We draw together a wide body of evidence which indicates (a) that people living in non-western cultures place less value than westerners on "cognitive consistency" (Festinger, 1957), and (b) that western assessment procedures such as Likert scaling nevertheless continue to predominate. Likert scaling is predicated on the construct of a pervasive desire to create "cognitive consistency" among one's cognitions. Rigid application of Likert type procedures in non-western countries may therefore result in invalid attitude measures. To combat these threats to validity, we recommend greater use of (i) qualitative techniques such as projective measures, (ii) confirmatory or exploratory factor analysis, and (iii), where appropriate, behaviorally focused instruments such as Guttman and Thurstone scales.