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The terms etic and emic are widely used methodological themes in cross?cultural research, describing how a cultural phenomenon can be assessed. How the researcher measures differing cultural behaviors ultimately has implications for the nature of the research gathered. Berry (1969) argues that cultural observations should be made via an external source using either an emic or etic approach. The emic approach measures behavior within a particular culture, using only concepts employed within that culture ( Davidson et al., 1976 ). The etic approach observes behavior by imposing a set of universal values onto that culture . Both these approaches are problematic. An emic approach may prevent cross?cultural research because its insular nature inhibits comparisons. An etic approach uses generalizations to describe observed behavior differences, which may not measure cultural differences. This problem is called the etic?emic dilemma ( Berry, 1969 ). Triandis, Malpass, and Davidson (1971, 1973) proposed two alternative methods for addressing the etic?emic dilemma: imposed and derived etic. The imposed etic approach uses emic measures that are assumed to be etic, for example, a belief in celebrating good fortune is a universal human behavior.
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