Cross Cultural Research

There are many different cultures scattered across the world, and 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 and attitudes and beliefs about appropriate behaviour, and this needs to be reflected in psychology research!

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. Even children were usually studied in western culture. Issues arose when these findings were generalised to include everyone, not just the people belonging to the culture being studied.

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

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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. They typically are reserved and hold traditional views.

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

Types of cross-cultural research

Carrying out cross-cultural research allows researchers to identify if findings apply to the target/wider 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

This highlights the importance of cross-cultural research as it shows that well-established measures may not apply to the entire population. This suggests that there may be a bias for instance not considering cross-cultural differences in the manual. 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

This is the study of a minority ethnic group who live in their native location. These individuals tend to have their rituals, traditions and language, and research has also found developmental differences. This type of 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.

This highlights the importance of cross-cultural research as it shows that research could be done to identify how differences between nature and nurture factors between cultures could lead to this type of intersexuality.

Cross-cultural comparisons

This is research that compares the findings of two or more countries. This research design can be used to find the similarities and differences across cultures or, identify if findings support/disprove hypotheses in different cultures. Usually, this is used when we're trying to investigate if one culture will have significantly different (lower or higher) scores compared to another.

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Cross-cultural research methodologies

The cross-cultural methodology consists of the following steps:

Step 1: Identifying the research area that will be investigated and forming 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.

If the researcher aims to compare results across cultures then a cross-cultural comparison methodology would be used. If the researcher is investigating indigenous populations then an indigenous cultural study would be done. If researchers are investigating if a psychological test takes into account cultural differences then a psychological method validation cross-cultural research would be carried out to identify if the research will collect their data (primary data) or use previously published results (secondary data)

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. Therefore, it is a cross-cultural comparisons research example. The study used a meta-analysis method.

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 of the attachment styles that Ainsworth proposed in her Strange situation study. This was calculated for each of the countries that Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg were investigating. 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. This suggests that there may be some universal principles that affect the type of attachment style that is developed.

What are the cross-cultural research strengths and weaknesses?

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

Strengths of cross-cultural research

Cross-cultural research is important because it helps to reduce the bias that exists 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 to what extent culture influences behaviour and mental illnesses. It allows researchers to identify if tools used to measure things such as mental illnesses or systems created for diagnosis of 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 equally use different cultures to gain the status of being generalisable. In addition, if the researcher chooses a cross-cultural methodology that requires them to independently collect data then 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 the results of the cross-cultural research. It can be a difficult process to carry out for instance tools may not be easily available in other countries or, there may be language barriers. Additionally, the researchers require a large sample to find meaningful results.

Results may be misinterpreted due to the above issues, and suffer from being ethnocentric.Smith and Bond (1988) highlighted issues with using similar methodologies across cultures. One culture may find a specific too, 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 actually cause issues with validity.