Comparability Problems of International Survey Data: The Example of Japan and Italy (Problem porownywalnosci danych sondazowych pochodzacych z roznych krajow: przyklad Japonii i W³och)

The paper shows problems of comparability of data collected in Italy and Japan, which can be treated as proxies of Western and Eastern cultures, respectively. Following the theoretical and empirical comparison of these two cultures performed by Nisbett (2003), we predicted and tested the differences in the response styles on Italian and Japanese representative internet samples, as well as data collected in both countries as part of the International Social Survey Programme (1998, 2008). In almost all of the six question sets analyzed, the Japanese gave fewer extreme responses, as well as more “don’t know” responses than Italians.