REVIEW PAPER
Choosing an adequate design and analysis in cross-cultural personality research
Jia He 1,2
,
 
 
 
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1
German Institute for International Educational Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
 
2
Tilburg University, Netherlands
 
3
North-West University, South Africa
 
4
University of Queensland, Australia
 
 
Submission date: 2016-09-02
 
 
Final revision date: 2017-01-21
 
 
Acceptance date: 2017-01-21
 
 
Online publication date: 2017-02-20
 
 
Publication date: 2017-03-31
 
 
Current Issues in Personality Psychology 2017;5(1):3-10
 
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The flourishing of cross-cultural personality research requires a keen eye for rigorous methodology in such research. With decades of experience in cross-cultural research methods, we have come to appreciate that methodological aspects of such studies are critical for obtaining valid findings. Ill-designed or -conducted studies may produce results that are difficult to interpret. A careful design and analysis can help to deal with various methodological problems in cross-cultural personality studies. Drawing on the extensive knowledge that has been accumulated in cross-cultural and personality research in the past decades, we describe a framework of bias and equivalence that enables the choice of adequate research methods and the avoidance of pitfalls that endanger valid conclusions in cross-cultural personality research. Specifically, we focus on sampling issues, test adaptations, and the combination of emic and etic approaches in this short review article. We encourage researchers to use the tools and experience that are available to considerably enlarge our insights in cross-cultural differences and similarities in personality research.
 
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