Attention to Context: U.S. and Japanese Children's Emotional Judgments

Abstract

A growing number of studies suggests cultural differences in the attention and evaluation of information in adults (Hedden, Ketay, Aron, Markus, & Gabrieli, 2008; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). One cultural comparison, between Westerners, such as Americans, and Easterners, such as the Japanese, suggests that Westerners typically focus on a central single object in a scene while Easterners often integrate their judgment of the focal object with surrounding contextual cues. There are few studies of whether such cultural differences are evident in children. This study examined 48 monolingual Japanese-speaking children residing in Japan and 48 monolingual English-speaking children residing in the United States (40- to 60-month-olds) in a task asking children to complete a picture by adding the proper emotional expression to a face. The key variable was the context and shift in context from the preceding trial for the same pictured individual. Japanese children were much more likely to shift their judgments with changes in context, whereas children from the United States treated facial expression in a more trait-like manner, maintaining the same expression for the individual across contexts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the children who participated in this study and the teachers at the day cares. We especially thank Fuji kindergarten, Aichijuku Preschool, and Meisho Preschool in Japan and Monroe County United Ministries, Children's Village, Harmony Preschool, and St. Marks in the United States.

This research was supported by NIH MH60200 awarded to the third author.