Cultural and age-related differences in reliability: An empirical study in the United States, Japan and Malaysia

Abstract

The cross-cultural applicability of measures has received limited attention, though it represents a source of bias in research findings. Although several assumptions and speculations have been made regarding the sources of potential bias in measures used when studying cultural and subcultural differences, little empirical work supports these views. The present study is empirically motivated. It focuses on testing hypotheses derived from theories presented by leading scholars regarding possible sources of differences in reliability coefficients, using cross-sectional data from three countries (the United States, Japan and Malaysia) to falsify them. The tests of the hypotheses regarding cultural, contextual and aging effects provide some results in line with the hypotheses, but they raise additional concerns about the possible sources of measurement differences and the applicability of measures developed in the United States to other countries and subcultures within countries. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.