Raoul Naroll (1962, 1970) has advanced various control variables to
help determine the accuracy of ethnographic reports for cross-cultural
analysis. Some of these are: 1) length of stay in the field, 2) familiarity with
the native language, and 3) completeness and length of ethnographic report.
Here I examine ideological bias as another control factor, one associated
with the effects of social, political, economic or moral ideology on data
quality. From a worldwide sample of twenty societies I show that ideological
bias appears to be a significant data quality control factor, and I present
five indexes of ideological bias.
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