Cross-cultural sport psychology’s origins are
linked to the field of cross-cultural psychology, which
has been influenced by diverse behavioral and social
science disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology,
and history. The term ‘culture’ refers to the contextual
variables (e.g., social, ecological, historical, and
political) and learned behaviors (e.g., attitudes,
values, knowledge, and traditions) of a shared group
of people that are passed down from one generation
to the next. The goals of cross-cultural sport psychology
differ from those of cultural sport psychology
due to its focus on separating the universal from the
culturally specific. Cross-cultural sport psychology
researchers have three main goals: (1) to evaluate the
validity and generalizability of existing sport psychology
theories and knowledge in various cultural contexts,
(2) to identify behavioral and social differences
relevant to sport that are attributable to the cultural
context, and (3) to use the information learned in pursuit
of the first two goals to produce a more universal
field of sport psychology that can be applied to a
broad range of cultures (Berry, Poortinga, Segall, &
Dasen, 2002). Historically, cross-cultural sport psychology
researchers have taken either an etic (i.e., the
application and utilization of methodologies and concepts from one culture to other cultures) or emic
(i.e., the creation of culturally sensitive methodologies
and concepts derived from within each culture
under investigation) approach. More recently, a
derived etic approach (i.e., the attainment of emic
knowledge pertaining to the construct under investigation
in two or more cultures followed by the identification
of similarities and differences between the
emic knowledge gained) has been encouraged (Si &
Lee, 2007). Cross-cultural sport psychology researchers
use cultural frameworks when designing studies
and interpreting results (e.g., ecoculturalism, vertical/
horizontal individualist vs. vertical/horizontal collectivist
societies, hierarchical vs. egalitarian cultures,
event vs. clock-time cultures, process vs. outcomeoriented
cultures, and ideological vs. empiric societies).
They also pay attention to the equivalence of
samples across contexts, uniformity of procedures,
and semantic and
