Toward an Understanding of Cross-Cultural Differences in ...

Toward an Understanding of
Cross-Cultural Cultural Differences in
Acquiescence and Extremity Scoring
Fons J. R. van de Vijver
University of Tilburg, the Netherlands, and
North-West University, South Africa
George Ploubidis
University of Cambridge, UK
Dianne A. van Hemert
University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Outline
• Response styles in cross-cultural cultural research
• Universality
• Poorly understood (not just a nuisance):
• What do response styles mean?
• Toward a framework of understanding cross-
cultural differences in response styles
• Secondary analysis data of ISSP data
• Integration:
• Tentative model of response styles, useful for
cross-cultural cultural research

Theoretical Outline
What are the problems?
1. Do response styles differ
systematically across cultures?
Description
2. What is their patterning
(relationship with individual- and
country-level variables)?
Interpretation

• From a design perspective response
styles can be seen as characteristics
of
• 1. Respondents
• Persons /Cultures
• 2. Instruments
• Items / Constructs
• 3. Interaction of subjects and
instruments

• Current study:
• 1 (respondents) and 2
(instruments)
• 3 (Interactions) not further studied
here:
• (a) no cross-cultural cultural data
• (b) possibly less important source of
variance

1. Response Styles as Person
Characteristics: : Trick or Trait
• Two views on the psychological
meaning of response styles
• “Trick”
“Trick”:: styles distort the view on the
participant’s reality/real attitudes
• “Trait”
“Trait”:: styles are personality
characteristics (e.g., social desirability is
part of agreeableness)

2. Response Styles as Stimulus
Characteristics
• Sensitivity of domain may be
important:
• More personal/sensitive domains
are more prone to response styles
(cf. more interviewer effects when
dealing with more sensitive topics)

Cross-Cultural Cultural Studies of
Acquiescence and Extremity Scoring
• Watkins & Cheung (1995)
• less acquiescence among children in Australia compared
to children in China, Nepal, and the Philippines.
• Grimm & Church (1999)
• Philippine students acquiesced more than American
students
• Steenkamp & Baumgartner (1998)
• Greek respondents more acquiescence than British and
Belgian respondents.
• Baumgartner & Steenkamp (2001)
• Greek and Portuguese respondents displayed more
acquiescence than respondents from other EU countries.

Acquiescence tendencies are consistent at
country-level
Smith (2004):
Significant correlations between acquiescence
indicators at country level across studies:

Van Herk, , Poortinga, & Verhallen, , 2004
• Study of acquiescence and extremity
scoring
• in six EU countries (Greece, Italy, Spain,
France, Germany, and the United Kingdom)
• marketing surveys (domains: cooking,
washing, and personal care)
• Conclusion:
“These two response styles were found to be
more present in the Mediterranean than in
Northwestern Europe”

Correlates of Response Styles
• Individual level:
• Acquiescence shows a negative relation with
education (McClendon, 1991b; Mirowsky &
Ross, 1991; Narayan & Krosnick, , 1996;
Schuman & Presser, 1981; Watson, 1992)
• Cultural level
• Social Desirability negatively related to GNP
(Van Hemert et al., 2002), which is highly
correlated with educational indicators
• Triandis (presentation yesterday):
• More acquiescence in tighter societies (which demand
more conformity)
• More extreme response styles in simpler societies.

Questions/Hypotheses
• Question 1
• What are the relative sizes of individual-
and country-level differences in
acquiescence and extremity scoring?
• Hypothesis 1:
• Country differences are larger in
domains with more personal
involvement

• Question 2:
• What are correlates of extremity scoring
and acquiescence at individual and
country level?
• Hypothesis 2:
• Individual level:
• Response style indicators are
negatively related to indicators
of resourcefulness (studied here:
socioeconomic status and
gender)
• Country level:
• Country scores on both response
style indicators are negatively
related to affluence

Survey 1: Social Inequality (1992)
COUNTRY
Valid
AUS
D-W
D-E
GB
USA
A
H
I
N
S
CS
SLO
PL
BG
RUS
NZ
CDN
RP
Total
Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
2203 9.2 9.2 9.2
2297 9.6 9.6 18.8
1094 4.6 4.6 23.4
1066 4.5 4.5 27.9
1273 5.3 5.3 33.2
1027 4.3 4.3 37.5
1250 5.2 5.2 42.7
996 4.2 4.2 46.9
1538 6.4 6.4 53.3
749 3.1 3.1 56.4
1101 4.6 4.6 61.1
1049 4.4 4.4 65.4
1636 6.8 6.8 72.3
1198 5.0 5.0 77.3
1983 8.3 8.3 85.6
1239 5.2 5.2 90.8
1004 4.2 4.2 95.0
1200 5.0 5.0 100.0
23903 100.0 100.0

Questionnaire (In All Surveys)
• Response scales:
• Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree
format

• Questionnaire should consist of
both positively and negatively
worded items (not all ISSP data
could be used)
• Mode of administration varied
across countries:
• self-completing questionnaire or
face-to
to-face interviews
• Questionnaires were not
developed as (unifactorial(
unifactorial)
psychometric scales; no
equivalence studied here!

Examples of Questions (8 items)

Surveys: (1) Family and gender (1994)
Country
Valid
Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
AUS - Australia
1779 5.3 5.3 5.3
D-W - Germany-West 2324 6.9 6.9 12.2
D-E - Germany-East 1097 3.3 3.3 15.5
GB - Great Britain
984 2.9 2.9 18.4
NIRL- Northern Ireland 647 1.9 1.9 20.3
USA - United States 1447 4.3 4.3 24.6
A - Austria
977 2.9 2.9 27.6
H - Hungary
1500 4.5 4.5 32.0
I - Italy
1018 3.0 3.0 35.0
IRL - Ireland
938 2.8 2.8 37.8
NL - Netherlands
1968 5.9 5.9 43.7
N - Norway
2087 6.2 6.2 49.9
S - Sweden
1272 3.8 3.8 53.7
CZ - Czech Republic 1024 3.0 3.0 56.7
SLO - Slovenia
1032 3.1 3.1 59.8
PL - Poland
1597 4.8 4.8 64.6
BG - Bulgaria
1126 3.4 3.4 67.9
RUS - Russia
1998 5.9 5.9 73.9
NZ - New Zealand 1047 3.1 3.1 77.0
CDN - Canada
1440 4.3 4.3 81.3
RP - Philippines
1200 3.6 3.6 84.9
IL - Israel
1287 3.8 3.8 88.7
J - Japan
1307 3.9 3.9 92.6
E - Spain
2494 7.4 7.4 100.0
Total
33590 100.0 100.0

Examples of Questions (U.S.A.; 25 items)

Survey 2:
Religion
(1998)
Valid
Country
Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
AUS-Australia
1310 3.4 3.4 3.4
D-W-Germany-West 1000 2.6 2.6 5.9
D-E-Germany-East 1006 2.6 2.6 8.5
GB-Great Britain
804 2.1 2.1 10.6
NIRL-Northern Ireland 812 2.1 2.1 12.6
USA-United States 1284 3.3 3.3 15.9
A-Austria
1002 2.6 2.6 18.5
H-Hungary
1000 2.6 2.6 21.1
I-Italy
1008 2.6 2.6 23.6
IRL-Ireland
1010 2.6 2.6 26.2
NL-Netherlands
2020 5.2 5.2 31.4
N-Norway
1532 3.9 3.9 35.3
S-Sweden
1189 3.0 3.0 38.4
CZ-Czech Republic 1224 3.1 3.1 41.5
SLO-Slovenia
1006 2.6 2.6 44.1
PL-Poland
1147 2.9 2.9 47.0
BG-Bulgaria
1102 2.8 2.8 49.8
RUS-Russia
1703 4.4 4.4 54.2
NZ-New Zealand
998 2.6 2.6 56.8
CDN-Canada
974 2.5 2.5 59.3
RP-Philippines
1200 3.1 3.1 62.3
IL-Israel Jews Arabs 1208 3.1 3.1 65.4
J-Japan
1368 3.5 3.5 68.9
E-Spain
2488 6.4 6.4 75.3
LV-Latvia
1200 3.1 3.1 78.4
SK-Slovak Republic 1284 3.3 3.3 81.7
F-France
1133 2.9 2.9 84.6
CY-Cyprus
1000 2.6 2.6 87.1
P-Portugal
1201 3.1 3.1 90.2
RCH-Chile
1503 3.9 3.9 94.1
D-Denmark
1114 2.9 2.9 96.9
CH-Switzerland
1204 3.1 3.1 100.0
Total
39034 100.0 100.0

Examples of Questions (17 items)

Extremity Index
• Extremity score of a participant:
• Proportion of items with a score at either
extreme (Van Herk et al.: “The relative
number of scores given on the extreme
categories of a rating scale. We counted the
responses in Categories 1 and 5 on the 5-point 5
rating scales”)
• Range:
• from 0 to 1
• Interpretation:
• Values close to 0 denote a low incidence and
values close to 1 denote high incidence of
extremity scoring

Acquiescence Index
• Acquiescence score of a participant:
• proportion of responses in the two extreme
agreement response categories minus the
proportion of responses in the opposite
extremes
• So, the number of 1s and 2s minus the
number of 4s and 5s, divided by the total
number of items
• Only bipolar (more or less balanced) scales
used
• Range:
• from -11 to 1
• Interpretation:
• Values close to -1: low incidence; values close
to 1: high incidence

Individual-Level Background Variables
• Gender: Male = 1; Female = 2.
• Status:

Results
• 1. Relative proportion of individual-
and country-level differences to
score variation

• Hypothesis:
• Country differences are larger in
domains with more personal
involvement (assumption: family
> religion, inequality)
• Analysis:
• DV: response style indices
• Variance components model (null
model, intercept only)

Intraclass Correlations
• Prop. of variance accounted for by country
• Cohen’s cutoff values of effects sizes:
•.01
(small), .06 (medium), .10 (large)
Acquiescence
Extremity
Scoring
Mean
Social Inequality
.06
.23
.15
Religion
.07
.11
.09
Family
.32
.25
.29

• Large effects in most analyses
• Substantial country differences in both
response styles
• Larger country differences in
extremity scoring than in
acquiescence
• First hypothesis supported:
• Family domain largest effect sizes

Results
• 2. Individual- and Country-level
correlates of response-style
style
indicators
• Analysis split up in two parts:
1. Multilevel analysis
• Individual-level level factors (“Level 1”):
• Gender and socioeconomic status (multilevel
model)
• Country level (“Level 2”)
2. Country-level factors (correlations)

1. Role of Individual Factors
• Design:
• Multilevel model with gender and SES as
predictors at individual level
• (country-level predictors not used, due
to the large number of country-level
factors studied relative to the number of
countries involved)

Design (cont’d)
• Distinction between fixed and
random slopes and intercepts
• Regression coefficients fixed (fixed
covariates)
• Gender (scoring: 1 = female; 2 = male)
• Status (scoring: higher score, higher class)
• Intercepts random at both levels
• Significance indicates that there is random
variation at both individual level and country
level

Significance of Effects
Regression
coefficient
Intercepts
Acquiescence
Gender
Status
Country
Social inequality
-
-
sign.
Religion
-
-
sign.
Family
-
-
sign.
Extremity
Social inequality
-
-
sign.
Religion
+
+
sign.
Family
-
-
sign.

Conclusions
• Acquiescence…
• shows systematic differences
across individuals and countries
• is more prevalent among females
than among males
• is negatively related to
socioeconomic status

• Extremity
• shows systematic differences across
individuals and countries
• is usually stronger among females than
among males (differential norms for
expressiveness)
• is negatively related to SES.
• However,
• relationship is moderated by domain for
extremity;
• relationship is domain independent for
acquiescence

Correlations of Styles
• Are both response styles correlated
at individual and/or country level?

Correlations at Individual Level
• Scores standardized per country
• Correlations of both response styles
• Family: .00
• Religion: .04* (N(
= 38,945)
• Inequality: .08* (N(
= 23,714)

Averaged Correlations of
Response Styles at Country Level
Extremity
Acquiescence
Extremity
Acquiescence
.36
.09 (separate)
.21 (averaged)
.34
Conclusion: Within-style cross-survey correlations
significant, cross-style differences weaker

Conclusion
• Both styles fairly consistent across
surveys (mean r of about .35) (Note:
found for identical response formats
in surveys dealing with different
topics)
• Styles are weakly correlated (at both
individual and country level)

2. Country-Level Correlates:
Country Indicators Used
• Purchasing Power Parity
• This measure reflects countries' price
level of a fixed basket of goods and
services in international dollars (World
Bank, 1999)

Country Indicators Used (Cont’d)
• Educational System
• Georgas and Berry (1995) combined the
teacher—pupil ratio in the first level, the
gross enrolment in the first, the second
and the third level, and the percentage
of adult illiterates. The factor scores
indicate educational system

Country Indicators Used (Cont’d)
• Ecological Factor
• Georgas and Berry (1995) combined
three ecological indicators to establish
an ecological factor: highest and lowest
average temperature and highest
monthly level of precipitation. Factor
scores of this factor were used.

Country Indicators Used (Cont’d)
• Political Rights and Democracy
• Combination of:
• Humana (1986) collected data from several United Nations
instruments and constructed the Human Rights Index for
rights and freedoms in 40 categories
• The indices for Political Rights in the year 1984 and 1985
from the Freedom House
• Civil Liberties were taken (same source)
• Inglehart’s (1997) measure of the level of democracy in
1990
• Inglehart’s (1997) measure of the Stability of democracy
(expressed in number of years of continuous democracy)
• In each dataset, we factor analyzed all five variables.
One-factor solutions were found in all three sets, with
eigenvalues from 4.56 to 4.77, explaining 91.18% to
95.40% of variance. Factor scores on this Political Rights
and Democracy factor were used for further analyses.

Country Indicators Used (Cont’d)
• Religious Denomination
• The Percentage of Protestants, taken from the
Georgas and Berry (1995) database

Country Indicators Used (Cont’d)
• Subjective Well-Being
• Diener’s subjective well-being was derived
from Diener, Diener, , and Diener (1995)
• Inglehart’s (1997) measure of subjective well-
being was derived from questions concerning
happiness and satisfaction with life as a whole
(World Values Survey)
• Diener’s measure and Inglehart’s measure
were factor analyzed (eigenvalues(
1.67 to
1.73, explained variance 83.34% to 86.55%)
and factor scores were used for futher
analyses

Country Indicators Used (Cont’d)
• Hofstede’s Measures (1980, 2001)
• Individualism (IDV)
• Power Distance (PDI)
• Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI)
• Masculinity (MAS)
• Long Term Orientation (LTO)

Country Indicators Used (Cont’d)
• Social Desirability
• Means
on the Lie Scale of the Eysenck
Personality Questionnaire (EPQ;
Eysenck & Eysenck, , 1975) collected
across 38 countries were taken from
Van Hemert, Van de Vijver, Poortinga,
and Georgas (2002)

Country Indicators Used (Cont’d)
• Big Five Personality Traits
• McCrae (2002):
• Neuroticism
• Extraversion
• Openness to experience
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness

Overall: Extremity
• Large effect size and positive
• LTO
• Medium size and positive
Medium size and positive
• UAI, Neuroticism, Social Desirability
• No effect (-.15(
< r < .15)
• Ecology, PDI, Purchasing Power Parity,
Openness to experience, Education
• Small size and negative
• Democracy, Extraversion, IDV
• Medium size and negative
• Subjective well-being, Percentage Protestants,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness

Overall: Acquiescence
• Medium size and positive
• Social Desirability, Neuroticism, UAI, PDI
• Small effect size and positive
• Ecology
• No effect (-.15(
< r < .15)
• MAS, LTO, Conscientiousness, Openness to
experience, Percentage Protestants
• Small size and negative
• Agreeableness, Extraversion
• Medium size and negative
• Education, Democracy, Subjective well-being,
Purchasing Power Parity 1997, IDV

Extremity and Acquiescence:
Their Similarities
• Both are more triggered in personal
domains (sensitivity to norms)
• Size of correlations with country-level
indicators is similar for both (average
absolute correlations with country
indicators .33 and .29, respectively)

• Strongest relationships were found for Social
Desirability and Long-Term Orientation (East
Asia against the rest of the world well known
response style to avoid extremes among East
Asians). So, LTO also seems to be related to a
response style response styles are
interrelated.
• At country level social desirability, average
extremity and average acquiescence constitute
a single factor, explaining 64% of the variance

Extremity and Acquiescence:
Their Differences
• Correlations point to a somewhat different
meaning of these response styles:
• Extremity is more related to personality
and norms about the expression of
emotions (negatively related to “feeling
good” factor/ expression of positive
emotions)
• Acquiescence is more related to affluence
(which is more related to conformity, Bond
& Smith, 1996)
• Second hypothesis (resourcefulness negative
predictor of response styles) only supported for
acquiescence

Toward an Understanding of
Cross-Cultural Cultural Differences in
Response Styles
• Model should involve
Acquiescence, Extremity
Scoring, and Social
Desirability (Johnson & Van
de Vijver, 2003; Van Hemert
et al., 2002)
• Model should integrate these

• What is the patterning of the
cross-cultural cultural differences?
• Extremity negatively related to
“feeling good”
• Acquiescence negatively related
to affluence
• Comparison of relations with Van
Hemert et al. (2002):
• Correlations with country indicators
are largely identical for acquiescence
and social desirability

The Argument in a Nutshell….
• Response styles
• are communication habits (self-
presentation management) which work
like lenses traits
• can distort the view on participants’ real
attitudes and behaviors tricks
• are fairly consistent across survey topics
• are more prevalent in sensitive domains
• share a core with other response styles,
but also have unique features:
• Extremity has slightly different country-level
correlates than have acquiescence and
social desirability

•Distortion as “trick”, other aspects as “trait”
•Distortion as the intersection
•Communication habits and self-management as the union
Acquiescence
Specific norms
about deference
Other
expressiveness
norms
Norms about
expressing negative/
positive aspects
Extremity
Resourcefulness/
independence
Distortion
Norms about
expressing
endorsement of
relevant norms
Specific norms
about conformity
Social Desirability

Implications
• False dichotomy between substance
and style/trait and trick
• Response styles……
• tend to reinforce each other
• tend to systematically affect score
comparisons (both overestimation and
underestimation possible)
• prevalence of East—West two-country
comparisons in cross-cultural cultural research

• should be taken into account more often
in cross-cultural cultural testing in at least two
ways:
1. Their impact on results (and implied bias
toward or against the hypothesis of interest)
should be acknowledged, both as trick and
trait
• Response styles do not necessarily “explain
away” substantive results
2. Their impact should be measured more
often (measures of perceived norms may be
relevant)

Correlations of Extremity with
Purchasing
power
Correlates
Social
Inequality
-.50
*
Religion
.28
Family
-.14
Ecology
-.27
.02
-.14
Education
-.07
.31
-.19
Democracy
-.66
*
.24
-.20
*
% Christians
-.77
**
-.11
-.51
*

LTO
.52
.71
*
.84
**
Correlations of Extremity with
Hofstede
Correlates
Social
Inequality
Religion
Family
PDI
-.19
-.19
-.16
UAI
.76
**
-.02
.41
IDV
-.18
.06
-.35
MAS
.29
-.02
.46

Correlations of Extremity with
Correlates
Social
Inequality
Religion
Family
Neuroticism
.57
-.01
.38
*
Extraversion
-.40
.09
-.20
Openness
-.00
-.27
.30
Agreeableness
-.63
*
.10
-.50
Conscientiousness
-.25
-.15
-.51
Happiness
-.66
*
-.15
-.59
*
Social desirability
.62
*
.42
.20

% Christians
-.07
.31
-.25
Correlations of Acquiescence with
Purchasing
power
Correlates
Social
inequality
-.16
Religion
-.47
Family
-.78
**
Ecology
.37
.12
.09
Education
-.10
-.48
*
-.49
*
Democracy
-.03
-.37
-.77
**

LTO
.07
-.24
.05
Correlations of Acquiescence with
Hofstede
Correlates
Social
inequality
Religion
Family
PDI
.14
.34
.44
UAI
.20
.40
.56
*
IDV
.02
-.62
**
-.88
**
MAS
.14
-.07
.24

Correlations of Acquiescence with
Correlates
Social
inequality
Religion
Family
Neuroticism
.17
.38
.48
Extraversion
-.45
-.18
-.37
Openness
.14
.02
.08
Agreeableness
.10
-.19
-.52
Conscientiousness
.05
.27
-.01
Happiness
-.05
-.33
-.79
**
Social desirability
.47
.36
.41

Countries Ranked from Low to High Scores on
Both Response Sets
Low on Both Low on Extr., High on Acq.
AUS-Australia
NL-Netherlands
NZ-New Zealand
N-Norway
E-Spain
GB-Great Britain
USA-United States
RCH-Chile
CY-Cyprus
F-France
IRL-Ireland
RP-Philippines
PL-Poland
CH-Switzerland
SLO-Slovenia
LV-Latvia
High on Extr., Low on Acq. High on Both
A-Austria
CDN-Canada
BG-Bulgaria
CZ-Czech Republic
D-W-Germany-West
D-Denmark
I-Italy
H-Hungary
P-Portugal
IL-Israel Jews Arabs
SK-Slovak Republic
J-Japan
S-Sweden
RUS-Russia
D-E-Germany-East