PSYC14H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Random Assignment, Homicide, Reference Group
PSYC14 - Chapter 14
When asked about experiences, people give answers that they think are true, but they may not
be aware of how they really feel (think about how ur not racist but you might have implicit
prejudice)
Goals of cultural studies:
Demonstrate similarities across cultures in the ways that people think or to show difference
To understand how people’s different experiences in their cultures resulted in their different
ways of thinking
Considerations for conducting Research Across Cultures
Study of cultural psychology cuts through different fields and so they reply on methods used in
those sub fields
What cultures should we study?
Choose samples based on a theoretical variable you are investigating – look for cultures that
vary on a specific theoretical dimension of interest
oEx: collectivism
When exploring the degree of universality of a particular psychological finding – select 2 cultures
that vary on any theoretically relevant dimensions to find something in common despite so
many differences
Making Meaningful Comparisons Across Cultures
Developing knowledge about the culture under study:
First step is to learn something about the culture – read texts and ethnographies
Ethnographies: rich descriptions of a culture or situation or group of people within a culture
derived from extensive observation and interaction by an anthropologist
oThese limits you to learn the information that the author thought was important and
not what you are exactly researching
oThey can be biased due to the author’s beliefs and values (2 authors can have different
descriptions)
Find a collaborator who is from that culture and wants to help with the research
oEx: International Association of Cross- Cultural Psychology – dating website for lonely
psychologists – no I jk- use this when to collaborate to do research in a different place
Immerse oneself in the culture to learn it firsthand
Contrasting Highly Different cultures versus Similar Cultures
In some societies, they have never used surveys and so they don’t know that they can give an
answer that is different than what the researcher thinks and that there is no right or wrong
answer. So, you can’t really compare a society that doesn’t know this versus one that is used to
doing surveys.
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Participants need to understand the questions and situations in the same ways
Methodological equivalence: having one’s methods perceived in identical ways across different
cultures
They can use different procedures with different cultures to try to get this equivalence but this
loses experimental controls
There is a tradeoff between experimental control and comparable meaning
When culture is similar in their familiarity with research settings, the same methods can be
applied
You can study college students from different cultures because they would be used to the
procedures used in psychological studies
oStudies from uni kids to do generalize to other populations
oYou cannot generalize confidently without evidence from a diverse range of samples
oPower: capability of study to detect an effect (cross-cultural difference) to an extent
that such an effect really exists
oCulture is the independent variable – the more the cultures are different, the bigger
variance and the more likely that an effect will be detected in the dependent variable
oComparisons of students between 2 industrialized countries may not find cultural
differences because it is a conservative and less powerful
oHowever, if there are cultural differences between these similar examples, then the
effects of culture would be more pronounced with more diverse samples
Conducting Cross Cultural Research with Surveys
Problems: translation, different response biases, reference – group effects and deprivation effects
Translation of Questionnaire Items
One option is to keep the questions in English and only study people who are bilingual in English
and their own native language
Participants may have poorer English skills and may not know what was asked of them
oThose who speak English may not be a good representative of their culture ~ they might
be more Westernized than their non-English speaking neighbors and would decrease
the likelihood of finding cultural differences that might exist
The language we’re thinking in can affect the way we are thinking
oBilingual participants respond different when tested in their native language versus their
second language
oEx: Venezuelans sit closer when talking in their own language compared to talking in
English
To ensure a cultural difference exists it’s better to translate the materials
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oMany of the psychological terminology we use, don’t have an equivalent in another
language
To ensure proper translation, one of the primary investigators can be bilingual to ensure that
the materials capture subtle nuances of the intentions of the research questions. It would be
better if more of the investigators were bilingual so they could discuss the problematic
translations and resolve them.
Back translation method: right the material in English and then get one translator to translate
into the language of interest. Then get another translator to translate it back into English to
compare the 2 different English versions.
oOne problem is that they might translate the literal meaning for idioms such as “it’s a
piece of cake”
Reliable and valid cultural differences are more likely to be found with well-translated materials
Response Bias: factors that distort the accuracy of a person’s responses to surveys
Socially desirable responding: people who strongly show this bias are motivated to be
evaluated positively by others and as a result they might disguise their true feelings to appear
more socially desirable
A way to reduce this is to design studies that assess the construct of interest without having
people directly report on it
Moderacy and extremity biases
Psychological materials present participants with statements and they need to choose one of
the numbers from a scale to indicate their agreement (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly
agree)
Moderacy bias- expressing their agreement in a moderate fashion
Extremity bias – choosing items close to the end of the scale
Moderacy and extremity biases are response biases because they affect how an individual
responds to an item independent of the content of the item
You can control these biases by making participants give binary answers (like yes/no) instead of
giving them response that have a middle answer (like a 7 point scale)
oProblem with this is that it won’t give you sensitive answers to detect differences in
opinion
If you want to measure a range of items, then you can standardize you data (z score) = where
you see how much a person’s score deviates from the average score
oThis way, we can compare responses across people with different cultures
oProblem: if we compare ppl using only a few constructs, you can’t confidently say
everyone shares the same average response (ex/ if you give a scaled-measure of
talkativeness, people from some cultures might be naturally quiet compared to others
so it’s not right to thing the average value you get will represent the quiet people)
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Document Summary
When asked about experiences, people give answers that they think are true, but they may not be aware of how they really feel (think about how ur not racist but you might have implicit prejudice) Demonstrate similarities across cultures in the ways that people think or to show difference. To understand how people"s different experiences in their cultures resulted in their different ways of thinking. Study of cultural psychology cuts through different fields and so they reply on methods used in those sub fields. Choose samples based on a theoretical variable you are investigating look for cultures that vary on a specific theoretical dimension of interest: ex: collectivism. When exploring the degree of universality of a particular psychological finding select 2 cultures that vary on any theoretically relevant dimensions to find something in common despite so many differences. First step is to learn something about the culture read texts and ethnographies. Immerse oneself in the culture to learn it firsthand.
