Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate, paradigmatically, the extent to which item score data can vary across cultures despite measurements from an instrument for which the factorial structure is equivalently specified in each group. Based on item scores from the Beck Depression Inventory, the authors first tested for the group invariance of factorial structure and then examined the patterns of item score distributions and response frequencies across Canadian (n = 658), Swedish (n = 1,096), and Bulgarian (n = 691) high school adolescents. Findings carry important implications for multigroup comparisons research in general, and for cross-cultural research in particular, where the primary interest focuses on testing for mean group differences.

This study assessed the assumption that socialization practices relevant to value priorities and autonomy expectations differ between collectivist and individualist cultures. The authors investigated value priorities and autonomy expectations in 58 pairs of Caucasian and 66 pairs of Asian teenagers and their mothers. This pairing enabled them to address similarities on values and autonomy expectations within families, which has not been done previously. Although Asian and Caucasian teenagers showed similarities on many value priorities, Asian participants’ autonomy expectations were delayed compared to those of their Caucasian counterparts. Mother-teenager autonomy expectations were correlated in Asian but not in Caucasian families. Unlike Asian mothers, Caucasian mothers endorsing high value priority for Openness to Change supported earlier autonomy expectations for their teenagers. Parental expectations unpackaged the effect of culture on teenagers’ autonomy expectations. These findings support models that predict persistent family interdependence despite adoption of many individualist values in modernizing collectivist cultures.

Research shows that feedback concerning a person’s prior performance is an important determinant of self-efficacy and subsequent work activity. In addition, several recent cultural models posit that people use different aspects of their environment in assessing their self-concepts. In this article, the authors explore Triandis’s sampling-probability hypothesis of cultural influence by examining the relationship of an individual’s cultural values and performance feedback referents to an individual’s self-efficacy. A laboratory experiment is used to test hypotheses concerning the nature of self-efficacy and feedback referent (self vs. group) in relation to individualism-collectivism. The results show that, depending on cultural values held, participants relied on different combinations of individual- and group-based feedback. The results are discussed with regard to a general model of self-efficacy and culture in an organizational environment.

According to the cultural trade-off hypothesis, individualism and collectivism entail inverse costs and benefits for the two dimensions of global self-esteem. Specifically, individualism is described as promoting the development of self-competence but inhibiting the development of self-liking. Collectivism is described as doing the opposite. To examine the hypothesis, Malaysian (collectivist) and British (individualist) students were compared on their self-liking and self-competence. Consistent with predictions, Malaysians were significantly lower in self-competence when self-liking was held constant but were higher in self-liking when self-competence was held constant. The differences, however, were not reliable after statistically equating the cultural groups on two derived dimensions of individualism-collectivism—deference to the direction of relatives and connectedness to parents—suggesting that these dimensions might account for the trade-off in self-esteem.

The purpose of this study was to preliminarily validate the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) in Japanese culture. A total of 289 college students were asked to rate the social desirability of the BSRI items for both men and women. The results of multiple paired t tests indicated that, overall, the BSRI is a valid measurement in Japanese culture. Exchanging some items within the BSRI was recommended for higher validity with Japanese samples.

This study explored the Korean emotion concepts dapdaphada and uulhada. Korean (n =50) and German (n = 50) participants read scenarios designed to elicit these and eight more emotions (e.g., anger, sadness, joy). Participants denoted the feelings that they would have in these situations verbally and by selecting pictures of facial expressions. The results indicate that uulhada and dapdaphada are specific emotion words in the domain of sadness with no translation equivalents in German. However, the question of whether or not Koreans and Germans had the same feelings (regardless of the words they used to denote them) remained open.