424
Cultural Response Styles
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC33 Logic and Methodology in Sociology (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Cross-national and cross-cultural surveys are facing numerous challenges at different stages of the research process. Despite the broad research on potential methodological biases during fieldwork, there are still some fields which gain less attention although they contain a considerable risk of biasing survey data. Various measurement errors (such as social desirability or acquiescence) have been high on the research agenda in survey methodology for a long time, but there are only a few studies on differences of these effects between cultures or nations.
Cultural imprints are a particular challenge to the comparability of scales and indicators as one has to assume different levels and/or patterns of response styles in different countries. While cultural response styles have always been highly relevant in the increasing amount of cross-national research one can observe a growing importance of those potential biases for surveys in single nations as well – due to the growing number of people with immigrant background in many countries. It seems obvious that the prevalence of response styles is related to other cultural patterns and certain contextual data, but there is little systematic research and only sporadic empirical findings.
We ask for contributions covering one or more of the following topics:
- Empirical evidence of differences of response styles in surveys between or within countries (between different cultures)
- Potential explanations for this differences (at the individual or contextual level)
- Strategies how to deal with cultural response styles in cross-national surveys.