NATIONS, CULTURES, AND INDIVIDUALS New Perspectives and Old Dilemmas

As an introduction to the five articles in this section that present data analyses focused at the nation level, three dilemmas pertinent to nation-level studies are discussed. First, reasons are explored as to why it is valuable for psychologists to give attention to the national contexts within which the behavior of individuals has more typically been studied. Second, there is some discussion of the extent to which causal explanations of cultural differences can be sustained. Finally, it is argued that nation-level studies have a crucial and growing role to play in explaining variations in the findings of individual-level studies conducted at different locations.