Effects of Social Context on Holistic Versus Analytic Orientation: A Cross-Cultural Experiment

Abstract

An experiment carried out in the United States and China investigated how social context affects cognitive orientation. Explanations for cultural differences in cognitive orientation is that they are rooted in agricultural practices that encourage relatively more holistic or analytic orientations. Recent work has proposed that social network structures might lead to more holistic orientations in two ways—by leading individuals to feel strong social bonds, or by encouraging individuals to be concerned about happenings in distal relationships. This research attempted to adjudicate between these explanations by experimentally varying conditions of social exchange in an effort to make participants more or less concerned about other relationships in the network and more or less attached to fellow group members. Results indicate potential support for both explanations, although they reveal a process more complex than that theorized. In particular, participants receiving gifts from partners led to more holistic orientations, but it did not appear to do so through stronger affective attachment. Alternatively, the manipulation of concern about other relationships did not predict holism, but measures of the extent to which participants felt control over their situations did. Results also show that exchanging gifts with partners produced significantly different responses in participants across cultures.

Keywords:

• Cognitive orientation
• cultural psychology
• experiments
• social exchange
• social networks
• social psychology

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant # 1340581.

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey W. Lucas

Jeffrey W. Lucas is a professor of sociology and associate dean for research in the College of Behavior and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland. His research, most of which is experimental, tends to focus on processes of power, status, and stigma in groups.

Carmi Schooler

Carmi Schooler is a senior researcher in the Department of Sociology, University of Maryland. A full description of his sociological social psychology career and findings is best found in his talk given upon receiving the 2016 Cooley Mead Award from the Social Psychology Section of the American Sociological Association, available from [email protected].

Delei Zhao

Delei Zhao is an associate professor of sociology at Harbin Engineering University. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology at the Peking University in 2012. Her research interests involve intergroup relations, stigma, and social mentality.

Marek Posard

Marek Posard (Ph.D. University of Maryland, 2015) is an associate social scientist at the RAND Corporation in Arlington, Virginia. His current research focuses on small group processes, social trends in technology use, and social problems in military organizations.

Hsiang-Yuan Ho

Hsiang-Yuan Ho is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland. Her specialization areas include social psychology and stratification with a focus on power and status as well as their relationships with morality and trust.

Yu Guo

Yu Guo is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Maryland. She studies social inequality broadly through both qualitative and quantitative methods, and her projects cover a range of topics including labor, culture, intersectionality, demography, political economy, and gender and sexuality.