ABSTRACT
In the last decade, the role of cultural factors in human development has been increasingly recognized, and the number of studies referring to the possible role of culture has grown rapidly. Frequently, however, possible cultural influences are merely used as alternative explanations for results that depart from mainstream findings (i.e., mostly North American findings). In such cases, the authors rarely offer clear definitions of how they conceptualize cultural effects. Culture becomes merely part of the error variance.
