Explanations for cultural differences in thinking: Easterners’ dialectical thinking and Westerners’ linear thinking

ABSTRACT

Since Easterners’ naïve dialectical thinking, which is contrasted with Westerners’ linear thinking, was introduced, many cross-cultural studies on human thinking have been conducted, and explanations for the cultural differences have been proposed. First, after examining the robustness of these cultural differences, two existing explanations are discussed in this paper. The first is based on the discinction between Westerners' analytic cognition and Easterners' holistic cogntion. This is related to the distinction between Westerners’ independent self and Easterners’ interdependent self. The second is based on the philosophical tradition of China’s Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which is contrasted with that of Ancient Greece. Second, we propose a new explanation based on the distinction between Westerners’ low-context culture and Easterners’ high-context culture (Beyond culture. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Books/Doubleday.). Finally, we show that this distinction can be based on socioecological approaches, and it is expected to explain the cultural differences between the Chinese and Japanese.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural difference
• dialectical thinking
• low-context culture and high-context culture
• socioecological approach

Acknowledgement

This research has been supported by a CHORUS grant from the French Ministry of Research and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science and by a grant-in-aid from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (No. 23330199 and No. 18K03010). We would like to expresses our gratitude to Ken I. Manktelow for his comments on the earlier draft of this paper and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported by a CHORUS grant from the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and by a grant-in-aid from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (No. 23330199 and No. 18K03010).