What Can Cross-Cultural Correlations Teach Us about Human Nature?

Pollet, Thomas, Tybur, Joshua, Frankenhuis, Willem and Rickard, Ian (2014) What Can Cross-Cultural Correlations Teach Us about Human Nature? Human Nature, 25 (3). pp. 410-429. ISSN 1045-6767

Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)

Abstract

Many recent evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology studies have tested hypotheses by examining correlations between variables measured at a group level (e.g., state, country, continent). In such analyses, variables collected for each aggregation are often taken to be representative of the individuals present within them, and relationships between such variables are presumed to reflect individual-level processes. There are multiple reasons to exercise caution when doing so, including: (1) the ecological fallacy, whereby relationships observed at the aggregate level do not accurately represent individual-level processes; (2) non-independence of data points, which violates assumptions of the inferential techniques used in null hypothesis testing; and (3) cross-cultural non-equivalence of measurement (differences in construct validity between groups). We provide examples of how each of these gives rise to problems in the context of testing evolutionary hypotheses about human behavior, and we offer some suggestions for future research.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Ecological fallacy, Cross-cultural research, Research methods, Simpson’s paradox, Non-independence, Measurement equivalence
Subjects:	C800 Psychology
Department:	Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Becky Skoyles
Date Deposited:	25 Sep 2017 13:26
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2019 17:26
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/31986

Downloads