The Interaction between Language and Culture: a Test of the Cultural Accommodation Hypothesis in Seven Countries

This article investigates whether the language of the questionnaire influences response patterns. More specifically we test the cultural accommodation hypothesis: Do respondents subconsciously adjust their responses in a way that reflects the cultural values associated with the language in question? We tested this hypothesis with a sample of undergraduate students in seven countries. Half of the students in each country received an English-language questionnaire, while the other half received the same questionnaire in their native language. Three type of questions were included in the questionnaire: questions about cultural norms and values, questions about characteristics of the type of jobs student would prefer after graduation and questions about reasons for choosing elective subjects in their studies. Cultural accommodation would be present when the mean scores for students who responded to the English-language questionnaire were closer to the mean scores of a control group of English students than to the mean scores of their fellow students who responded to the native language questionnaire. This was shown to be the case for a substantial number of the cultural values and job characteristic questions but not for the elective questions. Consequences and recommendations for cross-cultural research are discussed.