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6 - Survey Response Styles Across Cultures
- Edited by David Matsumoto, San Francisco State University, Fons J. R. van de Vijver, Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
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- Book:
- Cross-Cultural Research Methods in Psychology
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 11 October 2010, pp 130-176
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Summary
Introduction
Survey reports are susceptible to multiple forms of measurement error (Sudman & Bradburn, 1974; Tourangeau, Rips, & Rasinski, 2000). In this chapter, we consider some of the potential processes through which culture may be implicated in measurement error. In particular, we focus on cultural variability in several common survey response styles, including socially desirable responding (SDR), acquiescent response style (ARS), and extreme response style (ERS). Awareness of response styles is particularly important in the conduct of cross-cultural research. Systematic variance in response style behaviors across racial, ethnic, or national groups may be mistakenly interpreted as cultural differences (or similarities) in the substantive measures being compared (Johnson & van de Vijver, 2003; Keillor, Owens, & Pettijohn, 2001; Middleton & Jones, 2000; Si & Cullen, 1998). Response styles also may suppress or inflate associations among variables (Wells, 1961) differentially across cultural groups. Thus, the potential for cultural variability in survey reporting has direct implications for many academic disciplines that rely on survey research for measurement purposes, as well as for applied researchers working across many substantive fields. This review integrates evidence and experiences from many of these disciplines regarding three of the most common forms of response style that vary across cultures. Three types of evidence are considered: (a) evidence of differences across racial and ethnic groups within nations, (b) evidence of differences across countries, and (c) evidence of associations between direct measures of cultural values and each response style. We also consider the potential cultural mechanisms underlying these processes. Methodological issues relevant to the measurement of response styles and proposed methods to compensate for cultural heterogeneity in these reporting processes are reviewed as well.
Culture and socially desirable responding
A widely studied topic in research methodology, SDR continues to be a serious concern in survey measurement because of its potential to introduce response bias (Johnson & van de Vijver, 2003; Paulhus, 1991; Tourangeau & Yan, 2007). SDR is the systematic tendency to give answers that make the respondent look good (Paulhus, 1991). Understanding how social desirability is viewed and pursued in different cultural contexts and groups is key to the validity of cross-cultural research efforts and many other research efforts involving self-reports. In general, research findings indicate that compared with individualists, collectivists have a greater tendency to give responses that make the self look good. This finding has emerged in multiple studies and has been shown across nations, across racial and ethnic groups within nations, and across individual-level cultural variables.
8 - Commentary: On the Dynamic and Goal-Oriented Nature of (Candidate) Evaluations
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- By Sharon Shavitt, University of Illinois, Michelle R. Nelson, MathEngine
- Edited by James H. Kuklinski, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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- Book:
- Citizens and Politics
- Published online:
- 07 October 2011
- Print publication:
- 11 June 2001, pp 227-240
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Summary
The three preceding chapters offer important conceptual and methodological insights for the study of candidate evaluation. Moreover, they provide information relevant to social evaluation processes in general, regardless of the nature of the target being evaluated. In this chapter, we shall offer some comments and ideas elicited by these chapters. These comments emerge from our own perspective as researchers interested in evaluation processes primarily in the context of consumer advertising campaigns. Thus, we seek not to evaluate the chapters in light of the literature on political psychology or political science, but instead to offer some integrative observations regarding the relation between the present formulations and those used in the study of consumer judgments, as well as the study of social judgments more generally.
OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS
The chapter by Lau and Redlawsk approaches the issue of candidate evaluation from the perspective of behavioral decision theories (e.g., Abelson and Levi, 1985; Einhorn and Hogarth, 1981; Slovic, Fischhoff, and Lichtenstein, 1977). These are models that focus primarily on choice processes and for which choice decisions are often the central dependent variables. In contrast, the chapters by Taber, Lodge, and Glathar and by McGraw approach candidate evaluation primarily from the perspective of attitude models such as information processing theory (McGuire, 1968,1972) that focus on appraisals of individual targets. For these types of models, absolute judgments are typically the dependent variables of interest.