Abstract
To what extent is the way people perceive, represent, and reason about causal relationships dependent on culture? While there have been sporadic attempts to explore this question, a systematic investigation is still lacking. Here, we propose that human causal cognition is not only superficially affected by cultural background, but that it is co-constituted by the cultural nature of the human species. To this end, we take stock of on-going research, with a particular focus on the methodological approaches taken: cross-species comparisons, archeological accounts, developmental studies, cross-cultural, and cross-linguistic experiments, as well as in-depth within-culture analyses of cognitive concepts, processes, and changes over time. We argue that only a combination of these approaches will allow us to integrate different components of cognition, levels of analysis, and points of view—the key requirements for a comprehensive, interdisciplinary research program to advance this field.
Highlights
Causal cognition refers to how people perceive, represent, and reason about causal relationships, that is, about the connection between a causing event and its effects
We defend the position that people’s cultural background does affect whether and how they engage in causal cognition: by shaping the settings in which causal cognition occurs, the manner in which potential factors are pondered on, the selection of relevant factors from a causal field, or the way in which such factors are linguistically expressed
On-going research already provides some supporting evidence for this position, efforts need to be intensified to substantiate it. As this poses methodological challenges, we place a particular focus on the various approaches taken, in order to outline a research program for the investigation of cultural impacts in this domain more generally
Summary
Reviewed by: Chris Sinha, Hunan University, China Bethany L. To what extent is the way people perceive, represent, and reason about causal relationships dependent on culture? We propose that human causal cognition is superficially affected by cultural background, but that it is co-constituted by the cultural nature of the human species. To this end, we take stock of on-going research, with a particular focus on the methodological approaches taken: cross-species comparisons, archeological accounts, developmental studies, cross-cultural, and cross-linguistic experiments, as well as in-depth withinculture analyses of cognitive concepts, processes, and changes over time.
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