Title: Tolerance, Acceptance, Understanding | Psychology Today
Headings: Tolerance, Acceptance, Understanding
Jefferson M Fish Ph.D.
Tolerance, Acceptance, Understanding
...And how they differ in everyday life and in research.

Content: Some studies are done in the following manner: 1. An English-language personality test developed in the United States is translated into several languages. 2. The test is given to people (usually college students) in a variety of countries and languages. 3. The results are interpreted as showing specific average personality differences among cultures. The problem with such research is that there is no research on the test in many or all of the countries studied, and there is no way of knowing whether the personality dimensions measured even exist in those cultures. For example, one could develop a test of “Americanism” and get the results for 20 countries. This would allow researchers to rank cultures on that variable, even though it is irrelevant to their existence.