The unseen noise in cross-cultural research: investigating Underlying Multiverse Variability
Cross-cultural research offers unique insights into psychological universals and diversity, but it also poses substantial methodological challenges. Beyond obvious sources of heterogeneity, analytic and methodological decisions may introduce hidden variability that is easily overlooked in cross-national comparisons. As is already well established, multiverse analysis can be used to examine how researcher degrees of freedom influence effect size estimates. In cross-cultural research, it is particularly useful for identifying which decisions drive the largest variation in effect sizes across countries.
I present multiverse analyses conducted on data from Live Better 2, a large international study spanning over 50 countries. The results highlight specific methodological and analytic choices that contribute most strongly to effect size variability across cultural contexts. I conclude with practical recommendations for designing and analyzing future cross-cultural studies to better manage unseen noise and strengthen the robustness of cross-cultural inferences.