Cultural Differences and Cognition Explaining Human Behavior

In another case, Na et al. (2013) conducted a study to test whether individuals would favor those who reasoned in a culturally representative way over those who did not. They found interesting results between Koreans and Americans. The first study demonstrated that in Korea holistic thinkers were favored more compared to Americans who favored analytical thinkers. In the second study, they found that Koreans preferred to seek advice regarding their social problems from those who held a holistic perspective and considered them to be wiser, while Americans sought advice from analytical thinkers because they considered them to think more rationally. Their findings suggested that Easterners placed more value on wisdom whereas Westerners placed more emphasis on rational.

Causal Reasoning

In Choi et al. (1999) article titled Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality they suggest that East Asians are less likely than Americans to attribute the cause of behavior due to personal traits, dispositions and or internal attributes of the object. First they examined how individuals described themselves and others as a premise to suggest what predicts causal behavior. For example, they found that Easterners were more likely to explain behavior from a situational point a view giving detail to external factors imposed on the individual, such as situations, roles, and contextual information. Westerns on the other hand are more prone to explain behavior from a dispositional perspective, emphasizing on internal and enduring qualities such as personality and temperament. In their first study they found that in the absence of situational information, both Koreans and Americans endorsed dispositions equally. An example given to...

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