Culture and Psychology

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Culture and Psychology

• Research Methods

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Outline

• Conceptual equivalence
• Measurement
• Sample selection
• Choice of method
• Statistical analysis
• Interpretation of results
• ethics

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Conceptual Equivalence

• Emics and Etics
• Culture-specific vs. culture-general
• Etic common to cultures around the world
• Emic focus on how the behaviour is carried out
  in a particular culture

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Measurement

• Problem Measurement instruments developed in
  one culture may not assess the same construct in
  another culture for many reasons.
• Solution Develop culture-free or culture-fair
  tests.
• Culture-free the instrument measures some
  inherent quality of human capacity equally well
  in all cultures
• Culture-fair
• a set of items that are equally unfamiliar to all
  persons in all cultures
• multiple sets of items, modified to ensure that
  each version of the test is equally familiar

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Measurement, cont.

• Problem
• How do we ensure that two instruments are
  linguistically equivalent?
• Solution
• Back translations with bilingual persons and
  pilot testing in different groups.

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Measurement, cont.

• Problem
• Are the differences found due to culture, other
  demographic variables, or the method?
• Solution
• Triangulation of samples and methods

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Sample Selection

• The extent of representative sampling (the extent
  to which sampling is representative of a
  population) influences the extent to which we can
  generalize our observations to other members of
  that populations
• If we are going to make claims about a cultural
  group (or populations) it is essential that we
  sample as representatively as possible from that
  cultural group.
• Need to obtain comparable samples, such that they
  differ primarily in cultural terms (not SES,
  education, gender, or other variables).

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Sample Selection, cont.

• Multiple-group comparisons help control for other
  potentially influencing variables
• Choice of cultural groups should be based on a
  priori theorizing, not simply on availability

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Choice of method

• Laboratory experiment
• Quasi-experiment (field, natural)
• Surveys (interviews and questionnaires)
• Controlled and participant observation
• Archival analysis

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Statistical analysis

• Description
• Central tendency and variability
• Correlation
• Correlation and causation
• Differences
• Size of difference
• Overlapping distribution

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Interpretation of Results

• Exotic bias
• We tend to focus on the differences and forget
  the similarities.
• Cultural absolutism vs. cultural relativism

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Ethical Issues in the Study of Culture and
Psychology

• Informed Consent
• Voluntary
• Risks and Benefits
• Confidentiality and Anonymity

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Ethical Issues in the Study of Culture and
Psychology

• Margaret Mead, cited in Ethics,
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
  of Canada, 1994
• There is first of all the responsibility to the
  individuals who, if identified, must not thereby
  be exposed to legal sanctions, to ridicule or to
  danger.

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Ethical Issues in the Study of Culture and
Psychology

• Second there is the responsibility to the group
  as a whole. Where customs are portrayed that
  contrast with the ethical standards of those who
  govern them or with the missionized or educated
  members of their own society, these must be
  represented in such a way that full justice is
  done to the cultural framework within which a
  given practice, however apparently abhorrent,
  occurs.

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Ethical Issues in the Study of Culture and
Psychology

• Finally, there is the responsibility of the
  anthropologist Ed. note, read social scientist
  for the way in which his findings are interpreted
  and articulated into the ongoing understanding of
  human behaviour in the human sciences of his day.