Cultural Units in Cross-Cultural Research

Paper Summary:

The writer of this paper critically analyzes the ways in which De Munch and Korotayev start out by explaining that it is difficult to research across cultures because of "cross-cultural pollenization" that is, one culture tends to absorb some traits of the other. They point out that without adequate controls, the research can give both false confirmations of the hypothesis as well as false negatives. This paper is a negative critique of Cultural Units in Cross-Cultural Research.

From the Paper:

The first group might look culturally diverse at first: 4 Spanish; 4 Iraqi; 1 Russian; 1 Estonian; 1 Javanese; 1 Ganda; one Greek; one Maronite-Lebanese. However, this group had significant cultural similarities, which the authors of course knew because they contrived the group. Some of the clerics were Catholic and therefore celibate. Others were Moslem and allowed more than one wife. It is hard to imagine how this example sheds any light on either cross-cultural studies or statistical and research methods.

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