PSY 3126 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Ethnography, Herding, Mindy Kaling
28 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
September 25, 2017
Methods for Studying Culture and Psychology
Considerations for Conducting Cross-Cultural Research
With psychology, the actual processes occurring in people’s minds can’t necessarily be directly observed
Instead, we can observe the input stimuli and the output behaviour in order to try to draw conclusions about the
mechanisms underlying that output (behaviour)
Cross-cultural psychology has an added challenge because the underlying mechanism can differ, depending on what
culture the subject is from
How do we choose which cultures to study?
Select cultures based on theoretical expectations
-If goal is to understand how X (ex. individualism) relates to Y, select cultures that differ on X
-If goal is to determine whether a particular phenomenon X is universal across all humans, select cultures that differ
on as many dimensions as possible (language, geography, education)
•Ex. Theory of mind: research with small-scale subsistence/hunter-gatherer societies shows that theory of mind
develops similarly across humans
Making Meaningful Comparisons Across Cultures
Know about the culture you’re studying
-Ethnography: qualitative type of research where someone has gone and immersed themselves/participated in
another culture and described their experiences
•NB: can be limited because what the ethnographer chooses to write about and their observations are still filtered
through their cultural lens
-Collaborate with members from that culture
-Cultural immersion: observe and collect personal experiences
•Important not to make any conclusions
•Can give ideas on what can be tested empirically in a study
Ensure methodological equivalence: use research methods that are perceived similarly across cultures
-Might require adaptations to the research procedure so it can be understood in a different cultural setting
•Ex. Perception of questionnaire/survey methodologies in industrialized nations vs. other locations
-Questionnaires are very common for us, but might not be elsewhere and might need to be adapted into an in-
person interview
•Ex. When studying how people teach you can go look in schools here, but other countries might not have the
same type of structured formal education so you might have to go look in the home
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September 25, 2017
-Trade-off in experimental control vs. comparability
-NB: most cross-cultural research has been conducted with industrialized samples that are similarly familiar with the
research setting
•Issues with generalizability
•Issues with power of the studies - capability of the study to detect effect to the extent that such an effect really
exists
Conducting Research Across Cultures: Surveys
Language:
-Option 1: keep questions/study materials in English
•Problems: requires bilingual respondents/excludes respondents who don’t speak English
-Participants will likely have poorer English skills than your translators
-Are English speakers in non-Western non-industrialized countries representative? It is likely that English
speakers will be more exposed to Western ideals
-Among bilinguals, would responses vary if tested in other language?
•Research has found that bilingual participants respond differently when tested in their native vs. second
language
-Option 2: Translate questions/study materials
•Problems: many words or concepts don’t have an equivalent (ex. Emotion words are very subjective)
•Must ensure good translation through a bilingual researcher who understands the underlying concepts or
through back-translation
- Back-translation:
Response biases: factors that distort the accuracy of a person’s responses on a survey, problematic when groups
differ in their response biases
-Types of response bias:
•Socially desirable responding
-Ex. Culture A values modesty and might be more likely to provide socially desirable answers vs. Culture B
who values confidence
Translator)1)translates)
materials)from)
original)language)to)
target)language
Translator)2)tran slates)
materials)back)to)
original)language
Original)and)back-
translated)materials)
are)compared,)and)
discrepancies)are)
resolved
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September 25, 2017
-Solution: measure construct of interest without asking participants to report themselves
•Ex. Test them behaviourally or covertly instead of just asking the participants about it
•Moderacy and extremity biases: tendency to respond either more moderately (don’t go to the extreme) or to
always use extremes, regardless of how you actually feel
-Affects response independent of item content
-Ex.
-If one culture has a moderacy bias and another has an extremity bias, their answers might not actually reflect
the real differences
-Solutions:
•More descriptive response anchors: ex. Have descriptions for all of the numbers (include moderately
agree, neither agree nor disagree, etc.) instead of just the extremes (strongly disagree vs. Strongly agree)
•Option 1: Use the forced-choice response format: use yes or no instead of a continuum
-Eliminates moderacy bias because there is no middle option
-Problems: forces someone to decide either 100% yes or no, loses the ability to detect more subtle
nuances and variations between behaviours
•Option 2: standardization
-NB: won’t need to know how to do this, just know that it’s a thing and a way of dealing with moderate
and extremity response biases
-Appropriate when we are interested in cultural differences in the pattern of responses, and not when
we want to compare the average level of responses
•Acquiescence bias: tendency to agree to most items, independent of content
-Ex. East Asian cultures are more likely to be acquiescent
-Ex.
-Solution: use measures designed to be reverse-scored
•Use two items that measure the same thing, but state opposite views to see whether or not someone is
agreeing just for the sake of agreeing
Ex-squeeze
me?! No. Hells
yeah.
Mindy Kaling is funny af. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Mindy Kaling is the best comedienne ever. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The Mindy Project should be cancelled. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Moderacy bias
Extremity bias
Strongly
disagree
Strongly
agree
Mindy Kaling is funny af. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Mindy Kaling is the best comedienne ever. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The Mindy Project should be cancelled. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Acquiescence bias
3
Document Summary
With psychology, the actual processes occurring in people"s minds can"t necessarily be directly observed. Instead, we can observe the input stimuli and the output behaviour in order to try to draw conclusions about the mechanisms underlying that output (behaviour) Cross-cultural psychology has an added challenge because the underlying mechanism can differ, depending on what culture the subject is from. If goal is to understand how x (ex. individualism) relates to y, select cultures that differ on x. If goal is to determine whether a particular phenomenon x is universal across all humans, select cultures that differ on as many dimensions as possible (language, geography, education: ex. Theory of mind: research with small-scale subsistence/hunter-gatherer societies shows that theory of mind develops similarly across humans. Cultural immersion: observe and collect personal experiences: important not to make any conclusions, can give ideas on what can be tested empirically in a study. Ensure methodological equivalence: use research methods that are perceived similarly across cultures.
