Abstract

East Asians and Westerners perceive the world and think about it in very different ways. Westerners are inclined to attend to some focal object, analyzing its attributes and categorizing it in an effort to find out what rules govern its behavior. Rules used include formal logic. Causal attributions tend to focus exclusively on the object and are therefore often mistaken. East Asians are more likely to attend to a broad perceptual and conceptual field, noticing relationships and changes and grouping objects based on family resemblance rather than category membership. Causal attributions emphasize the context. Social factors are likely to be important in directing attention. East Asians live in complex social networks with prescribed role relations. Attention to context is important to effective functioning. More independent Westerners live in less constraining social worlds and have the luxury of attending to the object and their goals with respect to it. The physical “affordances” of the environment may also influence perception. The built environments of the East are more complex and contain more objects than do those of the West. In addition, artistic products of the East emphasize the field and deemphasize individual objects, including people. Western art renders less of the field and emphasizes individual objects and people.

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Acknowledgments

The research reported here was supported by National Science Foundation Grants SBR 9729103 and BCS 0132074, National Institute of Aging Grant AG15047, the Russell Sage Foundation, and a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship (to R.E.N.).

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Information & Authors

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Published in

The cover image for PNAS Vol.100; No.19
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Vol. 100 | No. 19
September 16, 2003
PubMed: 12960375

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Submission history

Published online: September 5, 2003
Published in issue: September 16, 2003

Acknowledgments

The research reported here was supported by National Science Foundation Grants SBR 9729103 and BCS 0132074, National Institute of Aging Grant AG15047, the Russell Sage Foundation, and a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship (to R.E.N.).

Authors

Affiliations

Richard E. Nisbett
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; and Department of Behavioral Science, Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University, N 10 W 7 Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0810, Japan
Takahiko Masuda
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; and Department of Behavioral Science, Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University, N 10 W 7 Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0810, Japan

Notes

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected].
Contributed by Richard E. Nisbett, July 21, 2003

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    Culture and point of view
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
    • Vol. 100
    • No. 19
    • pp. 10581-11184

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