Cross-Cultural Research

Cross-Cultural Research, formerly Behavior Science Research, is sponsored by the Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF) and is the official journal of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research. The mission of the journal is to publish peer-reviewed articles describing cross-cultural or comparative studies in all the social/behavioral sciences and other sciences dealing with humans, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, economics, human ecology, and evolutionary biology. Worldwide cross-cultural studies are particularly welcomed, but all kinds of systematic comparisons are acceptable so long as they deal explicitly with cross-cultural issues pertaining to the constraints and variables of human behavior. Studies that deal with measured differences between or among cultures (or subjects therefrom) must link them to other measured differences between or among the cultures. In other words, the study must do more than just compare two or more cultures (or people from them). The dependent variable(s) must be linked statistically (or casually, at least by argument) to one or more independent variable(s) that have been measured. The journal has this requirement because an observed difference could be the result of any other difference(s) between or among the cultures compared. The study should present evidence that narrows down the casual possibilities with regard to the dependent variable(s). The possibly explanatory variables may be cultural, geographic, historical, etc. Measures could be based on ethnography, individual testing, behavior observations, etc.