One major threat to revealing cultural influences on psychological states or processes is the presence of bias (i.e., systematic measurement error). When quantitative measures are not targeting the same construct or they differ in metric across cultures, the validity of inferences about cultural variability (and universality) is in doubt. The objectives of this article are to review what can be done about it and what is being done about it. To date, a multitude of useful techniques and methods to reduce or assess bias in cross-cultural research have been developed. We explore the limits of invariance/equivalence testing and suggest more flexible means of dealing with bias. First, we review currently available established and novel methods that reveal bias in cross-cultural research. Second, we analyze current practices in a systematic content analysis. The content analysis of more than 500 culture-comparative quantitative studies (published from 2008 to 2015 in three outlets in cross-cultural, social, and developmental psychology) aims to gauge current practices and approaches in the assessment of measurement equivalence/invariance. Surprisingly, the analysis revealed a rather low penetration of invariance testing in cross-cultural research. Although a multitude of classical and novel approaches for invariance testing is available, these are employed infrequent rather than habitual. We discuss reasons for this hesitation, and we derive suggestions for creatively assessing and handling biases across different research paradigms and designs.

Ageism is an increasing concern in ageing populations such as Asia and Europe. A prevalent assumption in psychology is that Eastern cultures may be less prone to ageism because of norms and values that honour and respect elders. Yet, evidence for this culture hypothesis is inconclusive. The current study examines this issue by comparing attitudes towards older people in an Eastern and Western samples of 184 young people from the UK and 249 from Taiwan. Attitudes to old age were measured both as meta‐perceptions (the perceived normative context) and personal attitudes in regard to the cognitive, affective and behavioural components of ageism. Consistent with the culture hypothesis, meta‐perceptions about competence and admiration were more positive in Taiwan than in the UK, yet other meta‐perceptions were more negative pointing to the existence of old age subtypes. Personal attitudes about older people in regard to the affective and behavioural, but not the cognitive component, were more negative in Taiwan than in the UK. Thus, cultural differences in ageism are more nuanced than suggested by previous research. The importance of distinguishing between the normative context and personal attitudes as well as the different components of ageism is highlighted by the present findings.

Seventy years have passed since the Holocaust, but this cataclysmic event continues to reverberate in the present. In this research, we examine attributions about the causes of the Holocaust and the influence of such attributions on intergroup relations. Three representative surveys were conducted among Germans, Poles, and Israeli Jews to examine inter-and intragroup variations in attributions for the Holocaust and how these attributions influence intergroup attitudes. Results indicated that Germans made more external than internal attributions and were especially low in attributing an evil essence to their ancestors. Israelis and Poles mainly endorsed the obedient essence attribution and were lowest on attribution to coercion. These attributions, however, were related to attitudes towards contemporary Germany primarily among Israeli Jews. The more they endorsed situationist explanations, and the less they endorsed the evil essence explanation, the more 1 0162-895X bs_bs_banner positive their attitude to Germany. Among Germans, attributions were related to a higher motivation for historical closure, except for the obedience attribution that was related to low desire for closure. Israelis exhibited a low desire for historical closure especially when attribution for evil essence was high. These findings suggest that lay perceptions of history are essential to understanding contemporary intergroup processes.

We investigate macrocontextual antecedents of national levels of Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). The majority of previous research, in contrast, has tended to focus on individual‐level correlates of SDO. We extend research on Social Dominance Theory by modelling national‐level differences in institutional discrimination, macroeconomic development, and value ideologies as broad situational factors affecting SDO mean levels in previous studies. Our hypotheses were tested in a three‐level meta‐analysis of aggregate data from 50,971 individuals in 95 samples from 27 different societies. Strong effects for hierarchy‐attenuating legitimizing ideologies and gender empowerment were found. Aggregate discrimination against arbitrary‐set groups was less consistently linked to SDO, suggesting that these hierarchies are context‐specific. Using mixed‐effects three‐level modelling, the patterns can be generalized to new contexts and suggest a particular institutional and social climate that fosters high SDO.

A generalized climate of distrust in political institutions is not functional to healthy democracies. With the advent of social media, recent scholarly efforts attempt to better understand people's conspiracy theory beliefs in inhibiting institutional trust. This study contributes to this literature by considering the direct antecedent effects of uncertainty avoidance and the moderating role of active social media use—SMU (i.e., interactional SMU, informational SMU, and political expressive SMU). The former is theorized to enable conspiracy theories to thrive, while the latter should cushion the negative effects of conspiracy beliefs on institutional trust. Relying on diverse survey data across different cultures from Europe, the Americas, and New Zealand (N = 11,958) and applying structural equation modeling, findings supported the hypothesized model. In high uncertainty‐avoidance societies, where less well‐known situations are perceived as uncomfortable or downright threatening, conspiracy beliefs proliferate and negatively impact institutional trust. Active SMU attenuates these effects. Via social media, citizens have the ability to strengthen social relationships (interactional SMU), keep themselves informed about the community (informational SMU), and engage in political self‐expression (political expressive SMU), which mitigate conspiracy‐belief negative effects on institutional trust. Future research implications and key limitations of the study are all discussed.

Emergent properties of global political culture were examined using data from the World History Survey (WHS) involving 6,902 university students in 37 countries evaluating 40 figures from world history. Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis techniques found only limited forms of universality in evaluations across Western, Catholic/Orthodox, Muslim, and Asian country clusters. The highest consensus across cultures involved scientific innovators, with Einstein having the most positive evaluation overall. Peaceful humanitarians like Mother Theresa and Gandhi followed. There was much less cross-cultural consistency in the evaluation of negative figures, led by Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. After more traditional empirical methods (e.g., factor analysis) failed to identify meaningful cross-cultural patterns, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used to identify four global representational profiles: Secular and Religious Idealists were overwhelmingly prevalent in Christian countries, and Political Realists were common in Muslim and Asian countries. We discuss possible consequences and interpretations of these different representational profiles.

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There is little and unsystematic evidence about whether the content of stereotypes can vary within a culture. Using the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) as a theoretical framework, in two studies we examined the content of stereotypes in an Eastern European culture, namely Romania. Data were collected from four regions prototypical in terms of economic and social development in Romania, and we examined whether the content of stereotypes varies across these regions. As expected, the findings confirm the applicability of the SCM in Romania to reveal culture-specific stereotypes and provide initial support for within-culture variation in the content of stereotypes. We discuss, in particular, possible reasons for two main findings: a strong one-dimensional structure of stereotypes, and regional differences in stereotype content.