Cross Cultural Research

There are many different cultures scattered across the world. Each culture has its own way of operating, down to their customs, social and behavioural rules, and what is considered the norm for them; this includes their moral values. Different societies have different goals, attitudes, and beliefs about appropriate behaviour, which needs to be reflected in psychology research!

• This explanation will cover what cross-cultural research is and how it relates to society.
• Moving on, we will cover the types of cross-cultural research used in psychology.
• Then, we will cover the cross-cultural research methodologies psychologists use to conduct research. To further understand this, we will look at a cross-cultural research example.
• Finally, we will cover the cross-cultural research strengths and weaknesses.

Society and Cross-Cultural Research

An issue with a lot of early research is its generalisability. A lot of the older studies tended to focus on white adult men from western culture. Problems arose when these findings were generalised to include everyone, not just those with similar characteristics to the sample used.

Cross-cultural research is typically carried out in psychology to identify if a finding based on testing in one culture applies to another. When similar results are found across cultures, the psychological variable measured can be considered generalisable, meaning the psychological variable or research design factors in cross-cultural differences.

Fig. 1 - Cross-cultural research around the world.

There are clear distinctions that are observable between Western and Eastern societies. Western society is also known as an individualistic society. It is characterised by a focus on individual rights and own happiness.

Eastern society is also known as a collectivist society. It is characterised by a focus on the superiority of the collective community and emphasises social support. People in eastern societies are typically reserved and hold traditional views.

The two cultures may have contrasting opinions of what dysfunctional behaviour is. Therefore, when assessing mental health, there may be differences. Cross-cultural research can be carried out to identify differences between individualistic and collectivist societies.

Types of Cross-Cultural Research

Cross-cultural research allows researchers to identify if findings apply to the target/broader population. There are three main types of cross-cultural research, these are:

Psychological Method Validation of Cross-Cultural Research

This type of cross-cultural research is typically used when researchers want to identify if psychological measures/ tests are applicable and generalisable to the population. For instance, if it takes into account cultural differences.

The research highlights the importance of cross-cultural research as it shows that well-established measures may not apply to the entire population. If similar results are found across cultures, then it can be assumed that the measures are:

• Valid: measuring what it is supposed to measure.
• Reliable: all of the items/ questions/ scales are consistent.

Indigenous Cultural Studies

Indigenous cultural studies are the study of minority ethnic groups who live in their native location. These individuals tend to have their rituals, traditions and language, and research has also found developmental differences.

The research can take the form of cross-cultural research if the results of indigenous populations are compared to people from other countries. The purpose of this research could be to identify the similarities and differences between populations.

The indigenous cultural study highlights the importance of cross-cultural research as it shows how differences between nature and nurture factors between cultures could lead to this type of intersexuality.

Cross-Cultural Comparisons

A cross-cultural comparison study compares the findings of two or more countries. This research design can be used to find similarities and differences across cultures or identify if findings support/disprove hypotheses in different cultures.

Usually, this research method is used when we're trying to investigate if one culture will have significantly different (lower or higher) scores compared to another.

Fig. 2 - Cultural connections.

Cross-Cultural Research Methodologies

The cross-cultural methodology consists of the following steps:

Step 1: Identify the research area that will be investigated and form a hypothesis.

Step 2: Choosing the appropriate cross-cultural design that will be used.

Step 3: Carry out the research.

Step 4: Carry out the analysis and report the results.

A cross-cultural comparison methodology will be used if the researcher aims to compare results across cultures. And if the researcher is investigating indigenous populations, then an indigenous cultural study would be done. In contrast, if researchers investigate if a psychological test takes cultural differences into account, then a psychological method validation of cross-cultural research would be carried out.

Cross-Cultural Research Examples

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's (1988) study is a cross-cultural research example. The study aimed to identify cross-cultural differences in attachment styles.

The study collected data from several published research from different countries. The researchers used 32 studies from eight countries (individualistic and collectivist countries). The researcher's inclusion criteria for studies that would be used were:

• Used the strange situation
• Only investigated mother-infant attachments
• Used the classification system that Ainsworth described in her strange situation study: Insecure avoidant (type A), Secure (type B) and insecure ambivalent (type C).

The meta-analysis calculated the average percentage scores of each attachment style Ainsworth proposed in her Strange situation study. This was calculated for each of the countries Van Ijzendoorn, and Kroonenberg investigated. The results of the cross-cultural research showed that:

• Secure attachments were the most common attachment styles in every country.
• Individualistic cultures had a higher mean score of insecure-avoidant attachments than collectivist cultures.
• Collectivist cultures had a higher mean score of insecure-ambivalent attachments than individualistic cultures.

Despite cross-cultural differences in how children are raised, the secure attachment style remains the most common, suggesting that some universal principles may affect the type of attachment style that is developed.

Cross-Cultural Research Strengths and Weaknesses

Let's discuss cross-cultural research strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths of Cross-Cultural Research

Cross-cultural research is important because it helps reduce the bias in the current psychology research. Some research may infer theories as universal. This can be supported if cross-cultural research establishes similar results across cultures. This is important because it allows researchers to identify if results are generalisable and if they can be applied to understand the population rather than a sub-group of the population.

Through cross-cultural research, researchers can identify how much culture influences behaviour and mental illnesses. It allows researchers to determine if tools used to measure things such as mental illnesses or systems created for diagnosing mental illnesses are acceptable to use in other countries. If this is not the case, then the systems being used may need to be revised.

Problems with Cross-Cultural Research

The problems with cross-cultural research include that cross-cultural research is sensitive.

Therefore, the cross-cultural research will not provide generalisable results. It needs to use people from different cultures to be considered generalisable equally. In addition, if the researcher chooses a cross-cultural methodology that requires them to collect data independently, this can be costly and time-consuming.

As some cross-cultural research methodologies rely on secondary data (findings from previously published studies), the validity and findings from these studies can affect cross-cultural research results. It can be a difficult process to carry out. For instance, tools may not be readily available in other countries, or there may be language barriers.

Additionally, researchers require a large sample to find meaningful results, which can be tricky.

Results may be misinterpreted due to the above issues and suffer from being ethnocentric.

Smith and Bond (1988) highlighted issues using similar methodologies across cultures. They argued one culture may find a specific tool, reference, or way of behaving familiar and acceptable, whilst another may not have come across it before, so using the same methodology to increase reliability and validity may cause issues with validity.