Types of Comparative Studies in Cross-Cultural Psychology

From a methodological perspective cross-cultural studies in psychology differ in three dimensions. First, cross-cultural psychological studies can be exploratory or test specific hypotheses. Second, some cross-cultural studies compare countries or ethnic groups while other cross-cultural studies relate specific characteristics of a country or ethnicity (e.g., socialization patterns or religiosity) to psychological variables. Third, studies can compare either constructs (e.g., do Chinese and Kenyans mean the same when they say that a person is intelligent?) or score levels (e.g., are Americans more extravert than Italians?). A classification of cross-cultural psychological studies, based on the three dimensions, is presented and examples are given. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol2/iss2/2