Chapter 4 Flashcards
(24 cards)
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
What are approaches to take when deciding which cultures to study?
- Choose samples based on a theoretical variable you are investigating. (select cultures that clearly differ in terms and find a significant cultural difference)
- Choose very different cultures if you want to assess the universality of a finding
What steps can researchers take to ensure that research findings provide a fair contrast of culture?
- Make sure to know something about the culture under study (read text, immerse yourself in culture)
- understand that comparing “too similar” cultures might have less power for detecting any differences. But “too different” might lead to problems of methodological equivalence.
What is Methodological equivalence
one’s method is perceived in identical ways across different cultures.
Significant problems with generalizability
Do the findings generalize to populations? (reliable)
-do the findings generalize to populations other than the samples that were studied?
what is meant by the power of a study?
Refers to the capability of your study to detect an effect to which an effect really exsists. (is there not enough power to provide support to hypothesis?)
*reflects the ability of your design
How do independent variables differ from dependent variables?
- Independent variable is the variable being manipulated. It also measures the dependent variable.
- dependent variable- is the outcome the researchers are trying to find and is dependent on the independent variable.
What are challenges to doing research across culture?
You have problems with translation, various types of response biases, reference-group effects and deprivation effects
What are challenges with doing research with cultures that speak a different language?
- Questions may not be understood and responded to as expected
- Lack of equivelent terms
- Need to have either a bilingual translator or do back-translation
what is back-translation
One will translate the survey to the foreign language and then when she is done another translator will translate the foreign survey back into the first language.
-compare to see any differences and how to alter materials if need be
What are examples of response biases?
Socially desirable responding moderacy and extremity biases Acquiescence biases reference-group biases deprivation effects
What is Socially desirable responding biases and ways to reduce the likelihood of this bias.
People who are motivated to be evaluated positively by others and might disquise their true feelings to appear more socially desirable
-how to reduce: take more indirect measures
What are response biases?
Are factors that distort the accuracy of a person’s response to a survey
-researchers want to be able to compare responses on how they “truly” felt without people trying to ‘out think’ the answer.
What is Moderatly and Extremity Biases and ways to reduce the likelihood of this bias
-Not related to the content of the questions. Individual responds to an item independent of the content of item.
To reduce: don’t allow/provide a set of responses with a middle answer. Use statistical procedures
-ex: besides a 7-point scale use a yes/no
What is Acquiesience Bias and ways to reduce the likelihood of this bias?
A tendency to agree with most statements.
To reduce: Do reverse-scored questions which are written so that agreeing/disagreeing indicates the opposite. (reverse question)
*put in questions to make sure people are actually reading not just going through
What is reference group bias and ways to reduce the likelihood of this bias?
People form different cultures tend to evaluate themselves by comparing themselves to different reference groups thus to different standards
Ex: they are asked if they are tall, and they would normally say yes but they are sitting in a room full of bball players so may say no.
To reduce: be more specific on questions to minimize less subjective measures
What is deprivation effects biases and ways to reduce the likelihood of this bias?
Cultures where there is chronically less personal safely people express valuing more.
ex: are they responding to how they really feel?
To reduce: hard to minimize
Why is it not true experimental study when cultural background is the main difference between groups?
When cultural difference is the main difference between groups cultural background is the only independent variable so the experiment is a quasi-experiment because there was no true manipulation.
What is another name for an experiment that does not have a true manipulation of a variable?
A quasi-experiment
What happens in cultural priming studies?
Activating certain beliefs in a person can affect how they think about certain situations.
-make certain ideas more accessible to participants and that those ideas are associated with cultural meaning systems
Chinese study talked about in class (with coloring books)
gave Chinese girls coloring books before a math test. one group received coloring books of girls, while the other gorp received coloring books on the Chinese culture. After the test they saw higher scores in the girls wit coloring books on their culture.
Chinese study talked about in book
(2 cultures of people) Group one described how they were different from others and group two had to describe how they were similar to friends and family.
-results: when cultural ideas are activated that are more common in another culture, people start thinking in ways that are more similar to the thinking of people from that culture.
what is between-group manipulations
Means you only experience one lever of the independent variable. Random assignment is the key to drawing casual conclutsions
What is within-group manipulations
You experience all levels of the independent variables and as a result people serve as their own comparison group
