Comparative research methodology: Cross‐cultural studies

Abstract

Cross-cultural research can make contributions to theory development by identifying groups of people who seem not to behave according to established theories and by increasing the range of independent variables available for study in any one culture. A major methodological orientation to such studies, developed over the last 10 years, is the emic-etic distinction. An emic analysis documents valid principles that describe behavior in any one culture, taking into account what the people themselves value as meaningful and important. The goal of an etic analysis is to make generalizations across cultures that take into account all human behavior. Examples of these approaches are given from studies on ingroup-outgroup relations in Greece and the United States; and studies on the need for achievement and its relation to the need for affiliation. A specific method to document emic and etic principles is presented which involves the development of core items to measure concerns in all cultures under study, and culture-specific items which are designed to measure concerns in one culture that may not be appropriate for all cultures under study. The techniques of back-translation and decentering are related to the emic-etic approach, as are the techniques developed by Triandis which involve the development of research instruments within each culture and the use of factor analysis. The most general approach, applicable to all comparative studies, is the plausible rival hypothesis analysis which forces the research to examine each and every potential explanation for any data set. The suggestion is made that the future of cross-cultural research will depend on its contribution to theory in general psychology, and methods (such as those presented here) will only be a means to the major goal of discovering important, central facts about human behavior.Cross-cultural research refers to empirical studies carried out among members of various cultural groups who have had different experiences that lead to predictable and significant difference in behavior. In the vast majority of such studies the groups under investigation speak different languages and are governed by different political units (Brislin, Lonner and

Translation of scales in cross‐cultural research: issues and techniques

“…The qualifications of bilingual experts are important for maintaining content equivalence as the emic-etic distinction is critical for decentering translated measures (Brislin 1976). 'Emic,' coming from a phonemic analysis in linguistics, is the documentation of meaningful sounds in a specific language of culture-specific concepts, and 'etic', coming from a phonetic analysis in linguistics, refers to culture-common concepts (Brislin 1976, Triandis & Brislin 1984. Sechrest and Fay (1972) introduced five problems of equivalence in translation: vocabulary, idiomatic, grammatical-syntactical, experiential and conceptual equivalences.…”

Recruiting and retaining low-income Latinos in psychotherapy research.

“…Although a few studies have been done to develop culturally sensitive Spanish-language instruments or to evaluate the psychometric properties of standard instruments that have been translated into Spanish (for a review, see Marín & Marín, 1991 ), many commonly used instruments in psychotherapy research have not been translated into Spanish or normed on Spanish-speaking populations. Our approach to this dilemma has been to carefully translate instruments into Spanish, using back-and forward translation techniques ( Brislin, 1976 ). We have been able to conduct consensus translations, in which a translation team representing a cross-section of Latino culture back-translates the instrument to ensure appropriate interpretation of the Spanish version for people from different Spanish-speaking countries.…”

The Moderating Role of Organizational Identification on the Relationship between Perceived Organizational Career Management and Intention to Leave

“…This scale allows measuring employee's experience of career management help undertook by their organization (Verbruggen et.al., 2007). The items in the scale were translated into Turkish by blind translation-back-translation method as described by Brislin (1976). One of the sample items is presented as "I have been given training to help develop my career".…”