Cross-cultural studies, sometimes called holocultural studies or comparative studies, is a specialization in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

and sister sciences such as

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

that uses field data from many

societies A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

through

comparative research Comparative research is a research methodology in the social sciences exemplified in cross-cultural or comparative studies that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures. A major problem in comparative research is that the da ...

to examine the scope of

human behavior Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity ( mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. ...

and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture. Cross-cultural studies is the third form of cross-cultural comparisons. The first is comparison of case studies, the second is controlled comparison among variants of a common derivation, and the third is comparison within a sample of cases. Unlike comparative studies, which examines similar characteristics of a few societies, cross-cultural studies uses a sufficiently large sample so that statistical analysis can be made to show relationships or lack of relationships between the traits in question. These studies are surveys of

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...

data. Cross-cultural studies are applied widely in the

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of s ...

s, particularly in

cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...

and

History

The first cross-cultural studies were carried out by 19th-century anthropologists such as

Edward Burnett Tylor Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (2 October 18322 January 1917) was an English anthropologist, and professor of anthropology. Tylor's ideas typify 19th-century cultural evolutionism. In his works ''Primitive Culture'' (1871) and ''Anthropology'' (1 ...

and Lewis H. Morgan. One of Edward Tylor's first studies gave rise to the central statistical issue of cross-cultural studies: Galton's problem. In the recent decades historians and particularly historians of science started looking at the mechanism and networks by which knowledge, ideas, skills, instruments and books moved across cultures, generating new and fresh concepts concerning the order of things in nature. In ''Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean 1560–1660'' Avner Ben-Zaken has argued that cross-cultural exchanges take place at a cultural hazy locus where the margins of one culture overlaps the other, creating a "mutually embraced zone" where exchanges take place on mundane ways. From such a stimulating zone, ideas, styles, instruments and practices move onward to the cultural centers, urging them to renew and update cultural notions.

Modern era

The modern era of cross-cultural studies began with

George Murdock George Peter ("Pete") Murdock (May 11, 1897 – March 29, 1985), also known as G. P. Murdock, was an American anthropologist who was professor at Yale University and University of Pittsburgh. He is remembered for his empirical approach to ethn ...

(1949), who set up a number of foundational data sets, including the

Human Relations Area Files The Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF), located in New Haven, Connecticut, US, is an international nonprofit membership organization with over 500 member institutions in more than 20 countries. A financially autonomous research agency based a ...

, and the ''Ethnographic Atlas.'' Together with Douglas R. White, he developed the widely-used

Standard Cross-Cultural Sample The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) is a sample of 186 cultures used by scholars engaged in cross-cultural studies. Origin Cross-cultural research entails a particular statistical problem, known as Galton's problem: tests of functional rela ...

, which is currently maintained by the open access electronic journal World Cultures.

Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory is a framework for cross-cultural communication, developed by Geert Hofstede. It shows the effects of a society's culture on the values of its members, and how these values relate to behavior, using a structu ...

is a framework for

cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communic ...

, developed by

Geert Hofstede Gerard Hendrik (Geert) Hofstede (2 October 1928 – 12 February 2020) was a Dutch social psychologist, IBM employee, and Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management at Maastricht University in the Nether ...

in the 1970s. It describes the effects of a society's

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

on the

values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...

of its members, and how these values relate to behavior, using a structure derived from

factor analysis Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors. For example, it is possible that variations in six observed ...

. The original theory proposed four dimensions along which cultural values could be analyzed:

individualism Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...

collectivism Collectivism may refer to: * Bureaucratic collectivism, a theory of class society whichto describe the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin * Collectivist anarchism, a socialist doctrine in which the workers own and manage the production * Collectivis ...

;

uncertainty avoidance In cross-cultural psychology, uncertainty avoidance is how cultures differ on the amount of tolerance they have of unpredictability. Uncertainty avoidance is one of five key qualities or ''dimensions'' measured by the researchers who developed the ...

;

power distance Power distance is a dimension theorized and proven by Geert Hofstede, who outlined multiple cultural dimensions throughout his work. This term refers to inequality and unequal distributions of power between parties; whether it is within the work ...

(strength of social hierarchy) and masculinity-femininity (task-orientation versus person-orientation). It has been refined several times since then. With the widespread access of people to the Internet and the high influence of online social networks on daily life, users behavior in these websites have become a new resource to perform cross-cultural and comparative studies. A study on Twitter examined the usage of

emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings, ...

s from users of 78 countries and found a positive correlation between individualism-collectivism dimension of Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory and people's use of mouth-oriented emoticons.

References

Bibliography

* Ember, Carol R., and

Melvin Ember Melvin Lawrence Ember (January 13, 1933 – September 27, 2009) was an American cultural anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher with wide-ranging interests who combined an active research career with writing for nonprofessionals. Biograph ...

. 1998. Cross-Cultural Research. ''Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology'' / Ed. by H. R. Bernard, pp. 647–90. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. * Ember, Carol R., and

. 2001. ''Cross-Cultural Research Methods''. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. * Korotayev, Andrey
''World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-Cultural Perspective''
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. * Franco, F.M., and D. Narasimhan. 2009. Plant names and uses as indicators of

traditional knowledge Traditional knowledge (TK), indigenous knowledge (IK) and local knowledge generally refer to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities. According to the World Intellectual Property Organ ...

. Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge

* Franco, F.M., D. Narasimhan and W. Stanley. 2008. Relationship between four tribal communities and their natural resources in the Koraput region. Ethnobotany Research and Applications, Vol. 6

* Levinson, David, and Martin J. Malone. 1980. ''Toward Explaining Human Culture: A Critical Review of the Findings of Worldwide Cross-Cultural Research''. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files, HRAF Press. * Macfarlane, Alan. 2004
To Contrast and Compare
pp. 94–111, in ''Methodology and Fieldwork,'' edited by Vinay Kumar Srivastava. Delhi: Oxford University Press. * de Munck V
Cultural Units in Cross-Cultural Research
// Ethnology 39/4 (2000): 335–348. * Murdock, George P. 1949. ''Social Structure''. New York: Macmillan. * Murdock, George P. 1967. ''Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary''. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Prsrtjh sdxthgn fdty a45tesjtukcn bess. * Murdock, George P. 1970. Kin Term Patterns and their Distribution. ''Ethnology'' 9: 165–207. * Murdock, George P. 1981. ''Atlas of World Cultures''. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press. * Murdock, George P., and Douglas R. White. 1969
Standard Cross-Cultural Sample.
''Ethnology'' 8:329–369. * Whiting, John W.M. 1986
''George Peter Murdock, (1897–1985)''
''American Anthropologist''. 88(3): 682–686.

External links

Journals

Cross-Cultural Research Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology World Cultures
* Structure and Dynamics: eJournal of the Anthropological and Related Sciences
Transtext(e)sTranscultures: Trilingual Journal of Global Cultural Studies
*

Social Evolution & History ''Social Evolution & History'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal focused on the development of human societies in the past, present, and future. In addition to original research articles, ''Social Evolution & History'' includes critical notes a ...

Associations

Society for Cross-Cultural ResearchInstitut d'études Transtextuelles et Transculturelles (IETT)
Institute for Transtextual and Transcultural Studies, Lyons, France. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cross-Cultural Studies Social anthropology Subfields of political science