In ordinary discourse, the terms culture, race, nationality, ethnicity, and so on are frequently used interchangeably. Culture may also refer to music, dance, art, food, clothes, rituals, customs, and a region's overall legacy. Culture has also been an important research topic in numerous fields, including sociology, anthropology, political science, education, marketing, and psychology. All of these fields have diverse viewpoints on culture. A descriptive, cultural perspective emphasizes the range of activities or behaviors connected with culture.
Understanding the legacy and customs linked with a group of people is aided by historical context. The normative approach describes the cultural rules and standards. The psychological explanation of culture focuses on learning, problem-solving, and other culturally linked behavioral techniques. A structural approach emphasizes a culture's sociological or organizational features. Finally, the genetic viewpoint examines the origins of culture.
Culture in psychology is mainly referred to as the proper understanding of how a culture shapes and reflects any individual or group's mental or psychic process. The individual's mental shape and culture are not separable, and culture helps shape the person's mental structure. Assessment in Psychology is mainly referred to as the method of testing where multiple techniques are used for deducing the theories and hypotheses of the behaviors of certain individuals along with their character traits, abilities, and core psychology.
The basic and primary goal of cultural psychology is to increase the varieties of different cultures that help develop certain psychological states of any person. It can also help in the evaluation of theories by observation. In the case of Assessment in psychology, any individual's weaknesses and strengths are considered with certain hypotheses and theories. These traits, emotional reactivity, and cognitive issues are also gathered.
Along with varieties of individuals and their traits, cultures are transformed into Cultural Elements. Some major examples of cultural elements are Laws, Customs, Social Standards, Traditions, Dress, and Architectural Style. Along with these different sets of cultural elements, they have different types of components, likely Social, Educational, Symbolic, Aesthetic, and even spiritual beliefs.
From observations and studies, it has been proved that Culture shapes and sizes the thinking process, mental conditions, and psychology of an individual. Assessment is the tool that helps in identifying hypotheses of human behavior with their strengths and weaknesses. Cultural elements often influence and bias the individual's response to the carried test items (Assessment). Thus, the reports and results gained by conducting the Assessment are mainly influenced and driven by Cultural factors of Psychology. With the help of culture and then testing in the form of assessment, past experiences and background are gathered from the same individual culture.
The treatment of Psychiatric Patients with the help and usage of Cultural Assessment and evaluations
Every individual who suffers from any mental disease or trauma has their display of Culture. This varied range of cultures results in multiple types of assessment after the tests are conducted, and cultural Assessment is created in this manner. With the fast changes in the multicultural aspects, diversities, differences in opinions and thinking perspectives, linguistic classifications among the people, and behavioral traits, different beliefs and attitudes must be taken into account for getting to their thought mechanisms with the help of Cultural Assessment.
For example, an individual who speaks a language other than English and who also believes in a different mainstream culture apart from English culture will have different assessments. There will be different sets of behavior displayed by each individual. To understand cultural identity, gender, background, age, race, language, economic and social class, educational background, and other beliefs must be considered. Here, the degree of capacity needs to be understood with the assessment results. So, to understand psychiatric patients, Cultural Assessment is very important, and this is how (in the given example) it can be followed.
Importance of Multicultural Studies in Psychology and the Bias of the Majority
Cultural Sensitivity is very much needed to prevent wrong or incorrect assessments with the help of tools and techniques. Guidelines following the training, multiculturalism, and practices for the psychiatrists must be conducted with the help of research.
A deep analysis of multiculturalism with different social aspects and beliefs must be covered with the help of the Assessment models and other theories of multiculturalism in Psychology. In a maximum of cases, it has been observed that a group of people falling in the sector of minorities is subjected to biasedness as a maximum of the Assessment tools are designed and categorized from "Cohorts," hugely containing the group of individuals who represent the majority group of society.
The deficits that are mainly observed in the score sheet of the minority group (in the case of their mental tests conducted) are mainly due to how the tests are designed, interpreted, and administered. It does not at all depend on the inabilities that they have or on their weaknesses. For example, a foreigner (from America) must not know or must not be accustomed to the social norms, values, languages, and ways of the United Kingdom (Britishers). Thus, at some point, it can be observed that the person or group in this scenario is biased towards one end.
Another reason for getting biased with one end is the existence of inappropriate standardization samples, which often leads the people or the person to bias. In this case, the results and the reports of the minorities are underrepresented. Thus, in the end, the Assessment reports do not result in the actual way that it should occur if there is any bias. However, with the absence of biasedness, Assessment reports based on the cultural activities, and the functions of people must be accurate and correct. This is what is depicted by the Cultural Bias Hypothesis.
The counselor must consider the vast range of ethnic and cultural groups, each with its own ethnic, linguistic, and cultural characteristics. Clients' cultural backgrounds play a crucial influence in influencing how they will approach the counselor and the process of therapy itself. Cultural differences influence how beliefs, values, and attitudes evolve in clients. You must be aware of this as a counselor.
This will make the customer feel welcomed and understood, making rapport creation simpler. As you are aware, the most important necessity in evaluation and counseling is the formation of rapport. When the counselor acknowledges the client's ethnic, linguistic, and cultural distinctions, the client feels significant and understood, and trust and confidence in the counselor grows. The customer is then ready to engage in the evaluation procedure and perform the exams correctly. Based on the client's ethnic/linguistic/cultural background, the counselor must determine the applicability of the psychological exam. Otherwise, it may have a detrimental impact on the test outcome.
Culture and Assessment are thus very much needed to understand the diversity of the human mind, individualistic behavior, and cognitive measures of the person and chosen groups of people. With the help of cultural assessment, tools, and techniques, a precise outlook on people's thinking processes can be achieved by gaining insights like data and information on the theoretical and empirical structure. It also advances the overall and general understanding of human behavior, reflexes, and cognition.
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