2.10.2 Experiments.

Experiments utilized in cross-cultural comparison studies are not true experiments. Experimental research tries to establish cause and effect relationships by assigning participants randomly to experimental and control groups and then compare for significance of mean differences. However, researchers cannot create cultural experimental groups that correspond to treatment in classical experiments, and random assignments are difficult to achieve. Nevertheless experimental procedures play a role in cross-cultural comparative studies (Van de Vijver & Leung, 1997a). It is for example possible to design studies that test for the effects of cultural contextual variables when cultural populations with these characteristics are selected in advance and specific hypotheses are investigated. Whether the results can be generalized depends on whether the findings in one culture can also be found in other cultures. Replication in other cultural contexts is seen as evidence for the validity of the theory that drives the research, for the instruments used, and for the presence of universal psychological characteristics.

It is difficult to apply the experimental paradigm in the cross-cultural comparative contexts. In other fields the researcher typically controls the experimental treatments administered to randomly assigned groups. However, in real life research in cultures the experimenter must be satisfied with groups that are intact, and believed to vary from each other on culturally contextual variables. Since already existing groups cannot meet the criteria of randomness they are not representative groups, although the results may be useful and interesting. Likewise is it impossible in most cases to control the treatment administered to intact groups. Any effect that is believed to derive from culturally contextual factors are made post hoc after the completion of research, and based on ethnographic or cultural value information like the results of Hofstede’s work-related values.

Some studies have sought to examine cultural difference by priming the mindsets of the participants. For example Trafimov, Triandis & Goto (1991) manipulated the individualistic versus collectivistic orientation by priming the mental conceptions of the experimental subjects. The American and Chinese participants were asked to think about the ways they were different from friends and family in one experimental condition, and asked to write what they had in common with friends and family in the second condition. Presumably these manipulations caused the mindset of the subjects to think in either individualistic or collectivistic ways. Results showed that Americans produced more individualistic responses compared to the Chinese respondents as would be expected from the theory on collectivism-individualism as advocated by Hofstede. Further the results showed that the priming as an experimental manipulation worked since those who were primed to think in individualistic terms generated more personal responses, and those primed to think collectivistic produced more group-oriented responses. Other researchers have found similar results (Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 1999).

Other culturally relevant studies were carried out by Yamagishi (1986, 1988) who manipulated the sanctioning system for cooperation and relative trust of the experimental participants. In the first experiment Yamagishi found that those who were more trusting in Japan did indeed cooperate more. In the second experiment comparing Japanese with American participants Yamagishi found that high trusting American respondents cooperated more in the experiment than low-trusting respondents. However, when the sanctions were in place there were no differences between the two cultural groups. Yamagishi concluded that the greater cooperative behavior observed in Japan is due to the sanctioning system in place supporting cooperation, and when Americans are placed in similar situations they behave in the same way.