PSYC 386 (Cultural Psychology) Ch. 4

culture of honor

A culture in which people (especially men) strive to protect their reputation through aggression.

back-translation

A method of translating research materials from one language to another whereby a translator translates materials from language A to language B and then a different translator translates the materials back from language B to language A. The original and twice-translated versions in language A are then compared so that any discrepancies between them can be resolved.

cultural priming

A method that makes ideas associated with particular cultural meaning systems more accessible to participants.

situation sampling

A method used for comparing cultures with psychological measures. Situations are generated by participants in more than one culture, and then those situations are presented to different groups of participants from multiple cultures. This method allows us to see both (a) whether situations common in one culture influence people differently than situations common in another culture, and (b) whether people in one culture respond to the same situations differently than those from another culture.

socially desirable responding

A response bias in which people's responses are distorted by their motivation to be evaluated positively by others.

reference-group effect

A tendency for people to evaluate themselves by comparing themselves with others from their own culture.

deprivation effect

A tendency for people to value something more when it is lacking in their culture.

acquiescence bias

A tendency to agree with most statements one encounters.

between-groups manipulation

A type of experimental manipulation in which different groups of participants receive different levels of the independent variable(s).

within-groups manipulation

A type of experimental manipulation in which each participant receives more than one level of the independent variable(s).

response bias

Factors that distort the accuracy of a person's responses to surveys.

unpackaging

Identifying the underlying variables that give rise to different cultural differences.

independent variable

In an experiment, the variable or condition that the experimenter manipulates in order to examine its effect on the dependent variable.

dependent variable

In an experiment, the variable or measure affected by manipulation of the independent variable.

methodological equivalence

In cross cultural research, the concern with making sure participants from different cultures understand the research questions or situations in equivalent ways.

power

The capability of a study to accurately detect an effect (e.g., a cross-cultural difference) to the extent that one exists; a reflection of how well-designed a study is.

generalizability

The degree to which research findings about the particular samples studied can be applied to larger or broader populations.

Occam's Razor

The principle that any theory should make as few assumptions as possible; it maintains that, all else held equal, the simpler theory is more likely to be correct.