This post is based on the paper: “Cultural differences are not always reducible to individual differences,” written by Jinkyung Na, Igor Grossmann, Michael E. W. Varnum, Shinobu Kitayama, Richard Gonzalez, and Richard E. Nisbett p 6192-6197 | PNAS | April 6, 2010 | vol.107.
As people, I think that we want to believe that cultural differences can be reduced to individual differences. But is it actually true? The authors studied whether or not cultural constructs can be conceptualized as psychological traits at the individual level.
According to the authors, cultural psychology has placed a heavy emphasis on two constructs: social orientation and cognitive style. These two constructs seem applicable to decision making and make me want to apply them when there are international negotiations going on. Some cultures, such as the United States, are characterized by a social orientation valuing independence: emphasizing uniqueness, having relatively low sensitivity to social cues, and encouraging behaviors that affirm autonomy. In contrast, other cultures including China, Japan, and Korea tend to value interdependence: emphasizing harmonious relations with others, promoting sensitivity to social cues, and encouraging behaviors that affirm relatedness to others. Similarly, cultures have been shown to vary along the analytic holistic dimension in cognitive style. Some cultures are analytic: detaching a focal object from the perceptual field, categorizing objects taxonomically, and ascribing causality to focal actors or objects. Other cultures are holistic: paying attention to the entire perceptual field, especially relations among objects and events, categorizing objects on the basis of their thematic relations, and attributing causality to context.
