ABSTRACT
Culture is a central concept for issues related to cross-cultural adaptation of psychological measurement instruments. It is a frame that gives meaning to all aspects of behavior and represents a general context in which behavior happens. Culture manifests itself in common values, heroes, rituals, symbols and practices. Language is closely related to culture in that it often, but now always, represents a boundary between cultures. When considering culture, one should also have in mind the process of globalization which decreases differences between distant groups of people, but increases the diversity inside local groups. Culture-wise, psychological constructs can be either emics or etics. Etics are constructs that exist in all the study’s cultures, while emics are constructs that are culture-specific. In accordance with this, a researcher can take either an emic or an etic approach – or a combination – when creating test adaptations. Much of the differences between cultures can be described in terms of dimensions of cultural differences. Edward Hall proposed the differentiation between high-context and low-context cultures and between polychronic and monochronic cultures, while Hofstede’s theory proposes six dimensions of cultural differences – Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism-Collectivism, Masculinity-Femininity, Long-Term/Short-Term Orientation and Indulgence-Restraint.
