneous variable can be controlled so that it doesn't affect the study