Lecture 8

Goals of Cross-Cultural research:

Imagine, a researcher wants to find out what psychological factors influence the relative
stability of arranged marriages of Native Americans, whose family unions last longer than
marriages among European Americans and other ethnic groups. To find the answer, the
researcher should conduct a scientific investigation and choose appropriate methods. What
does the psychologist aim to pursue in this particular project?

First, the researcher wants to describe some major differences between arranged and non
arranged marriage. Suppose one of the most important differences is so-called conflict-
avoiding behavior of both spouses in the arranged-marriage family: they seldom escalate
tensions and try to resolve every minor problem in their relationship before the problem grows
unsolvable.

Then, when some differences between ethnic groups are found, the researcher tries to explain
whether these factors affect marital stability. If they do, then why and how does this influence
take place? After an explanation is offered, the psychologist tries to disseminate the received
data and their interpretations. The psychologist may attend a conference, share the data with
colleagues and students, or publish an article in a scholarly journal.

The practical value of the received data may be high if they not only explain, but also predict
the factors that determine successful marital relationships identified by the research. For
example, the psychologist could suggest that conflict-avoiding behavior is effective primarily in
arranged-marital relationships, but not in other types of marriages in which conflict-resolution
behavior is more efficient than conflict-avoiding activities. If this is the case, practitioners could
use these research data to help other people to better understand and manage—that is,
effectively control—their family relationships.

We use many pairs of terms like ideographic versus nomothetic, subjective versus objective,
and qualitative methodology versus quantitative methodology. By and large, research
methodology in cross-cultural psychology can be divided into two categories: quantitative and
qualitative.
Quantitative research in cross-cultural psychology:

Quantitative research in cross-cultural psychology—and in psychology in general—involves

measurement of certain aspects of human activity from a comparative perspective. The
variables chosen for examination have to be studied empirically, primarily through observation
as opposed to other forms of reflection, such as intuition, beliefs, or superstitions. Because
cross- cultural psychologists are interested in establishing similarities, differences, and other
statistical relationships that occur between two or among several variables, the most common
data are measures of central tendency. The measure of central tendency indicates the location
of a score distribution on a variable; that is, it describes where most of the distribution is
located. There are three measures of central tendency: the mode, the median, and the mean.

The most frequently occurring score is called the mode. For example, you compare the test
performances of two groups of people: A and B. Then you find out that most people in group A
received 10 points for the test and most people in group B received 7 points for the test; you
can compare 10 and 7 as the groups’ modes. Mode in most cases does not provide accurate
accounts of the scores in the studied groups. Therefore, a better measure of central tendency
can be used—the median. When 50 percent of all scores are the score X or a score less than X,
the median will be X. For example, if you have the scores 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, the median
would be 3 because half of the distribution—scores 1, 2, 2, 2—is before the 3 and half of the
distribution—scores 4, 5, 5, 5—is after the 3. The numerical value of the scores is not what
determines the median. In brief, the median is the score at the 50th percentile. For example,
you want to know the socioeconomic status of the population in the country in which you
conduct research. You will have to find a point on the country’s income distribution scale that
indicates a 50 percent level. Suppose this point is $12,000. This measure will indicate that
$12,000 is the median income in this country. The median, however, does not adequately
describe some data. Imagine a child is taking a test on cognitive development and receives the
following scores: 2, 3, 3, 4, 9, 9, 9. The median in this case will be 4; however, this description
virtually ignores the high scores received on the last three tests. The student could have gotten
scores 6, 6, and 6 instead of 9, 9, and 9; however, the median will still be 4.

The most convenient and frequently used measure of central tendency in cross-cultural
psychology is the mean. The mean indicates the mathematical central point of a distribution of
scores. It is determined by adding up all the scores and dividing by the number of scores you
just added. For example, by adding the scores 2, 3, 7, 8, 15, and dividing the sum (35) by
5,which is the number of scores, you would have a mean of [Link], this measure does not
always accurately describe highly skewed distributions. Imagine, for example, that you examine
aggressive reactions in people’s behavior during an experiment. In four experimental conditions
the score of angry reactions is 10. The mean will be 10. Then on the fifth condition the score is
0. That will bring the mean down to 8, which could be somewhat misleading because any
observer unfamiliar with this research would assume that all the scores were distributed
around 8. Therefore, when you collect statistical data you always have to be aware of the
distance between the two most extreme scores in your set of data (the range) and deviations of
the scores around the mean (the variance).

Lecture 9
Correlational Design:

Correlation can be defined as the statistical test used to determine the tendency or pattern for
two (or more) variables or sets of data to vary consistently (Creswell, 2012).

Example: If a score of an English test depends on the number of hours spent studying then we
can say that there is a correlation between the test score and number of hours spent on
studying.

This design helps to predict score and explain the relationship among variables. We don’t
attempt to control or manipulate the variable rather we try to see the link, degree of
association, between point A and point B .

We use this design when we want to relate two or more variables to see if they influence each
other. For example, The relationship between self-esteem and test performance. The
relationship between audience members' opinions of a movie and their mood

Types of Correlational Designs

  Explanatory Design: used when the researcher is interested to know the extent to which
two or more variables co-vary, i.e. if damage in one would be reflected in the order.
Example: loneliness → suicide.
 Prediction Design: used when the researcher try to predict outcome using certain
variables as predictors useful to predict or foretell a future behavior.
Example: parent with little or no education might be reluctant to send their kids to
school.
Step for Conducting a Correlational Study
 Step 1: Determine if a Correlational Study Best Addresses the Research Problem
 Step 2: Identify Individuals to Study
 Step 3: Identify Two or More Measures for Each Individual in the Study
 Step 4: Collect Data and Monitor Potential Threats
 Step 5: Analyze the Data and Represent the Results
 Step 6: Interpret the Results

Lecture 10
Qualitative Research Methods in Cross Cultural Psychology:

According to Denzin and Lincoln (2000b, p. 8):

“The word qualitative implies an emphasis on the qualities of entities and on processes and
meanings that are not experimentally examined or measured (if measured at all) in terms of
quantity, amount, intensity, or frequency. Qualitative researchers stress the socially
constructed nature of reality, the intimate relationship between the researcher and what is
studied, and the situational constraints that shape inquiry. Such researchers emphasize the
value-laden nature of inquiry. They seek answers to questions that stress how social experience
is created and given meaning”.

Creswell (1998, p. 15) speaks about qualitative research as:

“An inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that
explore a social or human problem . The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyzes
words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting”.

Methods in Qualitative Research:

The methodological traditions that Creswell refers to are related to the disciplines that
frequently use these methods. In cultural anthropology the main method is ethnography . This
qualitative tradition is one of the foundations of cross-cultural psychological research. The goal
of ethnography is to make sense out of the narrations of informants and one's own
observations in terms of a system of meanings or values. In history an important method is the
biography through which the researcher tries to reconstruct events and their background. In
sociology the researcher, if following qualitative rather than quantitative approaches, is seeking
grounded theory via an inductive process starting with the analysis of single cases and the
subsequent development of progressively more abstract categories.

In psychology qualitative methods include unstructured interviews, focus groups, and non-
scheduled observations, as well as interpretive assessment methods where not rule-bound
scoring methods, but the insight of the psychologist into the meaning of the respondent's
reactions is central. The major methods of qualitative research, according to Silverman (1993),
include observation, analysis of text and documents, interviews, and recordings with
transcripts; and often these methods are used in combination.

In the citation Creswell mentions natural settings as typical for qualitative research. It should be
obvious that much of cross-cultural research is qualitative in this sense, and in our view has to
be qualitative. Moreover, there is no incompatibility between the methods of data collection
mentioned by Creswell and Silverman and quantitative research methodology.

Emic and etic orientations

These terms were coined by Pike (1967) in analogy with phonetics and phonemics. In the field
of linguistics phonetics refers to the study of general aspects of vocal sounds and sound
production; phonemics is the study of the sounds used in a particular language.

Many qualitative researchers argue that behavior in its full complexity can only be understood
within the context of the culture in which it occurs. In the emic approach an attempt is made to
look at phenomena and their interrelationships (structure) through the eyes of the people
native to a particular culture, avoiding the imposition of a priori notions and ideas from one’s
own culture on the people studied. This point of view finds its origin in cultural anthropology
where, via the method of participant observation, the researcher tries to look at the norms,
values, motives, and customs of the members of a particular community in their own terms.

The danger of an etic approach is that the concepts and notions of researchers are rooted in
and influenced by their cultural background. They are working with “imposed” etics, or
“pseudo” etics . The goal of empirical analysis is to progressively change the “imposed” etics to
match the emic viewpoint of the culture studied. This should lead eventually to the formulation
of “derived” etics which are valid cross-culturally.
 Emic approach Etic approach
 Studies behavior from within the  Studies behavior from a position
system outside the system
 Examines only one culture  Examines many cultures, comparing
them
 Structure discovered by the analyst  Structure created by the analyst
 Criteria are relative to internal  Criteria are considered absolute or
characteristics universal
Lecture 11
Major Steps for Preparation of a Cross-Cultural Study

Choosing an application-oriented strategy, researchers attempt to establish the applicability of

research findings obtained in one country or culture to other countries or cultures. In this type
of research, a methodology or procedure tested in a particular cultural context (for example, in
Japanese collectivist society) is tested in a different cultural setting (for instance, in Finnish
individualist society). Comparativist strategy focuses primarily on similarities and differences in
certain statistical measures in a sample of cultures. For example, a Canadian researcher
establishes that educational level of family members and size of the family are negatively
correlated on the national level. Then she would use a comparativist strategy to identify
similarities or differences in the relationships between education and family size in a sample of
other countries.
A crucial element for a successful comparative study is the selection of methodology. Often, the
same method can be used in different countries without any modifications other than
translation. One example of such direct application of the same method is a study conducted by
Hofstede (1980), when the original questionnaire was translated into 10 languages in 53
countries. In other cases, an adaptation of the original method is necessary, which usually
includes the rephrasing of questions or statements, adding or deleting some words to clarify
meaning, breaking up sentences, and so on. Some authors believe that many psychological
tests from one culture can be effectively applied—after adaptation, of course— in other
countries.
One of the major concerns of any cross-cultural study is equivalence. This term stands for the
evidence that the methods selected for the study measure the same phenomenon across other
countries or cultures chosen for the study. For example, if an investigator tries to make cross-
cultural comparisons of anxiety disorders, he or she should show evidence that the methods
selected for the study measure the same phenomenon across other countries chosen for the
study. In addition, the methods should be of the common origin.
Sample Selection:
There are at least three strategies for sample selection. One strategy is availability or
convenience sampling, in which the researcher chooses a culture by chance or, most likely,
because of the researcher’s professional or personal contacts in the country in which the
samples are selected. For instance, if you have a former classmate and good friend working as a
professional psychologist in India, will you hesitate to collaborate with her in a comparative
study?
A second type of sampling is called systematic. The psychologist selects national or ethnic
samples according to a theory or some theoretical assumption. The samples may be selected
because they represent people who practice different customs. For example, a psychologist
who studies marital satisfaction in arranged families may choose countries with and without
the arranged-marriage tradition. In one category will be included Germany, Spain, Chile, and
Australia. In the other category, countries such as India, Pakistan, and Somalia will be selected.
A third sampling strategy, random sampling, is when a large sample of countries or groups is
randomly chosen, that is, any country or group has an equal chance of being selected in the
research sample. As an illustration, this method was used by Schwartz (1994), who, in one of
the most fascinating comparative projects in psychology, examined human values in 36
randomly selected countries. This method was also used by David Schmitt and his colleagues to
measure the personality traits of 17,837 individuals from 56 nations.

In a representative sample, the characteristics of a sample accurately reflect the characteristics

of the population. The determination of the size of a representative is the chief problem of
practically all studies in cross-cultural psychology. There are some statistical methods that
determine more or less accurately the size and type of the sample. The sampling error indicates
the extent to which the sample is different from the population it represents.
Observation in CCP:
If you are recording people’s behavior in their natural environments (for instance, on the
streets of Madrid and Bombay) with little or no personal intervention, this procedure is called
naturalistic observation.
In the laboratory observation, the subjects are brought in, and you—as a psychologist— design
specific situations or prepare a set of stimuli and then ask the participants to respond. The use
of this method requires the researcher to display two important virtues: patience and
skepticism
Survey Method:
Surveys are, perhaps, the most common technique of data collection in cross-cultural
psychology. In a typical survey, the researcher asks the subject to express an opinion regarding
a particular topic, issue, or issues. There could be open-ended and, more commonly, multiple-
choice questions. Open-ended questions give subjects some freedom to express themselves, to
explain many nuances of their thoughts and feelings.
In direct surveys, the interviewer maintains or can maintain a direct communication with the
respondent and is able to provide feedback, repeat a question, or ask for additional
information.
In indirect surveys, the researcher’s personal impact is very small because there is no direct
communication between the respondent and the interviewer. The questions are typically
written and handed in, mailed, or sent electronically to the respondents in their homes,
classrooms, or work places.
Experimental Studies:
To conduct an experiment, you put randomly assigned subjects in particular experimental
conditions. By varying these conditions, you try to detect specific changes in the subjects’
behavior, attitudes, emotions, and so on. In an experiment, the condition(s) that are controlled,
that is, can be changed by you, are called the independent variable(s). The aspect of human
activity that is studied and expected to change under influence of the independent variable is
called the dependent variable. As an experimenter, you control the independent variable: you
change the conditions of the experiment.
In a typical cross-cultural experiment, two or more groups are put in preferably identical
experimental conditions. Ethnicity, nationality, or other cultural identification of the members
of studied groups will typically represent the independent variable. If the experiment is
designed properly, any differences in subjects’ activity measured by the experiment could be
explained, hopefully, as caused by the subjects’ cultural background.
Content Analysis:
Content-analysis is a research method that systematically organizes and summarizes both the
manifest (what was actually said or written) and latent (the meaning of what was said and
written) content of communication. The researcher usually examines transcripts of
conversations or interviews, television or radio programs, letters, newspaper articles, and other
forms of communication. The main investigative procedure in content-analysis consists of two
steps. Initially, the researcher identifies coding categories. These can be particular nouns,
concepts, names, or topics. First-level coding is predominantly concrete and involves identifying
properties of data that are clearly evident in the text. Second-level coding is more abstract and
involves interpreting what the first-level categories mean.
Meta-Analysis
A special statistical method allows cross-cultural psychologists to do quantitative analysis of a
large collection of scientific results and integrate the findings. It is called meta-analysis. In brief,
meta-analysis refers to the analysis of analyses—usually called “combined tests”—of a large
collection of individual results in an attempt to make sense of a diverse selection of data. One
of the attractive features of this method is the reliance on statistical formulas, and an
imperative to include a large selection of studies, not only those that appear to be “good” and
“interesting.” This method often shows results that are difficult to see in individual studies.
Designing culture-comparative studies
In external validation studies, variables from the cultural context are brought into a study at the
design stage. Observed differences on a variable of interest can then be explained in terms of
such variables. In theory-driven studies the explanatory variables are part of the theoretical
framework that is examined. Cultural populations can be selected beforehand and specific
hypotheses formulated. This is the kind of study that probably will most advance our
knowledge, since more than in the other kinds, alternative explanations are ruled out. In
generalizability studies the researcher is interested in the question of whether findings
obtained in one cultural setting can be replicated elsewhere. Replicated findings are usually
interpreted as support for the validity of instruments and/or theory. However, when cross-
cultural differences are observed, these can only be interpreted post hoc. This is also the case
with studies of psychological differences, the most common type in the cross-cultural literature,
according to Van de Vijver and Leung. Here the researcher administers one or more
instruments in different cultures to explore similarities and differences. Needless to say,
findings from such studies are vulnerable to erroneous interpretation.
A hypothesis-testing study(theory driven) is based on theoretical conceptions. To test a
hypothesis derived from the theory, a study is designed for which data have to be collected in
various cultures. In the following chapter we shall discuss how in such studies “culture”
amounts to some sort of “treatment” or “condition,” in the sense of an experiment.
Bias and Equivalence:
Bias: Differences that do not have exactly the same meaning within and across cultures. When
scores on an instrument cannot be interpreted in the same way (for example, in predicting a
criterion or measuring an outcome) and thus do not have the same psychological meaning in
different cultural contexts, they are called non-comparable, inequivalent, or culturally biased.
Equivalence: a state or condition of similarity in conceptual meaning and empirical method
between cultures that allows comparisons to be meaningful.
It’s important for cross-cultural researchers to understand the many aspects of their studies
that may be culturally biased and work to establish equivalence in them. Below we discuss five
major areas of bias: conceptual bias, method bias, measurement bias, response bias, and
interpretational bias. (Read from book: Culture and Psychology ,P. 47)
A HIDDEN OBSTACLE OF CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES: TEST TRANSLATION:
 First, the translation process from the beginning ought to be conducted by bilinguals,
that is, by people proficient in both languages. They should conduct the so-called back-
translation: initially, they translate the original version of the method and then transfer
this version back into the original language. Then both versions are compared.
 Second, it is quite beneficial to have several people do the translation so that there will
be several versions of it. These versions can then be compared and converted into one.
 Third, both versions of a questionnaire can be administered on the same bilingual
individuals. If the investigator gets similar results on both versions, this is a good
indicator that the translation was conducted successfully.
Dealing with Nonequivalent Data:
i. Preclude comparison. The most conservative thing a researcher could do is not make
the comparison in the first place, concluding that it would be meaningless.
ii. Reduce the nonequivalence in the data. Many researchers take steps to identify
equivalent and nonequivalent parts of their methods and then refocus their
comparisons solely on the equivalent parts. For example, if a researcher used a 20-item
scale to measure anxiety in two cultures and found evidence for non-equivalence on the
scale, he or she might then examine each of the 20 items for equivalence and rescore
the test using only the items that are shown to be equivalent. Comparisons would then
be based on the rescored items.
iii. Interpret the nonequivalence. A third strategy is for the researcher to interpret the
nonequivalence as an important piece of information concerning cultural differences.
iv. Ignore the nonequivalence. Unfortunately, what many cross-cultural researchers end up
doing is simply ignoring the problem, clinging to beliefs concerning scale invariance
across cultures despite a lack of evidence to support those beliefs.