The existence of culturally-based survey response styles represents a major threat to the interpretation of research findings. Researchers conducting cross-cultural surveys are particularly challenged in drawing valid conclusions from survey data when respondents demonstrate culturally-based response patterns that are systematically different, though unrelated to content. In China, the ‘Doctrine of the Mean’ is a central aspect of Chinese culture. Unlike American culture, Chinese principles encourage people to express neutral, instead of polarized, attitudes. Although this cultural difference may have the potential to impact survey response patterns, there is little research studying underlying cultural effects by comparing Chinese and American response styles. In this study, a comparative analysis of responses from Chinese and American respondents are examined, using data from the 2013 Gallup World Poll, a multinational probability-based survey. To examine whether variable response styles for attitude questions can be explained by the presence of an underlying construct related to cultural difference, simultaneous latent class analysis is employed to examine the structure of perception patterns, as well as differences in patterns of Chinese and American respondents. Specifically, this research seeks to examine three issues: (1) whether Chinese respondents demonstrate significantly different response patterns compared to American respondents, (2) whether the occurrence of extreme response styles is lower among Chinese respondents, and (3) whether Chinese respondents are more likely to give non-opinion responses. Preliminary results indicate a complex pattern in which the likelihood American respondents opt for extreme responses are double the likelihood Chinese respondents do so across a range of topics. Moreover, Chinese respondents appear, on average, six times more likely than American respondents to select non-opinion response. These findings raise a number of issues that are important to address, in order to assess the problem of measurement artifacts unrelated to the constructs of interest before cross-cultural comparisons can be made.