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EQUIVALENCE OF CROSS‐CULTURAL DATA: AN OVERVIEW OF BASIC ISSUES
Author(s) -
Poortinga Ype H.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/00207598908247842
Subject(s) - equivalence (formal languages) , psychology , scale (ratio) , section (typography) , social psychology , level of measurement , interpretation (philosophy) , inference , epistemology , cognitive psychology , mathematics , statistics , computer science , artificial intelligence , pure mathematics , philosophy , programming language , operating system , physics , quantum mechanics
The logic of comparison is taken as a starting point. It is argued that any cross‐cultural comparison presupposes a comparison scale, i.e. a scale that is identical across the populations included in a study. Scale identity can be specified for various levels of measurement. In the second section a simple classification is presented for inferences about cross‐cultural differences derived from psychological measurements. Two questions are asked for various categories of inferences, viz., whether they are logically feasible and whether they can be validated empirically. In the third section the statistical analysis of psychometric conditions for equivalence is discussed. The fourth section deals with the problem what alternatives for meaningful interpretation a researcher has if data turn out to be lacking in equivalence. In the fifth section a conceptual problem is raised, namely whether the basic assumption of this article is realistic that psychological concepts are identical across cultures.