EAPSI: Exploring How Perceptions of Autonomy Influence Cross-Cultural Differences in Cognition

Harrington Jesse R, Silver Spring MD

Investigators

Abstract

Americans and Chinese think about and perceive the world differently. Americans often focus their attention on specific objects in their field of vision and view them as independent from other objects in their environment. Chinese often focus their attention on all objects in their field of vision and view them as interdependent with their environment. Why does this happen? In collaboration with Dr. Shihui Han of Peking University in Beijing, China, an expert in cross-cultural psychology and social neuroscience, the EAPSI fellow will investigate why these differences arise. Ultimately, this research will lead to greater understanding about the causes of cultural differences in cognition and perception thereby potentially contributing to enhancement of mutual understanding between nations of distinctive cultures. This project deals with the hypothesis that the differences in analytic and holistic cognition between Americans and Chinese result from the social norms of their respective societies. Chinese society is tighter than American society and exhibits greater social and institutional punishment for norm deviance, which should result in Chinese feeling more constraint across contexts. Consequently, it would be adaptive for Chinese to pay attention to both focal and peripheral events, cues, and objects and what they mean in relation to other environmental features. The perceived constraint will be manipulated with a pictorial priming task to examine the effect on four measures of analytic and holistic cognition. Findings from these experiments are expected to contribute to the resolution of an important theoretical debate in cross-cultural psychology that concerns the basic motivational underpinnings of cultural behavior. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.