2 results
5 - Frameworks for explaining cross-cultural variance: a meta-analytic examination of their usefulness
-
- By Dianne A. van Hemert, TNO Human Factors, Soesterberg, the Netherlands
- Edited by Fons J. R. van de Vijver, Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands, Athanasios Chasiotis, Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands, Seger M. Breugelmans, Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
-
- Book:
- Fundamental Questions in Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 17 March 2011, pp 115-134
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Poortinga and colleagues (Poortinga and van de Vijver, 1987; Poortinga et al., 1987) introduced a metaphor for the process of explaining cross-cultural variance in psychology that has been one of the guiding principles in my work as a cross-cultural researcher. ‘Peeling the onion called culture’ refers to explaining proportions of cross-cultural variance accounted for by separate cultural variables analogous to removing the layers of an imaginary onion. The object of cross-cultural studies is to explain all variance until nothing is left to be explained. This chapter describes the empirical support that can be found for the various frameworks of cross-cultural differences, and evaluates the extent to which cross-cultural differences are systematic. Two fundamental questions as outlined in Chapter 1 (editors) are particularly relevant in the present chapter: What is the relationship between individual and culture, and what are methodological challenges to the field of cross-cultural psychology?
Four approaches are distinguished that could be used to explain cross-cultural variance in psychological functioning: (1) theoretical approaches such as the ecocultural framework (Berry, 1976; Georgas and Berry, 1995) and the cross-cultural domain framework (Poortinga, Kop and van de Vijver, 1990; van de Vijver and Poortinga, 1990); (2) studies that cluster many country-level indicators in order to arrive at a few broad dimensions (e.g., Georgas, van de Vijver and Berry, 2004; Ronen and Shenkar, 1985; Rummel, 1972); (3) frameworks that evolved from cross-cultural studies involving many countries (e.g., Hofstede, 1980, 2001; Schwartz, 1992, 1994); and (4) explanations of cultural differences in terms of artefacts or bias (van de Vijver and Leung, 1997, 2000).
12 - Cross-Cultural Meta-Analysis
- Edited by David Matsumoto, San Francisco State University, Fons J. R. van de Vijver, Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
-
- Book:
- Cross-Cultural Research Methods in Psychology
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 11 October 2010, pp 348-378
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
The impact of culture on psychological functioning has received increasing attention over the past decades. Scrutiny of the PsycInfo database (May 2006) shows that the percentage of studies addressing culture, ethnicity, or race has been steadily increasing from 4.6% of all published psychological studies between 1960 and 1970 to 9.3% between 1990 and 2000. There is a clear need for accumulating and systematizing knowledge from this vast amount of cross-cultural studies and for developing models that deal with cross-cultural differences in psychology. Approaches to explaining cross-cultural differences and similarities seem to be dependent on research domain; for example, studies involving cross-cultural cognitive research generally regard cultural differences as evidence for a cultural bias in their measurement (Faucheux, 1976).
Cross-cultural psychology would benefit from a valid representation of magnitude and sources of cross-cultural variation across all research domains. Meta-analysis can provide such representation by summarizing a great range of results from many single-culture and cross-cultural studies and estimating the actual size of cross-cultural differences using effect sizes that are corrected for artifacts. A meta-analysis reanalyzes results from studies that report on a specific relationship to reach an overall conclusion on this research question, thereby accumulating research and fostering theory building (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990). In addition, meta-analysis can address questions not originally considered in the primary studies by taking into account characteristics of studies that can explain variance in the effect size. Meta-analytic techniques help reviewers avoid problems common to traditional reviews such as subjectivity of study selection, inability to quantify the effect size, and difficulties in accounting for methodological differences between studies. Further, meta-analysis can examine models of explanatory factors in cross-cultural differences using moderator variables. This asset of meta-analysis is particularly useful in view of the peculiarities of different research domains in psychology with respect to the preferred type of explanation for cross-cultural differences and similarities. Therefore, meta-analysis is a powerful tool for advancing cross-cultural theorizing and an exceptionally valuable contribution to cross-cultural research methods.