export_chapter 4

Question 1

What is the problem with studying cultural psychology?

Answer 1

-not only does cultural psychology inherit the standard ambiguities of whatever methods they adopt from other subfields of psychology, but that many of these methods create further ambiguities when they are applied to the study of people from other cultures

Question 2

How do you pick cultures to study?

Answer 2

• depends on whether you are attempting to determine degree of universality of a particular psychological finding or not
• if universality, then pick cultures that are extreme opposites on many theoretically relevant dimensions as possible; if not, then pick similar cultures that vary to some degree

Question 3

What are the 3 ways to make meaningful comparisons among cultures?

Answer 3

1. develop some knowledge about cultures under study; this can be done by reading existing texts and ethnographies about culture under study
2. find a collaborator who is from the culture that you are studying and who is interesting in pursuing the same research with you
3. experience the culture firsthand

Question 4

ethnographies

Answer 4

rich descriptions of a culture or a particular situation or group of people within a culture, derived from extensive observation and interaction by an anthropologist

Question 5

What is the problem with using ethnographies?

Answer 5

while ethnographies provide rich data, they are limiting to thoughts in which the author felt were relevant

Question 6

methodological equivalence

Answer 6

term to describe when one’s methods are perceived in identical ways across different cultures; can increase with statistical technique

Question 7

What is the problem with using methodological equivalence?

Answer 7

some of it is lost when we use different procedures in different cultures that we are comparing

Question 8

How is methodological equivalence controlled for?

Answer 8

it is controlled for by conducting cross-cultural research in industrialized societies such as North American and East Asian societies

Question 9

generalizability

Answer 9

term to describe whether findings generalize to populations other than samples that were studied

Question 10

power

Answer 10

term which refers to compatibility of study to detect an effect to the extent that such an effect exists

Question 11

What would an effect be in cultural psychology research?

Answer 11

effect: cross-cultural difference

Question 12

What are the 2 problems with cross-cultural studies that solely target university students in industrialized societies?

Answer 12

1. generalizability

2. power

Question 13

Why is power a problem in cross-cultural studies conducted in industrialized societies?

Answer 13

-due to possibility of low variance in independent variable, may be unable to detect an effect in the dependent variable (especially when there may not be huge variability in industrialized societies)

Question 14

independent variable

Answer 14

variable that is varied or manipulated (in cross-cultural studies, usually culture)

Question 15

dependent variable

Answer 15

variable that you measure

Question 16

What are the 2 problems with using surveys in cross-cultural research?

Answer 16

1. translation of questionnaire items

2. response bias

Question 17

What are 4 types of response biases?

Answer 17

1. moderacy & extremity biases
2. acquiescence bias
3. reference-group effects
4. deprivation effects

Question 18

What are the 2 things to consider when translating questionnaire items into another language?

Answer 18

1. has to be developed into target language; otherwise you risk a biased sample in which bilingual sample might be more Westernized than non-English speaking compatriots
2. must be accurate & sensitive to psychological terms that do not have equivalents in other languages; hence, either have a fully bilingual collaborator or consider back-translation

Question 19

back-translation methods

Answer 19

a method of translating surveys where a translator translates survey from English to target language, and another translator translates survey from target language to English; both English surveys are then compared

Question 20

moderacy bias

Answer 20

tendency for people from specific vultures to express their agreement in moderate fashion i.e. towards the midpoint of a 7-point Likert scale

Question 21

extremity bias

Answer 21

tendency for people from specific cultures to express their agreement in extreme fashion i.e. close to end of scale

Question 22

Why are moderacy & extremity biase considered examples of response biases?

Answer 22

b/c they affect how an individual responds to an item independent of the content of the item & are problematic for cultural comparisons b/c if cultures vary in how people respond to questions, it will affect any conclusions that we can draw when comparing the avg. scales across cultures

Question 23

How are moderacy & extremity biases controlled for?

Answer 23

1. use of responses with no middle answer i.e. yes/no

2. standardization of scores i.e. use of z-scores

Question 24

What may be a con for using yes/no response to control for extremity & moderacy bias?

Answer 24

yes/no scale does not provide with sensitive enough measure to detect nuanced differences in opinions across individuals

Question 25

What may be a drawback of standardized scores to control for moderacy & extremity bias?

Answer 25

it is only appropriate for use in detecting cultural differences in pattern of responses, NOT for when comparing average level of responses across culture in a single measure

Question 26

acquiescence bias

Answer 26

a tendency to agree with most statements

Question 27

Why is acquiescence bias a problem in cross-cultural research?

Answer 27

it leads to cultural differences in responses independent from context of items

Question 28

How is acquiescence bias controlled for in cross-cultural research?

Answer 28

1. reverse scoring

2. standardization

Question 29

reference-group effect

Answer 29

term to describe when people from different cultures tend to evaluate themselves by comparing themselves to different reference groups

Question 30

What is the reason as to why reference-group effect is problematic in cross-cultural research?

Answer 30

1. b/c we are assessing cultures by a single standard

2. affects how much a participant agrees with statements with subjective response formats

Question 31

How do we control for reference-group effects in cross-cultural research?

Answer 31

1. avoid subjective measures & instead use concrete measures that measure different conditions of same behavior
2. ask participants to make a forced decision between 2+ response alternatives
3. use physiological measures

Question 32

deprivation effect

Answer 32

effect where people will look at what other cultures have and then value it more because it is lacking in their own culture

Question 33

How do we control for deprivation effect in cross-cultural research?

Answer 33

by investigating whether the results from self-report measures of values converge with results from other sources of evidence regarding values

Question 34

Why are subjective self-report measures useful in the study of cross-cultural psychology?

Answer 34

b/c they are useful for identifying individual differences within a culture because cultural members tend to share the same response biases and reference groups

Question 35

experimental method

Answer 35

research method which involves the manipulation of an independent variable and measurement of the influence that this manipulation had on a dependent variable

Question 36

quasi-experiemental method

Answer 36

research method in which the independent variable cannot be manipulated

Question 37

between-groups manipulation

Answer 37

manipulation in which different groups of participants receive different levels of the independent variable i.e. participants are put into “conditions”

Question 38

random assignment

Answer 38

assignment in which each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any given condition

Question 39

within-groups manipulation

Answer 39

manipulation in which each participant receives more than one level of independent variable

Question 40

Why is within-group manipulation used in cross-cultural research?

Answer 40

b/c it allows for comparison of pattern of means within and across cultures

Question 41

What are the 3 methods particular to the study of culture?

Answer 41

1. situation sampling
2. cultural priming
3. culture-level measures

Question 42

situation sampling

Answer 42

a methodology which utilizes the fact that cultures do not affect us in the abstract but rather, in particular and concrete ways; therefore, underlying idea of methodology is that if we can see how people respond to situations that are regularly experienced by people in another culture, we can get a viewpoint into how cultures share our ways of thinking

Question 43

What are the 2 steps involved in the situation sampling method?

Answer 43

1. participants from at least 2 cultures are asked to describe a number of situations that they have experienced in which something specific has happened
2. different groups of participants are asked to participate in the study and are provided with at list of situations generated in step 1; asked to imagine themselves in step 1 situations

Question 44

How can results from situation sampling be assessed?

Answer 44

1. researchers can assess whether there are cultural differences in the way people from different cultures respond to situations in step 2
2. assess whether culture of origin of situations that participants listed in step 1 are responded to differently by participants in step 2

Question 45

cultural priming

Answer 45

activation of cultural ideas within participants; it works by making certain ideas more accessible to participants and to the extent that those ideas are associated with cultural meaning systems

Question 46

What are the 3 steps to measuring culture-level measures?

Answer 46

1. focus investigation on identifiable and quantifiable subset of them
2. derive a specific hypothesis to test
3. transform raw data into quantifiable data that can test hypothesis

Question 47

How is raw data coded?

Answer 47

1. coders can be kept blind to hypothesis
2. experimenters check if same or different decisions are made by coders
3. if change in decisions, then data is not reliable and coders need more training

Question 48

unpackaging

Answer 48

method used upon cultural findings to identify underlying variables that give rise to cultural difference

Question 49

How is unpackaging done?

Answer 49

1. researchers let a theory guide their search for potential underlying cultural variables
2. demonstrate that theory holds water
3. demonstrate that observed cultural differences relate to observed differences in dependent variable

Question 50

Occam’s razor

Answer 50

a principle which states that any theory should make as few assumptions as possible, therefore eliminating extraneous assumptions i.e. all else held equal, theory maintains that simpler theory is more likely to be correct

Question 51

culture of honor

Answer 51

a culture in which people (especially men) strive to protect their reputation through aggression