Answer to Question 1
Sometimes people in different cultures may think and act differently in some domains. For instance, people who speak different languages may categorize and express ideas in very different ways, as a direct result of their linguistic community. In addition, people in different cultures have different expectations, so a given behavior needs to be understood within the context of that culture.
Further, sometimes people make a big issue of the differences in the so-called eastern and western ways of thinking. Although we should be cautious in such depictions, there seem to be differences in approaches to problem solving between Chinese and American people; people in differing cultures may also show different response sets when they behave.
Finally, even culture-free research does not always seem to be free of cultural biases. As such, we need to consider culture as a source of theory. Ideas that may be seen as fundamental in one culture may be foreign in another. In order to understand behavior most fully, we need to take culture into consideration.
Answer to Question 2
Nominal scale: Data are in categories with no numerical measurement.
Ordinal scale: Data are ranked so relative size is apparent but not absolute differences.
Interval scale: The absolute difference between any two data points is known but not ratios.
Ratio scale: There is an absolute zero point so that distances between data points is known and ratios of scores are meaningful.
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