Cultural Comparisons of Beliefs and Values: Applying the Grid-Group Approach to the World Values Survey

The goal of our research is to enrich quantitative cross-cultural studies by employing concepts of grid and group, which were first developed within anthropology and more recently deployed in a broader range of social sciences. The grid-group approach has until now not been subjected to large-scale quantitative empirical investigation, thus limiting its use in cross-cultural research. In order to carry out such an investigation, we develop individual-level indices for measuring grid and group, using data from the World Values Survey, and then investigate the collective or cohort level by taking a country or a city as a main cohort proxy and make comparisons across different cultures. We establish a number of results that suggest the usefulness of grid and group in quantitative studies: (a) grid and group variables exhibit significantly less variance within societies than between societies, (b) the characterizations of societies derived from the indices coincide with findings in the ethnographic literature, and (c) grid and group are statistically related to a society’s socioeconomic conditions and geographic location. We hope our results will further stimulate the formulation of empirically testable propositions using cultural indices.