Researching culture Flashcards
Research methods
1) Self repots
•use introspection which were bad at
2) Taking samples
•determining whether some cultural variables shape some aspect of society (culture high vs culture low)
*ex: if prosperity (japan) has an impact on charitability (africa), ensuring they are similar in most respects but the two variables
•if the goal is to find some aspect, look at groups that are as different as possible and if you see similarities still, universality/kinship is clear
Generating ideas approaches
1) Deduction: general to specific (top down)
•take a theory (overarching framework) that generates testable hypothesis (and their limitations), allowing you to make predictions
2) Induction: specific to general (bottom up)
•more prone to making errors, but was historically required to create theories
•start with observations to generate a hypothesis in the hopes of creating a theory to explain your observations
3) Abduction: no theory or trying to create a theory (guessing)
•very specific observations, trying to have the best explanation for what happened
•ex: doctors guessing what’s wrong with u
Research designs (quantitative) (?)
1) Quantitative: breakdown into numbers
•Look for explicit measures/responses
*ex: self reports
•Look for implicit responses
*ex: measuring attitudes (no conscious control)
•Physiological responses
*ex: the body’s reaction to stimuli (not brain)
•Neurological responses
*ex: neuroimagery techniques (fMRI) to determine changes/role of neural structures
•Behavioural responses:
*ex: amount of food eaten (a behaviour related to conceptual DV)
Psychological surveys usually used
Likest-Type scales(strongly disagree-strongly agree)
Problem:
•response bias threatens validity of cross cultural comparison:
•extremity bias: endorse extreme scores on a particular scale (more likely in hispanic and western european groups)
•moderacy bias: more likely with east asians
Solutions
•anonymous, yes/no, forced choice Qs
*BUT: this loses important sensitivity
•Acquiescence bias: tendency to agree with questions (amongst east asian cultures)
*solve by reverse scoring
•Socially desirable responding
•especially when theres embarrassing questions
•Solution: anonymous or take positive/negative connotations out of questions
•self deception: westernized
•image management: asian
Quantitative vs qualitative
Quantitative: refers to numbers to identify social regularities
•deductive approach (logic)
•methodology: structured (responding to specific questions)
•large sample size (varies in amount of information per participant)
•analysis: statistical, summarization
•ability: replicates and high generalizability
Pros: great hypothesis testing, allows for effects/differences to be measurable, allows us to perform statistical analyses to draw more firm conclusions
Cons: limits understandings to numerical representation, is it valid to turn thoughts and behaviours into numbers?
Qualitative:
•text, narrative, and personal experience (open ended)
•descriptive, inductive (generates research)
•methodology: unstructured/semistructured
•time: long, large quality of information with small sample size
•analysis: subjective, interpretive
•ability to replicate/generalize is low
Pros: great for gathering hypotheses , more in depth understanding, don’t have to worry about validity (no turning into numbers)
Cons: conclusions drawn due to random chance or personal bias (more subjective), can be time consuming/difficult to interpret (train interviews, conduct interview)
Loss in translation
1) Simplest method: if bilingual collaborator available, they can decide whether translated materials are appropriate
2) Back translation: translator 1 translates materials from original language (english) to target language (chinese), translator 2 translates materials to original language (english). original and back translated materials are compared (resolving discrepancies)
3) Consensus method: multiple bilingual speakers arrive at a consensus (translating) as a group
Structure of a questionnaire
Some concepts have factors in their structures (different underlying facets that all relate to one central contract)
•ex1: acculturation has mainstream adaptation and heritage maintenance
•ex2: sensation seeking has thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition, boredom susceptibility
Structural construct equivalence
Structures underlying psychological construct is comparable across cultures:
1) figure out how to construct similarities/differences
2) identify and keep questions that appear to be understood in similar ways across cultural environments
3) identify and eliminate questions that may be understood differently cross culturally
* factor analysis: statistical analysis that determines how many factors can be separated in data
Other issues in equivalence
1) methodological equivalence
•ensures methods are understood identically across cultures
•may need to use different methods in (drastically) different cultures
•ex: some cultures may not understand the process of competing surveys (turning feelings into number)
Cultural psychology research
1) experimental designs
2) correlational designs
3) quasi-experimental designs
•researcher measures DV as a function of naturally occurring groups
•researcher has no control over groups (can only look at relationships)
•not measuring a correlation
*ex: looking at the cultures in van
