ABSTRACT
There are four basic goals of research in cross-cultural psychology: description, interpretation, prediction, and management. In general, research methodology in cross-cultural psychology may be divided into two categories: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research involves the measurement of certain aspects of human activity from a comparative perspective. Qualitative research is conducted primarily in a natural setting, where the research participants carry out their daily activities in a non-research atmosphere. For sample selection, there are several strategies: availability or convenience sampling, systematic sampling, and random sampling. Cross-cultural psychologists use all the standard psychological methods of investigation, such as observation, survey, experiment, content analysis, psychobiography, meta-analysis, focus groups, and other procedures. There are at least two approaches to the analysis of cross-cultural data: the absolutist approach and the relativist approach. The absolutist approach argues that psychological phenomena are basically the same across cultures. The relativist approach asserts that human behavior in its full complexity can be understood only within the context of the culture in which it occurs. Cross-cultural psychologists should not only see similarities in different phenomena, but they should also avoid biases of generalization.
