Cultural Psychology Paper

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Cross-Cultural Psychology

Chapter 2

Methodology of Cross-Cultural Research

A blind man who sees is better than a seeing man who is blind.

Persian Proverb

Never believe on faith, see for yourself! What you yourself don’t learn, you don’t know.

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)—

Twentieth-Century German Playwright

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Goals of Cross-Cultural Research

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Imagine, a researcher wants to find similarities and differences between arranged marriage practiced in India and nonarranged marriages in the United States and how they affect marital stability. What does the psychologist aim to pursue in this particular project?

First, the researcher wants to describe the findings of this research.

Then, when some differences between ethnic groups are found, the researcher tries to explain whether these factors affect stability.

The practical value of the study may be significant if it not only explains but also predicts the factors that should determine successful marital relationships in both studied groups.

Love marriages are like hot soup that cool overtime, arranged marriages are like cold soup that warm up.

-Outsourced

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” ― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

Different cultures and even people within these cultures have different perspectives on love and marriage.

First, the researcher wants to describe the findings of this research.

Then, when some differences between ethnic groups are found, the researcher tries to explain whether these factors affect stability.

The practical value of the study may be significant if it not only explains but also predicts the factors that should determine successful marital relationships in both studied groups.

Factors that Affect Marital Stability

What we aim to do as cultural psychologists is to describe, explain, and predict behavior.

Two strategies in cross-cultural research

Application-Oriented

Strategy

Comparativist

Strategy

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Application oriented attempts to establish research findings obtained in one country to the culture of another. Comparativist trys to find similarities and differences in sampling of cultures.

equivalence. Indicates that the evidence that the methods selected for the study measure the same phenomenon across other cultures chosen for the study.

Method A is used to study anxiety in France and Italy

Method B is used to study anxiety in India and Pakistan

The results will likely to be incompatible due to the equivalency problem

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Consider a study that measures anxiety using a self-report survey in France but a study which uses observation of a population and measures number of anxiety educing instances in an Indian population. While they may attempt to measure the same thing, they will not likely be equivalent.

A sample of a multi-step approach to cross-cultural research design

Step 1. Describe a problem (an issue) you have to investigate. Review the scholarly literature on the topic.

Step 2. Identify your research goal, i.e. explain what you want to achieve as a result. Then introduce one or several hypotheses for your study.

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Step 3. Identify and describe the research sample of your study: groups of people, newspaper reports, children’s drawings, texts, etc.

Step 4. Choose or design a methodology for your project.

1. Review the scholarly literature on the topic. You may use popular journals, magazines, and newspapers for additional references. Check available sources in the language of the country or countries you examine, if necessary.

2. Then introduce one or several hypotheses for your study. You can use at least two strategies; (a) inductive: you collect data first, and then make a conclusion about the studied samples; (b) deductive: you select a hypothesis first; then you collect data to demonstrate or reject the selected hypothesis

3.Determine who you ideally want to study. Who is your targeted audience? Who are you most interested in? Which cultures do you want to know about? Then, once you have identified your ideal group of people, you then can start figuring out who you actually can get to participate. What sources of data are available to you? How would you go about recruiting the people you want or obtaining the data you need?

4. Make sure that your method does not violate research ethics. Refer to your local Human Subjects Review Board for approval. Put together a schedule (time-table) for your project.

A sample of a multi-step approach to cross-cultural research design

Step 5. Conduct a pilot study, a preliminary exploration of the method to see how your methodology works and whether there are any obstacles to data collection.

Step 6. Collect research data.

Step 7. Interpret you data using statistical procedures.

Step 8. Present the results and analyze them critically in a report.

Step 9. In your report, suggest where and how your data should be or could be used (i.e., in education, counseling, advertisement, conflict-resolution, etc.)

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5. Most studies have a pilot study. This is simply a smaller version of your full study. It helps understand what is working and what needs to be fixed. For example, you may find that your scales do not work in Spanish as well as they do in English. A pilot study allows you to get all of the kinks worked out before the real thing and therefore helps your full study run more smoothly.

9. Always discuss the implications of your study. Who can be helped by your research? How can it be used? Are there limitations?

Sample selection in cross-cultural research

Convenience Sampling

Systematic

Sampling

Random Sampling

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What are each of these types of sampling?

Convenience sampling comes from taking a sample population that is readily available.

Systematic sampling is a mix between convenience and random. Make sure to read up on this from your text book! This is a common procedure for funded research projects.

Random sampling is the ideal. Everyone in the population has an equal chance of being selected and individuals are chosen at random to be included in the study.

What do you think is the most common sample population for psychological studies? College students. Why? Because most research takes place at universities and they are the largest and most readily accessible population.

Sample selection in cross-cultural research

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Are our theories UNIVERSAL or CULTURE-SPECIFIC?

SAT Scores
	Reading		Math		Writing
	25%	75%	25%	75%	25%	75%
Brown	630	740	650	760	640	750
Columbia	690	780	700	790	690	780
West Virginia Wesleyan College	410	520	440	550	390	520
West Virginia University Institute of Technology	400	520	410	570	-	-
Texas A&M	530	650	570	670	510
UH	480	590	520	630

Example here we have a table with 6 schools. If we conducted a study on the relationship of the American economic state, willingness to travel, and perception of job prospects among each of these schools individually do you think we would find the same thing? What factors might alter our findings from one sample to another? Do these scores mean more than they are telling us (SES, parental guidance, support, drive, willingness to leave home town).

Main point here: SAMPLING MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE IN THE RESULTS THAT YOU FIND!! Your results are based on the people you selected. If that means that you only selected middle/upper class white college females, then your data only really applies to that specific group of people. Chances are, if you have sampled a different set of people (e.g., lower class, male, elderly) then you would have different results. The degree that these results do not change across different groups is called “generalizability”.

Universals are Etics

Culture Specifics are Emics

Are our theories UNIVERSAL or CULTURE-SPECIFIC?

Are there universal rules for all things? Most things?

For example, is killing in self defense ok? There are those who believe so greatly in non-violence that even self defense is not allowed among their sect (Jainism)

Sample’s Size

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Estimates derived from large samples are more reliable than estimates derived from small samples.

An illustration: What do you think: does “7 out of 10” look like better odds than “60 out of 100”? Yes, it looks like the first one is better. However, which of these indicators is more reliable? The more reliable indicator is the “60 out of 100” because it is drawn from a larger, that is, more reliable sample.

Basic methods of cross-cultural research

Observation

Survey Methods

Content-Analysis

Experimental studies

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Observation is observing behavior, making notes, field studies. This typically does not involve any interaction or manipulation on the part of the observer.

Survey Methods aim to understand behaviors by asking people to rate their responses for attitudes, behaviors, emotions, personality traits, etc. These are very convenient but since you are not actually measuring the real behavior, it can be biased by the participants willingness to please and perception biases.

Experimental Studies these are studies where you are actively manipulating and controlling the environment to determine the effect on a measureable outcome. Common examples include drug trials or cognitive therapy. In these cases, your baseline level is measured, then you are given the treatment, and then they see if the treatment impacted your levels on depression or whatever psychological construct they are measuring.

Content analysis or textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws."

Scientific Observation

What are the differences between

scientific and non-scientific observation?

Most of the time, non-scientific observation is often spontaneous and biased. The observer’s attitudes can have an impact on the results of observation.

A scientific cross-cultural observation should use measurable variables. For example, a study measures how fast the individuals walked on the streets on New York, Tokyo, and Teheran.

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Surveys

Why Surveys?

Easy to Collect Data

Cheap

Common

Easy to Replicate

Easy to Analyze Data

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Test Translation

Cultural Applicability

Cultural Bias

Obstacles in Cross-Cultural Research

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Some of the problems with cross-cultural research are test translation, cultural applicability, and cultural bias. Things may not mean the same thing (translation) or be meaningful (applicability) in other cultures. In addition, the cultural perceptions can greatly bias the responses of participants. For example, although there is homosexuality across the U.S., people may be more willing to discuss their sexual orientation with researchers in a large city like San Francisco than in a small traditional rural America town. The culture of the place you live and the norms of that culture can bias the types of responses you get as well as the way questions are interpreted.

Test Translation

“Sexual

harassment”

“Privacy”

“Shame and

Embarrassment”

Obstacles in Cross-Cultural Research

If you are bilingual, translate the following

words in another language. Next, translate

them back in English. What will you get?

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Sometimes there can be issues with translation across languages. The connotations of words can change and the questions may not end up asking the exact same thing. This presents a problem when you are trying to compare across different cultures.

To help avoid this, we typically use a procedure called “back-translating” where the translator translates it from the first language to a second one and then another person translates the second one back into the first language. Then, you can check if the two words/questions in the first language are the same.

Cultural Applicability

My neighbor has just received some singular

visitors. He received one after the other a doctor, a lawyer, and a priest. What is going on at my neighbor’s?

(Alfred Binet. From an IQ test, the early 1900s)

Obstacles in Cross-Cultural Research

Could a child from a non-Western

culture understand this question?

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The rituals, norms, jokes, and common sayings often included in questions are not always applicable to other cultures. When doing cross cultural research, you have to be careful that all aspects of the question and the research methodology apply to the cultures involved. For example, often child IQ or math tests reference food items such as ice cream or hamburgers (e.g., if Johnny orders three hamburgers at $3 each, how much did it cost). However, not all children have had exposure to a hamburger (e.g., children in Rural India). These questions then can cause confusion and often result in lower scores that are not truly representative of the child’s ability level.

Cultural Bias

In self-assessment surveys, three national groups consistently mark themselves as “hardest working”:

Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

Respondents from Chinese, Korean, and Japanese samples evaluate themselves among least hard-working in the world!

Obstacles in Cross-Cultural Research

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The way you respond to a question often is how you feel in relation to your peers or those around you. In cultures, such as those in China, Korea, and Japan, where working hard is the norm, applicants are likely to say they do not work that hard (because they see their peers and the media representations of others working really hard – so they may feel that they are not working as hard as other people). The way people rate themselves is very closely tied to their cultural norms and the levels of these traits in other people – often these ratings are more of a comparison rating than a true score (even if we ask the question in regards to a true score).

Experiment

Independent Variable:

Conditions controlled by the experimenter

Dependent Variable:

Something you study

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Other methods of cross-cultural research

Content-Analysis

Meta-Analysis

Focus-Group Methodology

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Meta- Analysis takes the findings from many different studies and statistically tests to see what the overall conclusions are.

Focus-Group methodology is where you have groups of people who sit down and discuss the topics of interest. These are usually guided by a mediator and are analyzed using content analysis or qualitative methodology.

Comparing two Phenomena in Cross-Cultural Psychology

The ABSOLUTIST approach(universalist) will argue that psychological phenomena are basically the same in all cultures: honesty is honesty, sexual abuse is abuse, and depression is depression. Within this approach, there is a tendency to use the standards of one group as the norms for viewing other groups.

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The RELATIVIST suggests that human behavior in its full complexity can be understood only within the context of the culture in which it occurs. Therefore, the scientist should study an individual’s psychology from within his culture.

Beware of Cultural Dichotomies!

There could be fewer differences between two “dissimilar” groups that you may think

Or, there could be more differences between two apparently “similar” groups

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