Donald Campbell's doubt: cultural difference or failure of communication?
The objection, rightfully noted but then dismissed by Henrich et al., that the observed variation across populations "may be due to various methodological artifacts that arise from translating experiments across contexts" is a theoretically profound and potentially constructive criticism. It parallels Donald Campbell's concern that many cultural differences reported by psychologists "come from failures of communication misreported as differences." Ironically, Campbell's doubt is a good foundation for investigations in cultural psychology.
Shweder
Richard A
RA
Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. rshd@uchicago.edu
D003142:Communication; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D011584:Psychology / Q000379:methods*; D012919:Social Behavior