A Test of the Reproducibility of the Clustering of Cultural Variables

2020 ◽  
pp. 106939712095694
Author(s):  
Agner Fog

Cultural variables from many different cross-cultural studies can be divided into two clusters of variables that are strongly correlated within each cluster. This is reflected in two factors that are found to be reproduced by independent sets of cultural variables and also reflected in several different cross-cultural studies. The first factor, called superfactor, reflects the combined effects of development and modernization, together with social-psychological effects such as collectivism, conservatism, regality, and tightness. The second factor, called East Asian factor, combines several effects related to East Asian cultures, and possibly also differences in response style. These two factors can be found in several previously published cultural maps, but rotated differently. The common practice of factor rotation has obscured similarities between many different cross-cultural studies. Many previously published cultural factors with different names are in fact differently rotated solutions reflecting the same or closely related underlying cultural differences.

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. 181100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindell Bromham ◽  
Xia Hua ◽  
Marcel Cardillo ◽  
Hilde Schneemann ◽  
Simon J. Greenhill

A growing number of studies seek to identify predictors of broad-scale patterns in human cultural diversity, but three sources of non-independence in human cultural variables can bias the results of cross-cultural studies. First, related cultures tend to have many traits in common, regardless of whether those traits are functionally linked. Second, societies in geographical proximity will share many aspects of culture, environment and demography. Third, many cultural traits covary, leading to spurious relationships between traits. Here, we demonstrate tractable methods for dealing with all three sources of bias. We use cross-cultural analyses of proposed associations between human cultural traits and parasite load to illustrate the potential problems of failing to correct for these three forms of statistical non-independence. Associations between parasite stress and sociosexuality, authoritarianism, democracy and language diversity are weak or absent once relatedness and proximity are taken into account, and parasite load has no more power to explain variation in traditionalism, religiosity and collectivism than other measures of biodiversity, climate or population size do. Without correction for statistical non-independence and covariation in cross-cultural analyses, we risk misinterpreting associations between culture and environment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Bender

Abstract Tomasello argues in the target article that, in generalizing the concrete obligations originating from interdependent collaboration to one's entire cultural group, humans become “ultra-cooperators.” But are all human populations cooperative in similar ways? Based on cross-cultural studies and my own fieldwork in Polynesia, I argue that cooperation varies along several dimensions, and that the underlying sense of obligation is culturally modulated.


1999 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 196-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosario Martínez-Arias ◽  
Fernando Silva ◽  
Ma Teresa Díaz-Hidalgo ◽  
Generós Ortet ◽  
Micaela Moro

Summary: This paper presents the results obtained in Spain with The Interpersonal Adjective Scales of J.S. Wiggins (1995) concerning the variables' structure. There are two Spanish versions of IAS, developed by two independent research groups who were not aware of each other's work. One of these versions was published as an assessment test in 1996. Results from the other group have remained unpublished to date. The set of results presented here compares three sources of data: the original American manual (from Wiggins and collaborators), the Spanish manual (already published), and the new IAS (our own research). Results can be considered satisfactory since, broadly speaking, the inner structure of the original instrument is well replicated in the Spanish version.


1968 ◽  
Vol 8 (4, Pt.2) ◽  
pp. 1-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry C. Triandis ◽  
Vasso Vassiliou ◽  
Maria Nassiakou

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Matsumoto ◽  
Hyisung C. Hwang

We discuss four methodological issues regarding cross-cultural judgment studies of facial expressions of emotion involving design, sampling, stimuli, and dependent variables. We use examples of relatively recent studies in this area to highlight and discuss these issues. We contend that careful consideration of these, and other, cross-cultural methodological issues can help researchers minimize methodological errors, and can guide the field to address new and different research questions that can continue to facilitate an evolution in the field’s thinking about the nature of culture, emotion, and facial expressions.


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