Individual Differences in Cognitive Constructs: A Comparison Between American and Chinese Culture Groups.

Gaojie Fan,Krista D Carlson,Robin D Thomas

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.614280

Gaojie Fan, Krista D Carlson + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.614280

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Abstract

Previous studies on human cognition show that people with different cultural backgrounds may differ in various ways. However, there are other unexplored possibilities for cultural differences including degree of handedness thought to reflect hemispheric coordination, reliance on verbal versus visual representation in problem solving, and working memory capacity both spatial and operational. We assessed each of these using the Edinburgh scale, a validated scale of style of processing, and two automatic working memory span tasks. Participants were either native Chinese students (who spoke Mandarin) or American students. Data showed that culture impacted the set of measures but gender did not and these factors did not interact. Chinese and American students showed the largest difference in their operational working memory. We also examined the pattern of correlations among the measures across the two groups and found differences due to cultural group as well.

Highlights

Variety in cognition caused by different cultural backgrounds has emerged as an important research topic with the work of Nisbett and his colleagues regarding cultural differences between East Asians and Westerners being among the more influential frameworks (e.g., Nisbett and Masuda, 2003)
Combined with the obvious difference between English and Chinese language, and the cognitive process of them (e.g., Tan et al, 2000, 2001; Kochunov et al, 2003; Siok et al, 2004; Crinion et al, 2009), we found it necessary to investigate if there is a difference between degrees of handedness of people with American and Chinese cultural backgrounds
multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) results showed a main effect from cultural groups, suggested that people from Chinese culture and American culture at least differ in one of the five measures we had

Summary

Introduction

Variety in cognition caused by different cultural backgrounds has emerged as an important research topic (for a recent review see Na and Chan, 2015) with the work of Nisbett and his colleagues regarding cultural differences between East Asians and Westerners being among the more influential frameworks (e.g., Nisbett and Masuda, 2003). More recent suggestions are that interactions across hemispheres facilitate integrative processes (Prichard et al, 2013). Another venue that features a similar contrast is research concerning cognitive styles that distinguishes between analytic/holistic and/or visual/verbal information processing (Riding, 1997). Researchers tend to think of analytic and verbal as one side of a dimension, while holistic and visual occupy the other (Kozhevnikov, 2007)

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