In the Journal of Personality, a new study reports on the uniformity of human experience around the globe: The World at 7: Comparing the Experience of Situations Across 20 Countries The research was an online survey of a total of 5447 people. Each participant was asked to think about what happened the previous evening at 7 pm. Then they were asked to describe the 7 pm scene by means of 89 statements (descriptors), which included things like: "Rational thinking is called for.", "Situation raises issues of power." and "Potential romantic partners are present." The participant had to place each statement in one of nine categories (ranks), from most to least accurate, based on how well they felt that statement applied to the previous evening. The descriptors were translated into 14 different languages for use in 20 participating countries.
This statement-sorting approach is called the Riverside Q-Sort (RSQ) technique, after the ...
