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PSY 219. Ch 2

Terms in this set (31)

Types of cross-cultural research
*method validation studies
*indigenous cultural studies
Cross-cultural comparisons
What are all researcher concerned about?
*validity - whether or not a scale, test, or measure accurately measures what it is supposed to measure
*reliability - whether it measure it consistently.
Can cross-cultural researcher take a scale or measure that was developed and validated in one culture and use it in another?
No. It may not be equally valid in another culture
Cross-cultural validation studies
Examine whether a measure of psychological construct that was originally generated in a single culture is applicable, meaningful, and psycho-metrically equivalent in another culture.
Indigenous Studies
characterized by rich description of complex theoretical models of culture that predict and explain cultural differences. To understand mental processes and behavior requires an in-depth analysis of the cultural systems that produce and support those processes and behaviors, linking them to each other.
Cross-Cultural Comparisons
Compare cultures on some psychological variable of interest.
Types of cross-cultural comparisons
*Exploratory (studies designed to examine the existence of cross-cultural similarities and differences) vs Hypothesis testing (designed to examine why cultural differences may exist)
*Presence or Absence of Contextual Factors (characteristics of the participants - age, education, or their cultures - economic development or religious institutions)
*Structure (comparison of constructs, their structures, or their relationships with other constructs) and level-oriented (comparisons of scores)
*Individual (individual participant provide data and are unit of analysis) vs. Ecological (Cultural) Level (use countries or cultures as the unit of analysis).
Multi-level studies
studies that use data from two or more levels, and incorporate the use of sophisticated statistical techniques that examine the relationship of data at one level to data at another.
Designing cross-cultural comparative research
*getting the Right Research Question (need to pay attention to a number of theoretical and empirical issues; face the concerns on how their theoretical model will work)
*designs that establish linkages between culture and individual mental processes and behaviors
Linkage studies
Attempt to establish linkages between the content of culture and the variables of interest in the study.
Two types of linkage study
*Unpackaging studies - extensions of basic cross-cultural comparisons, but include the measurement of a variable that assesses the content of culture that are thought to produce the differences on the variable being compared across cultures. Culture as an unspecified variable is replaced by context variables.
*experiments - studies where the researcher creates conditions to establish cause-effect relationships.
Context variables
*individual level measure of culture - assess a variable on the individual level that is thought to be a product of culture. The most common dimension is Collectivism vs Individualism. INDCOL scale - individualism-collectivism scale to measure an individuals` IC tendencies in relation to six collectivities (spouse, parents and children, kin, neighbors, friends, and coworkers and classmates. )
On individual level individualism = idiocentrism; collectivism level= allocentrism.
ICIAI - IC Interpersonal Assessment Inventory.

*Self-Construal Scales - scales measuring independence and interdependence on the individual level. Using this scale, cultural differences in self esteem and embarassability were empirically linked to individual differences on these types of self-construals.

*Personality- cultural differences may be a product of different levels of personality traits in each culture.

*cultural practices - type of studies that assess cultural practices such as child rearing, the nature of interpersonal relationships, or cultural worldviews.
2 types of experiences in cross-cultural psychology
*Priming studies - involve experimentally manipulating the mindset of participants and measuring the resulting changes in behavior. Individuals who were primed collectively ( how they similar to others) produced group-oriented responses, and those who were primes privately - more individually oriented responses

*Behavioral Studies - manipulation of actual environments and the observation of changes in behaviors as a function of these environments.
Bias
differences that do not have exactly the same meaning within and across cultures
Equivalence
State or condition of similarity in conceptual meaning and empirical method between cultures that allows comparisons to be meaningful.
1. Conceptual Bias
Equivalence in meaning of the overall theoretical framework being tested and the specific hypotheses being addresses in the first place. If theory is not meaningful in the same way to people of different cultures it is not equivalent.
2. Method Bias
*Sampling Bias
*Linguistic Bias
*Procedural Bias
*Sampling Bias
Two issues whether cross-cultural samples can be compared:
1. whether samples are appropriate representatives of their culture
2. whether the samples are equivalent on non cultural demographic variables, such as sex, age, religion, socioeconomic status, work, and other.
*Linguistic Bias
whether the research protocols-items on questionnaires, instructions, etc. -used in a cross-cultural study are semantically equivalent across the various languages included in the study.
Two procedures to establish linguistic equivalence
*back translation - taking the research protocol in one language, translating it to the other, and having someone translate it back to the original. If the back-translated version the same, they considered equivalent
*establishing language equivalence is the committee approach, in which several bilingual informants collectively translate a research protocol into a target language. they debate various forms, words, and phrases of the language of the original protocol.
Two approaches may be combined.
*Procedural Bias
Some students from different cultures may view research as mandatory, some as privilege, and some will only be encouraged.
3. Measurement Bias
refers to the degree to which measures used to collect data in different cultures are equally valid and reliable.
Ways to think about measurement equivalence:
*on conceptual level - different cultures may conceptually define a construct differently and/or measure it differently.
*on the statistical level, in terms of psychometric equivalence
psychometric equivalence can be viewed in several different ways
*to determine whether the questionnaires in the different languages have the same structure ( by using factor analysis technique)
*by examining the internal reliability of the measures across cultures.
4. Response Bias
Different cultures can promote different types of response biases. If response bias exists it is very difficult to compare data between cultures because it is not clear whther differences refer to "true" differences in what is being measure or are merely differences in how people respond using scales.
Types of response biases
*socially desirable responding -tendency to give answers that make oneself look good
*acquiescence bias - tendency to agree rather than disagree with items on questionnaires
*extreme response bias - tendency to use the ends of a scale regardless of item content.
*reference group effect - people make implicit social comparisons with others when making ratings on scales, rather than relying on direct inferences about a private, personal value system. People with implicitly compare themselves to others in their group.
5. Interpretational Bias
*analyzing data
*dealing with nonequivalent data
interpreting findings
*Analyzing data
Researchers use inferential statistics such as chi-square or analysis of variant (ANOVA) and engage in which is known as null hypothesis significance testings.
*Dealing with Nonequivalent Data
it is nearly impossible to create any cross-cultural study that means exactly the same thing to all participating cultures, both conceptually and empirically.
Four different ways in which the problem of non-equivalence of cross cultural data can be handled
1. Preclude comparison - not make the comparison in the first place
2. Reduce the non equivalence in the data
3. Interpret non equivalence
4. Ignore the nonequivalence
Interpreting findings
Most researchers inevitably interpret the data they obtain through their own cultural filters, and these biases can affect their interpretations to varying degrees.
Cultural attribution fallacies - occur when researchers claim that between-group differences are cultural when they really have no empirical justification to do so.
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