Asian Journal of Social Psychology (2000) 3: 185–195
Dialectics between cultural and crosscultural psychology
Harry C. Triandis
University of Illinois, USA
The attributes of indigenous, cultural, and cross-cultural psychology are
described. Dimensions that contrast these three approaches are examined.
They include emphases on emics, etics, or both, context or content of
communications, culture inside or outside the person, culture dynamic or static,
studying real or artificial situations, meaning is the focus of the research or a
barrier to the research, and differences in methodology. The advantages and
disadvantages of the three approaches are then examined, and it is concluded
that all three approaches should be used in a coordinated fashion and findings
common across the three approaches should be emphasized.
Members of different cultures have propensities to sample information from different parts
of the environment. For example, members of hierarchical cultures are more likely to sample
clues that reflect hierarchy than clues that refer to aesthetics. Triandis (1989) argued that
members of individualist cultures are more likely to sample elements of the personal self
(e.g., I am busy), than elements of the public self (e.g., most people think I am too busy), or
the collective self (e.g., my in-group thinks I am too busy). Members of collective cultures
are more likely to sample the collective than the personal self.
The way psychologists deal with culture also shows differences in how researchers
sample information. There are three major perspectives: indigenous, cultural, and crosscultural psychology, and in each approach researchers sample information differently.
Indigenous psychologists sample especially the meaning of keywords in the culture. Cultural
psychologists are more likely to sample ethnographic information and ignore information
that comes from laboratory experiments. They are likely to look for relationships within the
culture. Cross-cultural psychologists are more likely to sample information across cultures.
They are methodologically in-between experimental (rigorous control of situations,
manipulation of dependent variables) and cultural psychologists.
Thus my purpose in this paper is to discuss the sampling biases of the various subdisciplines of the broad area that deals with culture and psychology, and to show that if we
force ourselves to sample more broadly we might develop a better discipline that deals with
culture and psychology.
The three sub-disciplines I will discuss are difficult to define, but an example from each
can be useful. Indigenous psychologists select keywords, concepts, or categories that are
used widely in a culture, and describe their meaning, and changes in their meaning across
demographic categories within the culture. For example, what do people in this culture mean
by ‘‘honor?’’ (Campbell, 1964). I should make very clear that each psychologist who uses
this approach is operating a little differently from others who use the same approach. Within
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indigenous psychology, for instance, the approaches of Berry, Diaz-Guerrero, Enriques,
Hsu, Kim, D. Sinha, and K. S. Yang (references in Sinha, 1997) are not identical, though
they have common elements.
Cultural psychologists study a culture intensively with ethnographic methods. An
example is the study by Menon & Shweder (1994). It discusses why people in Orissa, India
see anger as most different from shame and happiness, while Americans see shame and
anger as closer in meaning and very different from happiness. For the Indians, anger is
different from the other two concepts because it destroys relationships. Shame and happiness
glue relationships. For the Americans, happiness is positive and the other two concepts are
negative. The method used to study this problem required intensive one-on-one interviews.
Twenty-five units of meaning were extracted from 92 narrators of the story of the Indian
goddess Kali. The researchers examined the relationships among the units of meaning
through cluster analysis. Again the approaches of those who might be considered cultural
psychologists are not identical. Berry, Bruner, Cole, Eckensberger, A. Fiske, Goodnow,
Greenfield, Kitayama, Markus, Miller, Rogoff, Scribner, Shweder, Stigler, Tobin, Wu, &
Davidson, and Valsiner (references in Greenfield, 1997a) carry out their research somewhat
differently, but they have common elements.
Cross-cultural psychologists obtain data from many people in many cultures. An
example could be a study by Triandis et al. (submitted) that obtained responses to a
questionnaire, that was made as equivalent as possible, across 8 cultures. In each culture
about 100 men and 100 women were sampled. Again, the approaches of Adamopoulos,
Barry, Berry, Bond, Campbell, Lonner, Munroe and Munroe, Poortinga, Segall, Triandis,
and Van der Vijver (references in Berry, Poortinga, and Pandey, 1997) are not the same, but
have enough common elements to permit contrast with the other two approaches.
At times the same researcher engages in more than one of the three approaches. For
example, in Triandis (1972), I examined the meaning of philotimos in Greece, an activity
that falls within indigenous psychology, but I also presented several studies that used emic
and etic items, that fall within cross-cultural psychology. Similarly, Berry has used different
methodologies in different studies, so he appears on my list as an indigenous, a cultural, and
a cross-cultural psychologist. Clearly, the categories are not exclusive.
Dimensions that contrast the various sub-disciplines of culture and
psychology emics versus etics
I perceive indigenous psychology (Kim & Berry, 1993; Sinha, 1997) as emphasizing emics,
experimental psychology as emphasizing etics, and cultural and cross-cultural psychology as
located in-between, with cultural closer to indigenous, and cross-cultural closer to
experimental psychology.
Experimental psychologists emphasize that humans have much in common. In fact,
human and chimpanzee genetic structures are 99 percent the same (King & Wilson, 1975)
so that indeed, by contrast to chimps, humans everywhere are genetically almost identical.
Whatever differences we observe among humans can be traced to the different
environments in which humans adapted during the past million years, to cultural
diffusion, and historical accidents. The emic view emphasizes that psychological
processes take unique culture-specific forms; the etic view emphasizes that psychological
processes are basically the same and have different manifestations. For example, social
distance exists in all societies, but in India it takes a form that is based on the idea of
ritual pollution. Also, different environments, cultural diffusion, historical events, etc.
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create different levels of adaptation (Helson, 1964), or neutral points for viewing, judging,
and perceiving the world. In short, universals create the basis, and cultural differences are
superimposed. Experimental psychologists examine basic processes; cross-cultural
researchers examine how the basic processes are modified in different environments.
For example, all humans learn when positive and negative events follow a response. But
in collectivist cultures people learn more when the positive event occurs to a valued ingroup member than is the case in individualist cultures, where most learning requires that
the positive event occur to the learners themselves (Haruki, Shigehisa, Nedate, Wajima,
& Ogawa, 1984).
Context versus content. In a communication one can pay attention to the content, i.e., what
was said, or to the context, i.e., all the events that surround the content. In short, one can pay
attention to how it was said (tone of voice, gestures, eye contact, etc.). There is evidence that
individualist cultures pay more attention to content while collectivist cultures pay more
attention to context (Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan, 1999). I see indigenous and cultural
psychology sampling context more than content, and cross-cultural and experimental
psychology sampling content more than context. Certainly, a laboratory experiment removes
a lot of context. On the other hand, it is only through experiments that we can be sure we
have identified the cause of a phenomenon.
Collectivists use action verbs (e.g., he offered to help) rather than state verbs (e.g., he is
helpful). This is because they prefer to use context in their communications. When writing
that a person offered help, one has to say something about the context – to whom, when,
where. Saying that someone is helpful does not require a clarification of the context. Zwier
(1997) obtained support for this cultural difference in four studies. She found that the
accounts of events given by Turkish (from a collectivist culture) and Dutch (from an
individualist culture) students show this difference. She content analyzed the radio
commentaries of Turkish and Dutch radio personalities and found the same difference. She
asked Turkish and Dutch students to write a letter requesting a favor, and content analyzed
the letters. She examined the writing of Turkish/Dutch bilinguals when writing in their two
languages, and found the same pattern.
Culture inside or outside the person. Culture can be conceived as inside the person, i.e.,
linked to every psychological process, or outside the person, influencing aspects of the
person’s perception, judgment, and behavior. Cultural psychology is more likely to conceive
of culture as being inside the person. It often states that ‘‘culture and psychology make each
other up’’ (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998). Cross-cultural psychology is more
likely to conceive of culture outside the person, i.e., culture is like an experimental
manipulation. Thus cross-cultural psychologists think of culture as the independent variable,
for their study.
Culture is dynamic or static. Related to that also is the way culture is conceptualized as
being constantly modified by people as opposed to being more or less stable. Kashima
(1997) has pointed out that one can conceptualize culture as an entity that changes only
when generations of individuals change or something which involves meanings that change
in short time periods. There are elements of culture that are relatively stable and other
elements that are changing from one time to another. If one is working with the former
elements and populations of individuals responding to those elements, the methods of crosscultural psychology are appropriate. If one is working with the latter elements, and
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Harry C. Triandis
populations of individuals who are responding to those elements, the methods of indigenous
or cultural psychology are more appropriate.
Studying real life situations or artificial situations. Cultural and indigenous psychologists
prefer the study of action in context that is in real life situations. On the other hand,
experimental psychologists are interested in control – they want to discover the causes of a
phenomenon. Cross-cultural psychologists are in-between. They favor situations that allow
for the experimental control of variables, such as the systematic modification of scenarios
that represent different dimensions, factorial designs, and the like. Real life situations
require the study of people’s ‘‘everyday cognition’’ as they make complicated woven
patterns or narrate complicated historical accounts (Rogoff & Chavajay, 1995, p. 863), or
decide about sleeping arrangements (Shweder, Jensen, & Goldstein, 1995). Examining the
numerical abilities of children must include information about the cultural tools available to
them, such as the existence of the Chinese or Japanese abacus.
Meaning is the focus of the research or a barrier to the research. Indigenous and cultural
psychologists find differences in the meaning of constructs fascinating, and make them the
focus of their research. Cross-cultural psychologists find differences in the meaning of
constructs annoying, since such differences make the equivalent measurement of constructs
more difficult (Greenfield, 1997a). However, through local standardization of scales one can
overcome this difficulty (Triandis, 1992).
Cultural psychologists tend to ignore individual differences, and focus on what members
of the culture they are studying have in common. In the tradition of anthropologists they
may use a few informants, or research participants, and assume that these individuals will
reveal to them all that is important about their cultures. Cross-cultural psychologists are
interested in individual differences. For example, Triandis (1995) has argued that there are
idiocentrics (a personality attribute parallel to individualism) and allocentrics (a personality
attribute parallel to collectivism) in every culture. It is just that in collectivist cultures there
are more allocentrics than in individualist cultures.
Cultural psychologists focus on action in context. Cross-cultural psychologists focus on
attributes of individuals.
Differences in methodology
The three perspectives also use different methodologies that will be contrasted below.
Study very different versus similar cultures
Cultural psychologists from Western cultures usually study cultures that are very different
from their own. On the other hand, indigenous psychologists usually study their own culture.
Cross-cultural psychologists study cultures that are not drastically different, such as US and
Japanese students.
In fact, if we consider the construct of ‘‘cultural distance’’ (see elaboration in Triandis,
1994) as reflecting differences in language (e.g., languages of researcher and the population
studied are from the same or a different language family), social structure (e.g., monogamy
versus polygamy), religion (e.g., specific Christian versus specific Buddhist sect),
socioeconomic condition (e.g.. Gross National Product per capita of, say, US$30,000
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versus $300), political system, level of literacy, etc. we see that cross-cultural psychologists
often study samples where the cultural distance is small (e.g., managers or students from
relatively economically advanced countries). By contrast, cultural psychologists often study
children in cultures where the cultural distance between the researcher’s and the
participant’s culture is large (e.g., non-literate societies versus information societies).
Greenfield (1997b) presented a strong case for the difference between schooled and
unschooled populations. Schooled populations have learned to deal with abstract reality.
Most of the events that take place in schools are in books, lectures, and visual aids that
represent events; the student is not in direct contact with the entities under discussion, but
simply contacts the symbols of these entities. That is very different from the life of a child
who is only in contact directly with objects. Most of the methods employed by psychologists
require abstract thinking. One does not see a lion, but the word ‘‘lion’’ on a test item. The
subjective cultures of the researcher and the child are very different, so there is no adequate
communication between the two, and thus the usual methods of psychologists cannot be
used with unschooled populations. Unschooled children are not used to communicating in an
impersonal manner, without context, as is required when answering a questionnaire or a test.
Furthermore, in many collectivist cultures one is not supposed to have an individual belief,
but one must express a group belief or attitude. The very act of asking a question of a child
may be incompatible with established norms which specify that children are to listen to
adults and are not to speak. The very act of communicating with strangers is rare in many
cultures, so that a researcher may have to spend some time establishing friendly
relationships before any ‘‘psychological measurement’’ can take place.
Thus the methods that can be used when the cultural distance is large are more
restricted than the methods that can be used with literate samples. It follows that cultural
psychologists cannot use sophisticated scales, tests, structured questionnaires, experiments,
and the like, and thus they use ethnographic methods, and such methods are likely to
impress them with the extent culture is intertwined with the psychological processes they
are investigating.
Boesch (1996) makes similar points in an article discussing the ‘‘seven flaws of crosscultural psychology.’’ He does not see the possibility of (1) using culture as an independent
variable, (2) getting representative samples in each culture, (3) equivalent measurement
across cultures, (4) avoiding biases due to the interaction between the presence of a specific
researcher and particular participants, (5) studying topics that are not totally culturally
specific, (6) dealing with participants as sources of information, instead of (7) objects of
friendly interaction and observation. In sum, he argues that valid data can be obtained from
members of a culture only through ethnographic methods.
This position is probably correct when the cultural distance is large, and especially when
the participants are not literate, but it is not necessarily correct when the cultural distance is
small and the participants are literate.
Study one culture with ethnographic methods versus study many
cultures with culturally equivalent measurements of the constructs
The key perspective of cultural psychology is that one is to study one culture, learn the local
language, and be quite disinterested in comparisons of different cultures. The key
perspective of cross-cultural psychology is to study many cultures with equivalent methods.
Thus one does not necessarily learn all the languages, but depends on research collaborators
to assist in the research (Triandis, 1972).
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Cultural psychology is more compatible with a collectivist cultural
perspective and cross-cultural psychology is more compatible with an
individualist cultural perspective
This point will be controversial, but it fits well with what we know about collectivist and
individualist cultures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995). We already mentioned
that there is strong evidence that people in collectivist cultures utilize context more than
content, while people in individualist cultures utilize content more than context.
Idiocentrics make internal attributions more often than allocentrics, who tend to make
external attributions (AI-Zahrani & Kaplowitz, 1993; Morris & Peng, 1994; Na & Loftus,
1998; Newman, 1993). Allocentrics use the context (the situation) when they make
attributions more than do idiocentrics (Miller, 1984).
This even appears in the way people from individualist and collectivist cultures view
treaties between states. Leung (1999) mentioned that the Chinese saw the treaty
concerning Hong Kong’s status, that had been signed by Britain and China in 1897, in a
historical context, and thus as not valid because it was imposed after Britain won the
opium war. Obviously, imposing opium on another country is immoral, so the treaty was
not valid. The British saw the treaty’s content only. A treaty is a treaty. Context has
nothing to do with it.
In social perception, allocentrics are most likely to perceive groups and their attributes
(actions in context); idiocentrics are most likely to perceive individuals and their traits.
Thus, for example, during the Kosovo crisis, Russian and Serbian TV focused on the
bombing (confrontation of collectives) and had no images of the refugees (individuals)!
Conversely, Western TV had much information about the refugees (individual stories, etc.)
and relatively little about the confrontation of Serbia and NATO. It is striking that different
cultures sample different kinds of information, often because it suits them to do so, but
nevertheless they do show biases for different kinds of information. Similarly, different subdisciplines of psychology sample different kinds of information. The result is that all
perspectives are biased to some extent. We need to learn to look for multiple perspectives, in
order to obtain a valid view of reality.
Advantages and disadvantages of each approach
Each approach to the study of culture and psychology has both advantages and
disadvantages.
Indigenous psychologies: advantages
This approach allows a researcher to get to the heart of a culture, by analyzing the central
concepts used very frequently by its members, and the relationships among these central
concepts. One can discover phenomena that only exist in one culture, and are entirely
unknown and unexpected by researchers from other cultures. For example, Triandis (1976)
studied African-Americans who had never had a job, and found a unique way of perceiving
the social environment that he called ‘‘ecosystem distrust.’’ This is a pattern of perception
that reflects distrust of other people. This sample trusts other people (e.g., their mother) less
than do members of other samples, such as African-Americans with jobs, and does not see
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much of a connection between events and their consequences. It is as if these people do not
trust that a consequence will follow an event. While those with jobs see a high or a low
probability linking a behavior and a consequence, those without jobs report that anything
can happen or not happen. This view is understandable when one thinks that these people
have to hustle to make a living. If one does not know whether there will be another meal, it
is difficult to be certain about anything else.
Another advantage is that the findings of this approach can be used by general theorists
of the culture and psychology relationships as basic data to bolster arguments about general
findings. For example, Triandis (1972) studied the meaning of key value words in Japan,
India, Greece, and the US. Hofstede (1980), almost ten years later, was able to use that
information to bolster some of his arguments.
Indigenous psychology: disadvantages
It is very difficult to convince mainstream psychologists that they should pay attention to the
findings of this approach. They say: I am interested in universal psychological phenomena,
not in anthropology. Furthermore, there are potentially too many findings that can be
generated by this approach. It is difficult to convince mainstream psychologists to pay
attention to that many findings. In addition, the richness of findings raises the question:
Which findings are ‘‘really’’ important? One needs some criterion that can rank-order the
importance of the findings. For example, do the findings predict behavior?
There is also the problem that some of the findings may be inconsistent. What happens
when two emic values are present and they predict very different behaviors? Which finding
is more reliable, valid, and predictive? For example, we know that amae (Doi, 1986) is an
important concept in Japan. But we need to know for how many Japanese is it important?
Under what conditions is it important? What demographic patterns increase or decrease its
importance? One can soon develop a whole field of study around the study of amae. It will
then become detached from psychology as another discipline, and mainstream psychologists
will not pay attention to it. Mainstream psychologists pay attention only when they are
shown that their favorite theories are only valid in their own culture, and cannot be
generalized to other cultures. A demonstration of that point is best done by using the
methods of mainstream psychology, in different cultures, and by showing, for instance, that
one obtains the usual findings in the West, but not in the East. In short, mainstream
psychologists are more likely to pay attention to the findings of cross-cultural than of
indigenous or cultural psychologists.
Advantages of cultural psychology
To a large extent the advantages of indigenous psychology are shared by cultural
psychology. This approach is the only one that can be used when there is large cultural
distance between the investigator and the participants in a study. It is the only one that can
be used when the investigator does not know much about the culture to be investigated. It is
often the best way to start any culture and psychology study (e.g., by using focus groups).
Disadvantages of cultural psychology
Again, this approach shares the disadvantages of indigenous psychology. The reliability
and validity of the findings are especially problematic, unless one can develop outside
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criteria to evaluate them. The method provides understanding, but rarely does it provide
prediction.
Advantages of cross-cultural psychology
The main advantage is that it can provide generalizations about which phenomena are
universal and which are culture-specific. It can measure constructs with emic as well as etic
items, thus providing both culture-sensitive measurements and methods for the comparison
of cultures. It can identify cultural patterns, such as individualism and collectivism, that
have both etic and emic aspects. It can identify, for instance, culture-specific aspects of
individualism and collectivism, but also show that phenomena which are observed in one
kind of collectivist culture are also observed in other collectivist cultures. Cultural
psychologists tend to present their findings as if they are unique, i.e., applicable only to the
one culture they have studied. It is very useful to use the methods of cross-cultural
psychology in order to show that there are similarities across cultures. Furthermore, the
measures used by cross-cultural psychologists can be subjected to various tests of reliability
and validity, and can be used to predict some criterion.
Disadvantages of cross-cultural psychology
The methods of cross-cultural psychology cannot be used when there is a wide cultural
distance between the investigator’s culture and the culture to be investigated. Many of the
methods of cross-cultural psychology produce reactivity. The constructs that are used may
not be strictly equivalent in meaning across cultures. The instructions may not be understood
in the same way. The level of motivation to answer truthfully and completely of members of
the several cultures may not be equivalent. The participants may react to the experimenter
quite differently. The meaning of the test situation may be quite different in the several
cultures. The method of study may be seen as pleasant in some cultures and unpleasant or
inappropriate in other cultures. Response sets (Triandis, 1972) sometimes make the
equivalence of measurement quite doubtful. It is often not possible to obtain samples in the
several cultures that are demographically equivalent. The ethical acceptability of the
methods may not be equivalent in the various cultures (Triandis, 1994, Chapter 3).
Each of these problems can be tackled (Triandis, 1992), and there are methods for
overcoming them. But there is always a question of how appropriate were the remedies, and
how well did they take care of the problem. For example, the problem of response sets can
be tackled with some forms of standardization of the data; but how should the data be
standardized? Within participant, across items, or both, as suggested by Leung & Bond
(1989)?
Summary of advantages and disadvantages
In short, in my view, each of the approaches has a place in our attempt to relate culture and
psychological processes. The methods of indigenous psychologists can enrich our
vocabulary about key elements of the various cultures under study. The methods of
cultural psychologists are often the only ones that can be used with non-literate participants.
They allow for wide exploration. For instance, the researcher may note some relationship at
one point during the research process and develop a partial test of the hypothesis at a
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subsequent point. Curvilinear hypotheses may emerge during such explorations. The
methods are especially appropriate when the researcher is not familiar with the culture, is
not testing specific hypotheses but rather is exploring, and is attempting to provide the best
description of the culture.
On the other hand, because ethnographic methods are not quantitative, it is difficult to
obtain precise measures of their reliability and validity. The methods are to some extent
subjective and the researcher’s preconceptions have a greater chance to be reflected in the
outcomes of the research than is the case in the work of cross-cultural psychologists.
Nevertheless, the methods used by cross-cultural psychologists also have limitations:
They can create reactivity (e.g., the respondents may try to make a good impression, or may
show their apprehension about how they will be evaluated, or may try to support or spoil the
test of some hypothesis they believe is being tested, and so on). To balance this
disadvantage, however, the methods of cross-cultural psychologists are more easily
subjected to replications, and multi-method construct validation than the methods of cultural
psychologists. It is easier, in cross-cultural work, to do parametric studies to examine when a
phenomenon no longer appears when a parameter is high or low. It is easier to control for
rival hypotheses, by using a large number of cultures having some cultural elements in
common, while all other cultural elements are different.
The future of the relationship of culture and psychology may include more
investigations like those of Tobin, Wy, Davidson (1989), which used methods of both
cultural and cross-cultural psychology, and collaborations between cultural psychologists
providing the data from one culture, and cross-cultural psychologists utilizing the data of
cultural psychologists from many cultures to understand both universals and culture-specific
influences of culture on psychological processes.
Summary
We might conceptualize the relationships between the three approaches dialectically. The
thesis is that we should seek (a) emic concepts, (b) emphasize the context of action
(behavior in a situation), (c) conceptualize culture as dynamic, (d) inside the person, (e)
utilize real life situations, (f) emphasize the differences in the meaning of concepts, (g)
conceive of members of a culture as homogeneous, and (h) study cultures that are at great
distances from the culture of the investigator, with ethnographic methods.
The antithesis is that we should focus on (a) etics, (b) the content of communications, (c)
culture as outside the participant, as (d) an independent variable, as (e) static, and study it in
(f) situations that provide a lot of experimental control. Differences in the meaning of
constructs are barriers to the equivalent measurement of the constructs in different cultures,
but the local standardization of the scales in each culture can overcome that difficulty
(Triandis, 1992). We should examine individual differences, and individual traits, work in
cultures, which minimize the culture distance between the culture of the investigator and the
culture of the participants, and obtain equivalent measurements of the constructs in the
various cultures.
The synthesis is that each conception and method has advantages as well as
disadvantages. We need to use all methods, and find common elements among the
findings that will increase our certainty that we have identified reliable and meaningful
similarities and differences across cultures. Specifically, we can organize research projects
that include collaborations of several colleagues utilizing the indigenous or cultural
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psychology approaches. They would provide an in-depth understanding of the way a
phenomenon occurs in the different cultures. Then, some of the key points from each culture
could be examined from the cross-cultural psychology perspective. For example, Tobin et
al. (1989) provided much detail about the way preschools function in China, Japan, and the
United States, but their data can also be used to bolster the argument that China is more
collectivist than the USA. For instance, when reacting to the fact that Chinese children go to
the bathroom together, three or four times a day, the Chinese teachers and other adults saw
this practice as desirable because it teaches children self-control, and there is regularity and
togetherness. The Americans thought this practice was horrible, because each child is
assumed to be an individual with different needs. Thus the data fit well with studies of
collectivism and individualism (e.g., Triandis, 1995) that used cross-cultural methods, thus
showing convergence between the cultural and cross-cultural findings.
Author note
I thank Fred Kanfer for comments that resulted in a clearer presentation of the arguments in
this paper.
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to H.C. Triandis,
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL
61820, USA. E-mail: htriandi@s.psych.uiuc.edu Tel: 217-333-1894 or 244-4156; Fax: 217244-5876.
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