Cross Cultural Research

12 Key excerpts on "Cross Cultural Research"

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  eBook - PDF

  21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook

  • Stephen F. Davis, William Buskist, Stephen F. Davis, William F. Buskist(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Triandis and Brislin (1984) were right in asserting that if we understand psychology as the scientific study of behavior, such study must encompass behavior in the entire world—not simply behavior found in industrialized countries. DEFINING THE FIELD Cross-Cultural Psychology: What Is It? Numerous writers have defined cross-cultural psy-chology in various ways. Shiraev and Levy (2007), for example, called it the “critical and comparative study of cultural effects on human psychology” (p. 3). Brislin, Lonner, and Thorndike (1973) defined cross-cultural psy-chology as “the empirical study of members of various culture groups who have had different experiences that lead to predictable and significant differences in behavior” (p. 5), and Malpass (1977) described it as “a means of dis-covering the degree to which knowledge of behavior and basic processes obtained in one culture is representative of humanity in general” (p. 1069). A good, comprehensive definition is the one proposed by Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen (2002): Cross-cultural psychology is the study: of similarities and differences in individual psychological functioning in vari-ous cultural and ethnocultural groups; of the relationships between psychological variables and socio-cultural, ecologi-cal and biological variables; and of ongoing changes in these variables. (p. 3) 484 • HUMAN DIVERSITY Today, key elements of an understanding of useful defi-nitions of cross-cultural psychology include recognition of the importance of mainstream psychological science; acknowledgment of the influence of cultural forces on psychological functioning of individuals; and realization that people across cultures share many similarities, as well as differences. Taken together, these elements allow for a legitimate science of cross-cultural psychology. Foundations of Cross-Cultural Psychology Several foundational principles underlie contemporary research in cross-cultural psychology.

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  Cultural Issues in Psychology

  An Introduction to a Global Discipline

  • Andrew Stevenson(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  35). The aim of this research is to try to find out what aspects of behaviour and experience are common to all human cultures – and thus what aspects are unique to certain places. Cross-cultural psychology is an approach that is favoured by a large proportion of global psychologists, though as we will learn it is not the only approach. It is an essentially culture-comparative approach to relationship between culture and psychology (Berry et al., 2011), and as such can be contrasted with cultural psychology (see Chapter 4). Reflective Exercise 9 What kind of research finding might lead you to conclude that weeping at funerals is a cultural universal ? Key Terms Cross-cultural psychology. A branch of psychology which studies similarities and differences in psychological processes in various cultural groups in order to understand the extent of culture’s influence on those processes. Cross - cultural comparison study. A study which involves ‘participants from two or more cultures and that measure those participants’ responses on a psychological variable of interest’ (Matsumoto & Juang, 2017, p. 35). Culture-comparative, cross-cultural psychology is a dominant, mainstream approach to researching cultural issues in psychology. To gain a firm footing in understanding this approach, it is useful to appreciate three key themes that are foundational to the cross-cultural approach. Psychic unity. A set of psychic structures (mind, memory capacity, perceptual processes) that all humans share. Theme 1: Psychic unity Central to cross-cultural psychology’s search for cultural universals is an assumption of psychic unity (Shweder, 1991, Berry et al., 2011). In everyday terms this dictum states that despite outward appearances, human diversity is only skin deep

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  Psychology, 6th Australian and New Zealand Edition

  • Lorelle J. Burton, Drew Westen, Robin M. Kowalski(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  For example, how does the culture you live in influence your self-identity? Alternatively, they may explore the various symbolic resources that migrants draw on to give meaning to their experiences of transition. INTERIM SUMMARY Culture refers to the shared rules that govern behaviour; it is a flter through which we see and understand our current reality. Cultural psychologists focus on how individuals are shaped by their culture by examining how cultural practices, norms, values, meanings and social structures infuence the way people think, feel and behave. Cross- cultural psychologists focus on how culture infuences human behaviour to explain the similarities and differences in how people think, feel and behave across cultures. Pdf_Folio:46 46 Psychology Research methods in cultural and cross-cultural psychology Research in cultural and cross-cultural psychology uses a number of approaches (Matsumoto & Juang, 2016). One approach is the emic perspective, which is culture-specific. It involves focusing on a specific cultural group and examining particular psychological aspects of that group. This perspective can involve a cultural psychologist taking a particular theory and applying it to an individual culture or generating new insights by building theory from the ground. Another approach is the etic perspective, which is more cross-cultural. It involves the search for commonalities or differences across cultures. Under this perspective, the aim is to see whether a particular theory fits across different cultures. Goldberger and Veroff (1995) described the approaches to cultural research slightly differently, using three categories. 1. The study of individual cultures to determine relationships between the structures, values, belief systems, language and practices of a culture and people’s behaviour living within that culture. 2. The comparison of human behaviour across different cultures.

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  Life-Span Developmental Psychology

  Methodological Issues

  • John R. Nesselroade, Hayne W. Reese, John R. Nesselroade, Hayne W. Reese(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  But in most cases, the uncovering of "if-then relations" is possible only on an a posteriori basis, because the interaction between the individual and his specific cultural environment has occurred before psychological research is undertaken. In light of the above restriction, a provisional definition of cross-cultural research might then read: Cross-cultural research (as a strategy), is the explicit, systematic comparison of psychological measures obtained under different cul- tural conditions, in which cultural conditions—the operationalized culture con- cept of cultural anthropology—serve as the independent variables. Psychological concepts are used as intervening variables or hypothetical constructs. Since not all variables involved in cross-cultural research are part of psychology as generally understood (the independent variables are adopted from cultural anthropology), cross-cultural psychology may be called an interdisciplinary approach. When the distribution of cultural conditions in various populations is known, cross-cultural research can be used to compare the describable groups by means of these various cultural conditions. [However, this would be the subject-matter of anthropology, sociology, or as LeVine (1966) called it, "psychology of populations."] Unfortunately, most data from various cultural groups—usually nations—are typically compared without defining the distribution of cultural characteristics in each group and without defining the dimensions on which they differ from each other. The result is that in these cases, no meaningful basis is provided for interpreting differences occurring in the data. The following discussion refers to problems associated with uncovering the "if-then relation." An a priori distinction of special conditions understood as cultural (Frijda & Jahoda, 1966) is demanded, thus pointing to the necessity for making the global culture concept operational.

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  Culture and Psychology

  • Stephen Fox(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology began publication. Volume 1 opened with an editor’s greeting by Walter Lonner and ultimately included articles by a number of central figures in cross-cultural psychology, including Richard Brislin and John Berry. Articles discussed research in Mexico, Ghana, Hungary, and a host of other cultures. A new discipline was born. At the first meeting of the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology in 1972, Patricia Greenfield (2000) described attendees as “an assemblage of expatriates who had lived and worked in countries of the former British Empire” (p. 226).

  Triandis (1980) set forth a mission statement for the discipline in the opening of his Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology, stating, “Cross-cultural psychology is concerned with the study of behavior and experience as it occurs in different cultures, is influenced by culture, or results in changes in existing cultures” (p. 1). At its core, cross-cultural psychology views culture as integral to understanding human development and behavior. In cross-cultural comparison, culture is often treated as an independent variable, the thing that causes different outcomes in dependent variables such as what values are most important to people (e.g., Schwartz, 2001). Culture serves as an independent variable in some studies of self-construal (discussed in Chapter 4 ), in which cultures may emphasize independence or place more importance on interdependence (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 2010). Understanding that humans themselves play an active role in creating culture, cross-cultural psychology can also at times examine processes of cultural change. In those cases culture may be more of an outcome variable in the change process (Segall et al., 1998).

  From the beginning, cross-cultural psychologists sought to confirm or disprove universal theories, such as the fundamental attribution error, which will be discussed in Chapter 4 . Faced with criticism that personality theories had been developed in Western contexts only, cross-cultural researchers began testing personality theories across cultures, attempting to demonstrate universality (e.g., Church & Katigbak, 1989). Cross-cultural psychologists may also seek universal structures or rules of culture, as with Shalom Schwartz’s decades-long search for a universal structure of human values (e.g., Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990; Schwartz & Boehnke, 2004), to be discussed in Chapter 9

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  Concept and Method in Cross-Cultural and Cultural Psychology

  • Ype H. Poortinga(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Contents Introduction 1 1 Historical Overview 2 2 Conceptualization 13 3 Method 25 4 Incorporating Development and Change 35 5 Cross-Cultural and Cultural Psychology for the Global Village 46 6 Epilogue 52 References 54 Introduction Every time I hear the word culture I release the safety on my 9 mm. Banksy It is evident that between human populations, especially between societies, there are differences in overt behavior repertoires and in (covert) understand- ings. Striking examples include traffic rules, spoken and written language, dress codes, and religious practices. The most common term to capture such differ- ences is “culture.” Any population tends to be attributed its own culture, and behavior differences between populations are referred to as “cultural” or “cross- cultural” differences. These are the subject of study in cultural anthropology; language and communication sciences; ethology; and various subfields of psychology, such as cross-cultural psychology, psychology and culture, cultural psychology, and indigenous psychology. The term to be used in this Element for these subfields of psychology is “cross-cultural and cultural psychology,” abbreviated (c)cp. “Culture” has multiple meanings, including, but not limited to, the following: (i) antecedent conditions for human behavior (e.g., climate, GDP, modes of subsistence), (ii) context in which individual behavior takes place (e.g., society), (iii) attribution of meaning to actions and events, and (iv) the outcome of events or processes that took place in the past (e.g., evolution of culture). In (c)cp, “culture” is often attributed causal or agentic qualities.

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  Culture and Psychology

  • David Matsumoto, Linda Juang(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  Including participants from different cultural backgrounds is conceptually pretty easy—just add people from different cultures to an experiment. But doing so raises many important questions that need to be dealt with in order for such studies to be meaningful. This chapter introduces you to those special issues that are associated with cross-cultural research. We do so not only because is it important to be able to read cross-cultural research and understand its contributions to knowledge; you also need to be able to evaluate it on its own merits. As active consumers of research in your everyday and academic lives, you need to review cross-cultural research with a critical but fair and open mind, accessing the literature directly and evaluating it with established criteria for quality. And you should be able to evaluate the research that we present in this book. We begin by discussing the different types of studies that exist in cultural psychology. Types of Cross-Cultural Research Over the last century cross-cultural research has progressed through different stages, with different types of studies prominent at different times (Bond, 2004b; Matsumoto & Yoo, 2006). Very loosely, the first stage involved initial tests of cultural differences and the discovery of fascinating cultural differences. A second stage involved the search for meaningful dimensions of cultural variability that can possibly explain those differences. The dimension known as individualism versus collectivism emerged during this stage, as did others. A third stage of research involved the conceptual application of those meaningful dimensions in cross-cultural studies. The fourth stage of research, in which the field is currently in, involves empirically applying those dimensions and other possible cultural explanations of behavior experimentally (i.e., not just conceptually) in order to scientifically document their effects.

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  Advancing Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Educational Psychology

  • Gregory Arief D. Liem, Allan B. I. Bernardo(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Information Age Publishing

    (Publisher)

  To see Culture and Educational Psychology  35 our own biases and choices, we need to observe education in other cultures and compare what is done elsewhere to what we do, or to witness educa- tional practices in multicultural contexts. Through such comparisons, the differences and the similarities can become clarified. Due to the valuable contributions of cross-cultural studies in education for decades, many other important factors on culture have been examined and documented, such as academic motivations (King, McInerney, & Wat- kins, 2012; McInerney, 2012; McInerney et al., 1998), academic self-concept (Yeung, Chui, Lau, McInerney, & Russell-Bowie, 2000), intelligence (Church & Katiback, 1988), and values (Fogarty & White, 1994). Moreover, it is valu- able and reasonable to revisit educational psychology from non-Western per- spectives (e.g., King et al., 2012). Nevertheless, there are remaining aspects that should be still explored. Culture is a map, indicating the path of under- standing individuals’ behaviors, regardless of the definition of culture in the psycho-educational process. It is important for us to educate ourselves and conduct in-depth research in this area so that students can have practical skills in engaging with the complexity of a diverse social life. Grappling with culture is a major challenge not only on a local scale, but also on a global scale. We must continually adapt to ongoing technological innovations and social changes in norms, attitudes, and behaviors in each culture. Encultura- tion, therefore, is a life-long process, within which the educational system plays a major role. Ideally, future research can include longitudinal studies that will enable researchers to examine the interactions among various com- ponents of the enculturation process, in the same individuals in different contexts across time.

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  eBook - ePub

  Review of Marketing Research

  Volume 3

  • Naresh K. Malhotra, Naresh Malhotra(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Many consumer psychologists who have conducted either cross-cultural or cultural research will testify that it is very difficult to conduct any type of research outside of the North American/Western European/Australian-New Zealand context, and thus researchers engaged in either approach should combine efforts to determine common solutions to overcoming barriers. Most other cultures simply are not self-oriented on inner thought processes in the way that “Western, individualistic” cultures are. People in these other cultures typically cannot articulate their thought processes and feelings regardless of which approach is taken (Fiske, 2002). It is imperative that researchers from both cross-cultural and cultural perspectives continue to innovate and share their ideas with each other so that the field of consumer psychology can become truly non-Western-centric, and represent the psychologies of a wide variety of peoples.

  Table 3.2 A Consumer Researcher’s Guide to Understanding the Distinction Between Cross-Cultural and Cultural-Psychological Approaches

  	Cross-cultural psychology	Cultural psychology
  Epistemological grounding	• Universalistic	• Relativists
  • Culture construed as an independent variable	• Culture construed as both independent and dependent variables
  • Culture viewed as consistent and external to the individual	• Interdisciplinary
  • Perspective stems directly from social psychology	• Human behavior may be non-comparable across cultures
  • Assumes Western psychology is “basic” psychology	• Culture and the psyche are mutually constitutive phenomena
  • Process and content of the mind cannot be separated
  Representative methodological approaches	• Explanatory	• Interpretive
  • Typically experimental or survey-based methods	• Heterogeneity of methods
  • Methodology typically developed in a Western context	• Experience-near view
  • Focus on achieving comparability	• Flexible design
  • Researcher shares the perspective of the subject
  • Equivalence in meaning is established before comparing across cultures

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  Cultural Psychology

  A Once and Future Discipline

  • Michael Cole(Author)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • Belknap Press

    (Publisher)

  By comparing early and later efforts, we should be able to shed some light on the degree to which general psychology’s lack of interest in cross-cultural research is the result of shortcomings of early research or of more enduring problems with this strategy for studying culture in mind. The internal logic of the three research programs, narrowly speaking, is important for our understanding of their usefulness as examples of how general psychology sought to understand the role of culture in mind. But it is also important to consider, at least schematically, the sociocultural circumstances that shaped the world view of the researchers themselves. As we will see, the scientific judgments of the investigators bear the imprint of the dominant beliefs in their societies at the times in which they lived. Sociohistorical Context As Emily Cahan and Sheldon White point out, the rise of psychology as a discipline was associated with the rise of research universities and a division of labor among the former humane sciences. In a thirty-year period one witnesses the emergence of psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, and other disciplines grouped around the idea of a behavioral science. 1 Outside of academia it was a time of growth of large bureaucratic and commercial structures and demands for people who could make those new structures run efficiently; schools, factories, and the armed forces all sought help in dealing with the social and economic problems associated with mass-mediated, industrial societies. On the international scene it was a time when European presence and influence on the continents of Asia, Africa, and South America was at its zenith. In this respect, despite the jolt dealt to romantic ideas about human progress by World War I, the early generations of twentieth-century psychologists were still steeped in the dominant world view of the late nineteenth century

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  Cross-Cultural Psychology

  Research and Applications

  • John W. Berry, Ype H. Poortinga, Seger M. Breugelmans, Athanasios Chasiotis, David L. Sam(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  For Warwick, “[f]rom the choice of topic to the publication and dissemination of the findings, cross-cultural research is inescapably bound up with politics” (1980, p. 323); the cross-cultural work may involve differences in goals, differences in power and differences in intended use (even to the extent of misuse) of the results. To deal with these problems, Watkins and Shulman (2008; see below) have advocated a “psychology of liberation,” by which psychologists in the majority world take charge of their own research and professional agendas. This export and import of psychology has led to psychology being done in other countries, without much regard for local cultural circumstances or needs, and is part of the general process known as globalization . However, Berry ( 2008 ) has argued that assimilation is not the only outcome of globalization, by which all the cultures of the world become homogeneous, and resemble the dominant western world. In keeping with the intercultural strategies framework (see Figure 13.1), the alternatives of rejecting and reacting to these outside influences are common, as are novel or innovative ways of living with multiple cultural influences. A special journal issue on globalization has examined evidence for many of these alterna-tive ways of dealing with this phenomenon (Kim and Bhawuk, 2008 ). One attempt to deal with these ethical problems has been made by Gauthier ( 2008 ) by formulating a “Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psycholo-gists.” An outline of the main goals and principles of this declaration is presented in Box 18.1 . It is also possible to attempt to address these problems by employing some distinctions that have been made in cross-cultural psychology. We start with the observation that psychology can be exported and imported “as is” (from western cultures to other countries). This represents a kind of “scientific assimilation,” and

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  Beyond Hofstede

  Culture Frameworks for Global Marketing and Management

  • Cheryl Nakata(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Part IV Extensions of and Advances in Culture Frameworks 125 7 Impact of Context on Cross-Cultural Research Susan P. Douglas and C. Samuel Craig Introduction Culture has been studied extensively in diverse disciplines, each focus- ing on different elements and employing different research paradigms. Anthropology and sociolinguistics have focused on cultural content, examining, for example, a culture’s artifacts, rites and rituals, and modes of communication. Cross-cultural psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, and comparative sociology have paid greater attention to examining the influence of variables such as domi- nant value orientations, personality or social structure on cognitions, attitudes, modes of personal interaction, and behavior patterns. Each of these approaches provides a perspective on culture, focusing on a particular aspect and its impact on attitudes and behavior. However, the different perspectives largely ignore the impact of the contextual setting in which cultural phenomena take place. Typically, the country is viewed as the appropriate unit of analysis in studying cultures. Inferences are made about the impact of culture based on observed differences in value orientations, sociocultural norms, cognitive processes, or other phenomena between two or more countries (Clark, 1990; Georgas and Berry, 1995; Sivakumar and Nakata, 2001). Consequently, there is a mistaken tendency to equate “culture” with nation or “ethnic group” and to use the concept of the nation- state in both defining samples and interpreting results. This has been termed, by Georgas and Berry (1995), “the onomastic fallacy,” in which the name of a country is used to identify the culture and serves as a sur- rogate for a range of variables that may account for observed similarities and differences between cultures. Often interpretations are after the

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