PSYC14H3 Chapter 4: CHAPTER 4 - METHODS FOR STUDYING CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY full
Document Summary
Because the study of culture"s influence on psychological processes cuts across virtually all subfields of human psychology, researchers often utilize methods that are commonly used in the study of those subfields. For example, people studying culture and personality tend to rely on the methods of the personality psychologist. Psychological data are only clues, and clues are always ambiguous. In general, it"s not recommended to use a shotgun method for studying cultures and to randomly select cultures to study. This is because interpreting the results can be very difficult if there"s no theory guiding the selection of cultures. One common approach for selecting cultures is to choose samples based on a theoretical variable that you are investigating. For example, if you are interested in exploring how collectivism shapes the way people view their relationships, you should select cultures that differ in terms of their collectivism. Sometimes you might want to explore the degree of universality of a particular psychological finding.
