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Alright time to shove food in my mouth and then hop into "What We Don’t Know, and We Don’t Know that We Don’t Know" #PSACON2020
Pooya Razavi opens by outlining what we typically do when we have research on a restricted (usually WEIRD) sample and are trying to generalize to a broader context. This has worked well for us, but strong "yeah, but" vibes emanating from this slide
And here it is: most theories, models, and measures are generated by scientists from a narrow subset of the world, so many-culture studies might miss important nuances across cultures
Razavi references as an example the literature around experiential advantage, or the idea that if you want to be happy, spend your money on experiences rather than things. But does this generalize beyond the mostly US samples used so far to develop these ideas?
These studies assume happiness is a primary goal in life, and that happiness has a universal meaning. Is the meaning and importance of happiness the same across all cultures? This... might not be the case.
What if we diversified the outcomes based on what we know about cultures? For example, wellbeing could be made up of emotions, happiness, and cognitive evaluations. Emotions and cognitive evaluations can also be self-focused or other-focused.
If you'd like to see what such an approach looks like, I recommend checking out Razavi's paper, currently in press at SPPS https://psyarxiv.com/gtz8f
Another example comes from research from Razavi, Hadi Shaban-Azad, and @hardsci, found here: https://psyarxiv.com/8ev23
This fascinating study looks at gheirat, an emotion related to a number of concepts in English but without a direct translation. It comes up in a variety of contexts and influences behavior and morality but we don't have a psychological literature on it.
Whaaaaat's this? Folks used qualitative research to look at this concept? :) :) :) :) :)
It's important that they didn't force this study or concept into other concepts or theory -- this was a data-driven study focused on really deeply diving into the experience of gheirat, as well as the relational norms and boundaries involved in the emotion.
Using this approach allowed them to find some really interesting findings around the role of religion and gender. I will point again to their preprint so you can see for yourself: https://psyarxiv.com/8ev23
Fascinating stuff!
Fascinating stuff!
This has been exciting to hear about and exactly what I've been hoping more scientists would do, especially as we continue to expand the @PsySciAcc. I hope folks take some lessons from these studies and apply them to their own work. How freaking cool!
GAH this is such a cool project and such a good use of qualitative research. When the recording gets posted I'll be sure to share it so you can experience it yourself.
And @nataliadutrapsy adding a comment about how we tend to view culture as being cross-country but cultures also vary quite a bit within countries, so more food for thought on how that affects our understanding of our research topics.
