Cultural Biases May Influence Parenting Studies, Scientist Finds
Published: Mar. 27, 2008
URBANA - When two University of Illinois scientists set out to learn about the differences in Chinese and American parenting behaviors at mealtime, they learned something important about conducting cross-cultural research.
"Although you can train a Chinese coder to say that it's intrusive for a parent to put a bite of food in a four-year-old's mouth, you can't actually get the coder to believe it. Their cultural bias causes them to see this behavior as sensitive and loving," said Angela Wiley, a U of I associate professor of human and community development.
"That's important because those biases influence coding in subtle ways, calling into question the validity of much of our past research that compares parenting behaviors across cultures," she said.
Even when cross-cultural coders evaluate behavior as U.S. researchers train them to, the parenting behaviors of other cultures often suffer in comparison, she said.
"If an American coder notes behaviors such as the Chinese parent feeding the four-year-old, the research will conclude that Chinese parents are suppressing the independence of their children. There's an inevitable bias toward our own cultural interpretations," she said.
In the study, 22 first-generation Chinese immigrant families with at least one 2-1/2 to 5-1/2-year-old child were videotaped during a shared meal. Two female Chinese coders and two female European-American coders then analyzed 755 minutes of video to get a large sample of a wide variety of behaviors.
Each family was coded on parental sensitivity, intrusiveness, detachment, negative affect (do family members appear angry or hostile?), positive affect (do family members seem to enjoy each other?), and parents' confidence. When their work was complete, the coders were asked to give detailed reasons for their ratings.
Their reasons highlighted their different cultural perspectives about parent-child relationships.
In European-American cultures, parents stress the development of independence in their children. Chinese immigrant culture values mutual obligation, including strong parental responsibilities and children's obedience.
European-American cultures value parents' consistency, whereas Chinese culture values flexibility and reacting in a context-sensitive way.
Chinese culture deems verbally and emotionally expressive persons as socially immature and lacking in self-control. In contrast, expressiveness, including direct verbal communication, is a major behavioral component by the individualism valued by Western cultures.
The influence of these perceptions in cross-cultural studies can be difficult to eliminate, Wiley said.
"Even so, it's clearly important to continue and expand observational cultural research in an era of increasing contact with other cultures," she said.
In the study, published in the February issue of Social Development, Wiley and her colleagues recommend using a combination of coders from both cultures for all data to minimize the researcher's tendency to interpret behaviors using their own cultural framework. This collaborative approach maximizes cultural understanding in addition to improving the quality of comparative research, she said.
Yan Z. Wang of the University of New England and Xiaobin Zhou of the U of I were co-authors of the article. Funding for the study was provided by the Pampered Chef® Family Resiliency Program and the United States Department of Agriculture.
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