Answer to Question 1
Absolutism assumes that behaviors are essentially the same, regardless of culture. In this view, behaviors to not need different explanations in different cultures.
Relativism assumes that there are no cross-cultural or universal causes of behavior. Each culture needs to be understand only in terms of its own context.
Universalism assumes that there may be universal processes, but they manifest themselves differently in different cultures.
Most psychologists are likely to reject the extreme positions of absolutism and relativism. Universalism would be seen as a reasonable position, although it may be hard for scientists to avoid the biases and assumptions of their own culture in identifying universal processes.
Answer to Question 2
a. Convenience samplesSamples that are readily available but that don't necessarily represent a well defined population.
b. Quota samplesSamples that include subgroups that are not randomly selected (e.g., making sure that a sample includes 50 each of female and male participants that come from a convenience sample.
c. Purposive (judgmental) samplesConvenience samples of participants with pre-selected characteristics that are of interest to the researcher.
d. Respondent-driven (chain-referral) samplesThere are several chain-referral techniques. First, we can find samples that result from key informants Second, we could find a selection of participants who then recommend other participants who, in turn, recommend still others, and the researcher contacts these other people. Third, we can find where the members of the group of interest congregate and sample them. Fourth, we can find participants who recruit further participants; in this technique, the researcher does not do the recruiting.