Methods - PSYC 307 - Chapter 4
What is an example of the deprivation effect?
-expectation that in cultures where there is chronically less personal safety, people would express valuing it more (i.e: since people don't have safety they value it more)
What is the advantage of using EEG vs fMRI?
-EEG provides more precise assessment of the time course of brain activity but not as accurate at localizing brain regions as fMRI
What was shown in physiological measures for southerners in the insult study? Northerners?
-Southerners who had been insulted showed a sharp spike in testosterone level -Northerners did not show a significant difference in testosterone level between the two conditions.
What is a response bias?
-factor that distorts the accuracy of a person's response to survey questions
What finding alone supports the culture of honor explanation for Southern violence over other theories.
-Within the rural South the homicide rate is more than twice as high in the hills and dry plains where livestock are raised, compared to the moist plains where farming is practiced
How does back translation work?
-You want to compare americans to indonesians so you have someone translate english materials into indonesian and have another person translate those materials back to english; you then alter the materials so they will be equivalent
Why didn't the WEIRD surveys with the Zinacantencans (indigenous people) work well?
-Zinacantecans expected interactions would follow conversational norms; felt ignored and got angry because researcher asked similar questions
What is tightness-looseness?
-a way to categorize cultures; refers to the degree to which a culture, or society has strong social norms and low tolerance for people who violate those norms
Counties in the South with the largest percentage of Scotch-Irish settlers in 1790 had higher murder rates today and formal institutions were weaker in the South, it became more practical for people to settle their disputes on their own. What is this an example of?
-archival evidence (accumulated documents and records of a culture)
If the South's violence is due to a culture of honor what should we expect in terms of homicide?
-argument-related murders, in which people are compelled to defend their honor, should be higher, not all kinds of homicide
How do you allow for meaningful cross-cultural comparisons with regards to question asking?
-ask questions that have comparable meanings in the cultures being studied
What are 3 techniques for addressing reference group effect problems?
-avoid subjective measures that might have different standards in the groups being compared (eg: "I am helpful" may be interpreted quite differently between cultures) --concrete response options such as quantitative descriptions (eg: once a day) don't leave room for different interpretations. forced choice between two or more response options also reduce range of interpretations -using behavioural measures that do not rely on people's understanding of how they compare to others (eg: how long it takes people to walk a certain distance on a busy street) -using physiological measures
How do you get a good translation?
-be sure at least one of the primary investigators is fully bilingual in the languages being compared - person will know if materials are capturing subtle differences of the intentions of the research questions
How can fMRI be used in cultural research?
-compare fMRI images during different cognitive tasks and across cultural groups; identify cultural differences in particular regions of the brain that are most activated when people are engaging in a variety of tasks
What was found in foreign creativity task study? (Tight/loose cultures)
-creative solutions submitted by people from tight cultures were judged as less effective for addressing foreign problems than solutions submitted by people from loose cultures. -people from tighter cultures submitted better solutions for their own cultures than people from looser cultures.
Why do subjective self-report measures work fine within cultures? Why don't they work well between cultures?
-cultural members tend to share the same response biases and reference groups -members from the different cultural groups potentially have different response styles and reference groups, thereby obscuring the comparisons
What is the trend for cultural neuroscience?
-cultural neuroscience is growing field; lots of research being done
What is moderacy bias vs extremity bias? Example of extremity bias?
-cultures differ in terms of: -choosing a number at the midpoint of the scale; -choosing a number at or near either end of the scale (eg: hispanics may be more likely to indicate agreement on the high end due to habitual way of responding to questions even though [hispanics and europeans] don't differ in degree of impulsivity)
What is the goal of many cultural psychology studies?
-demonstrate cultural similarities in the way people think (universal psychological tendencies) -demonstrate cultural differences (culturally shaped psychological tendencies)
What would be a way to address socially desirable responding?
-design studies that assess construct of interest (eg: leadership ability) without having people directly report on it
What is between-groups manipulation?
-different groups of participants receive different levels (conditions) of the independent variable
Students from industrialized societies share many similar experiences. What does a failure to find cultural differences in a phenomenon between industrialized societies NOT mean?
-does not necessarily mean phenomenon not influenced by culture; could instead mean there isn't a powerful enough contrast to be able to detect the influences of culture
What is random assignment and what does it ensure? What do variations in responses that are observed indicate?
-each participant has equal chance of being assigned to any given condition -ensures participants in different conditions statistically equivalent at beginning of study -variations must be due to the independent variable
What is within-groups manipulation? Is random assignment needed? Why?
-each participant receives more than one level of the independent variable -RA not needed because all participants receive all the conditions (eg: everyone exposed to fast and slow talking salesperson)
What is standardization?
-each participant's scores are first averaged then the individual items are assessed according to how much they depart from the person's personal average; scores indicate how participants respond to each item compared w their typical way of responding
Although cultures differ dramatically in their most common ways of thinking...
-for the most part it appears that these differences are ones of degree rather than of kind (eg: there are some ways of thinking that might be less common in culture A than in culture B, but they still exist to a limited degree in culture A)
If a researcher conducts four studies on a topic, each using a different method, and the results all converge with her predictions...
-her own account would be more compelling than one offering four separate alternative explanations for each of her individual studies.
What is the underlying idea of situation sampling?
-if researchers can see how people respond to situations that are regularly experienced by people in another culture, they can get some perspective on how culture shape people's ways of thinking
What was found in study of Chinese-born students responding in either Chinese or English about self-esteem?
-in chinese (vs english): reported lower self-esteem, more references to others and higher endorsement of chinese views
How would an experimental approach look like when comparing Indian vs. Jamaican evaluation of high-status people?
-include more than one condition (eg: in the first condition have participants rate high-status person. in second condition participants would evaluate a person of moderate social status. in third condition evaluate person of low social status; compare how different individuals were evaluated within cultures then compare to jamaican's evaluations)
Why can't cross cultural studies be true experiments? How can researchers have experimental control in their studies?
-independent variable cultural background cannot be manipulated -many other independent variables can be manipulated in quasi-experiments
What is the problem for cultural psychologists in research
-inherit standard ambiguities of whatever methods they adopt from other subfields; methods create further ambiguities when applied to the study of people from other cultures
What is the problem with standardizing?
-it assumes that the average level of response is identical across cultures
What is cultural priming?
-makes certain ideas more accessible to participants and if those ideas are associated with cultural meanings, researchers can investigate what happens when people start to think about them
What is the experimental method? What's the benefit?
-manipulation of an independent variable and measurement of the influence the manipulation has on a dependent variable; all other extraneous influences can be held constant, increases the power of a researcher's investigations
What is one demonstration of how intertwined culture and psychology are?
-many words and terms do not have equivalents in other languages (eg: no word for self-esteem in chinese)
What is something researchers have to do if achieving methodological equivalence is more challenging
-may have to use a slightly different procedure each time
How is EEG used in cultural research?
-monitor electrical patterns that follow presentation of specific stimuli; identifies brain activity in response to the events that vary across cultures
Does unpacking mean we have identified all the variables behind a cultural difference, or the most powerful variable?
-no but the variable we identified is at least partly responsible for the observed cultural difference
What does cultures appear as "packaged" mean?
-not able to separate the individual cultural practices and meanings from each other because they are always wrapped up together, as if in a package
What is the disadvantage cultural psychologists have in research?
-often studying people from a different culture; not always clear how much the researchers' own experiences would generalize to the ppl they're studying
What are reference group effects?
-people from different cultures tend to evaluate themselves by comparing themselves to different reference groups and thus different standards (eg: "I am tall" statement interpreted differently depending where you live)
Can comparing means across subjective questionnaire measures be used to support cultural differences identified?
-possibly, if patterns converge with findings from other methods as well
What is another interpretation for a failed replication?
-psychological finding that can be reliably obtained in some cultures might not replicate when conducted in other cultures bc phenomenon is shaped by cultural factors; failed replication might mean cultural processes are involved
How can we collect data that allow us to test hypotheses about culture?
-psychologists have used empirical methods to investigate the kinds of cultural messages people routinely encounter
What is reverse-scoring?
-questions written so that agreeing with them indicates an opposite opinion (eg: write half of questions indicating low self-esteem and have indicating high self-esteem; acquiescing tendency canceled out)
What are good ways to learn about culture for research?
-reading texts + ethnographies (rich descriptions of a culture) -find a collaborator from the culture you are studying -immersing yourself in another culture and learning it firsthand - there is no substitute for firsthand experience -combination of approaches best way to learn about other cultures
What is replication?
-repeating study and getting the same general pattern of results
What is the issue with using standard survey methods for those in subsistence cultures?
-research experiences are absent (eg: they never had people calling their house to survey them like we have)
What is an example of the effects of language when people consider appropriate interpersonal distance? What happened when participants conversed in English?
-researchers observed when speaking in their native language, Venezuelans sat closer to each other than Japanese did and Americans fell in between -when participants conversed in English, they all sat about the same distance from each other regardless of culture; language found to prime culture
How to best study the degree of universality of a particular psychological process? What would be evidence for a high degree of universality in a process?
-select two cultures that vary greatly on as many theoretically relevant dimensions as possible (eg: langauge, geography, traditions) -if you see similarity in a particular psychological process btwn two extremely different cultures this is evidence of high degree of universality for that process
What is acquiescence bias?
-tendency to agree with most statements (eg: people agreeing with almost every statement even if they are not big fans of government's policies)
What is a great solution for correcting methodological challenges and reducing response biases in cultural research?
-the experimental method
What did Nisbett and Cohen say on what gave rise to the violent culture of honor in Southern America?
-the first European settlers in the South were herders (eg: family's livelihood is tied up in the ten pigs you own - herders face a particular kind of threat that farmers do not: Your livelihood is portable) -the first European settlers in the North were largely farmers
What was found in behavioural measures for southerners in the insult study when they were insulted by a RA?
-they went right up into the face of the second confederate
What is socially desirable responding?
-type of response bias; motivated to be evaluated positively by others and might disguise true feelings to appear more socially acceptable (eg: some cultures view it socially desirable to appear modest, others view it socially desirable to show confidence)
When is the use of subjective self-report measures useful? When is it problematic?
-useful within cultures (eg: comparing extraversion among british students) -problematic across cultures
What is a dependent variable?
-variable being measured
What is the independent variable?
-variable that is varied or manipulated
What is agent-based modeling?
-way of testing a hypothesis by creating simulations with virtual agents who are programmed to act autonomously in a computerized game.
What is a strong advantage of manipulating independent variables in cultural research with regards to within groups manipulation?
-we can get a comparison that is not limited by responses biases associated with questionnaire research (eg: response bias no longer concern because comparison is across group that share a response bias)
What is the black box concept?
-we can't see inside brain; only see input and output
What happens when cultural ideas are activated that are common in another culture?
-when cultural ideas are activated that are common in another culture, people start thinking in ways that are more similar to the thinking of people from that culture (eg: when Chinese participants encountered the independence prime, their self-descriptions became more similar to the ways Americans typically describe themselves, and when Americans were exposed to the interdependence prime, their self-descriptions became more similar to the ways Chinese typically describe themselves.)
What is methodological equivalence?
-when participants understand questions or situations the same way
When is it appropriate to use standardization?
-when we are interested in cultural differences in the pattern of responses, and not when we want to compare the average level of responses across cultures on a single measure (eg: statistically forces every person to have the identical level of talkativeness:)
What is a culture of honor?
-where people strive to protect their reputation through aggression
What finding supports the culture of honor explanation for Southern violence over other theories?
-within the rural South the homicide rate is more than twice as high in the hills and dry plains where livestock are raised, compared to the moist plains where farming is practiced.
What is the two step process in situation sampling?
1) Participants from at least two cultures are asked to describe several situations they have experienced in which something specific has happened 2) Different groups of participants are given a list of the situations generated by the participants in step 1, and are asked to imagine how they would have felt if they had been in those situations themselves.
What is the 2 issues when psychologists overemphasize students in their samples?
1) Problem with generalizability - researchers cannot generalize their results if there isn't much evidence from a diverse range of samples 2) Problem with the study's power - its capacity to detect an effect to the extent that such an effect really exists
How to unpackage the observed cultural differences in embarrassability (Japanese/American study) ? What was found in study?
1) demonstrate that Japanese really do have a more interdependent view of the self than Americans 2) demonstrate that the observed cultural differences in interdependence relate to the observed differences in embarrassability. -Japanese who were more interdependent reported feeling the most easily embarrassed, and likewise for Americans.
What are 2 reasons a study might not successfully replicate
1) original finding not reliable. could have emerged by chance, a mistake, or fraud 2) replication itself had problems. finding could emerge by chance, or the exact same procedure as the original was not followed
What are 3 problems with keeping study materials all in English and only studying people who are bilingual with English and their native language?
1) participants likely to have poorer English skills than researchers - data meaningless if participants don't have required language skills to understand what is being asked of them 2) whether participants with good English skills are representative of their culture - participants from non-english-speaking, non-western culture fluent in English probably have more exposure to Western products, cultures - may be more westernized than their non-english-speaking counterparts 3) the language in which one is thinking can greatly affect the ways one is thinking - research has shown that bilingual participants respond differently when tested in their native language vs second language
What are the two types of analysis situation sampling allows for? What does this show?
1) researcher can explore whether there are differences in the way people from different cultures respond to the situations in step 2 - shows if people in one culture indicate they would consistently respond differently from people int he other culture, this suggests that certain learned cultural experience have become habitualized 2) enables researcher to explore whether cultural origin of the situations the step 1 participants listed are responded to differently by participants in step 2 - suggests that the two cultures provide participants with different kinds of experiences (eg: both American and Japanese participants in step 2 reported that their self-esteem would decrease more when they responded to Japanese-made self-esteem-decreasing situations than when they responded to American-made ones.)
What are methods that are used well in cultural psychology?
1) situation sampling 2) cultural priming
What are 6 challenges of conducting survey research across cultures?
1) translation of questionnaire items 2) response biases 3) moderacy and extremity biases 4) acquiescence bias 5) reference group effects 6) deprivation effects
What is commonly understood about replication?
In general researchers can expect that a given psychological finding should replicate if the study is repeated with similar procedures and a similar sample of participants, thereby strengthening confidence in the reliability of that finding.
What reflects the quality of the study's design?
Power
How does more variance in an independent variable relate to the dependent variable?
The more likely an effect will be detected in the dependent variable
What survey data did Nisbett and Cohen find on the appropriateness of violence? What interesting finding was found about violence?
They found that Southerners were more likely than Northerners to agree that a man has the right to kill a person to defend his family or home -regional differences btwn northerners and southerners were evident only for scenarios that involved defending one's family or honor
What is unpackaging?
identifying underlying variables that give rise to cultural differences
What is Occam's Razor?
states that the simplest solution to a problem tends to be the right one