Why do people from different cultures think differently? Explaining cultural variation in psychological traits

直到最近，心理学家还认为，来自不同社会的人都以与我们西方人相同的方式思考--地球上的每个人都有一种普遍的人类心理。然而，当心理学家开始测试非西方人，而不是通常做心理学实验的美国和英国大学生时，他们发现了有趣的文化差异。例如，在感知上存在差异：西方人关注单个物体，而非西方人关注物体之间的关系。如果你向一个英国人和一个日本人展示一个包含许多物体的场景，如果这些物体单独出现，英国人随后会更好地识别这些物体，而如果这些物体出现在原始场景中，日本人会有更好的记忆。或者在解释他人行为方面的差异：西方人用固定的人格特征来解释他人的行为，而非西方人则用社会背景来解释行为。一位英国老师可能会用懒惰或缺乏智力来解释学生考试成绩不好，而一位韩国老师可能会用学业成功的巨大压力来解释。但为什么来自不同文化的人会有不同的想法呢？这是本项目要解决的核心问题。有几种可能的解释：心理上的差异可能是由人群之间的遗传差异引起的，而认知方式则是从父母那里遗传而来的。或者，父母可以通过直接教育或被动观察来产生非遗传影响。或者，心理特征也可以通过同龄人、正规学校教育或大众媒体等非父母途径传播。我们将利用一个独特的自然实验来梳理这些因素：移民。如果非西方移民在英国出生的孩子在心理特征上与他们的父母相似，我们可以推断这些特征是从父母遗传或文化上遗传的。另一方面，如果他们看起来像当地的非移民，那么非父母的影响一定在起作用。然后，我们将看到这种变化是否与特定的因素有关，如受教育年限、接触大众媒体或双语能力。例如，有人认为，西方的个人主义兴起于古希腊，是对单独放牧的回应，而东方的集体主义兴起于古代中国，是对集体水稻种植的回应。我们将通过在实验室模拟这些条件来测试这一点，作为文化历史的实验“缩影”，看看单独行动是否会刺激个人主义，集体行动是否会刺激集体主义。最后，我们将开发一个网络应用程序，让我们在英国以外的多个国家测试这些想法，并专门针对移民群体。如果这些关系在几个地区都成立，我们就可以更有信心地认为它们是有效的。另一方面，区域之间的差异也可能是有价值的。如果移民在伦敦的文化适应速度比其他地方更快，正如试点数据所表明的那样，我们可以确定为什么会这样，例如大众媒体影响力的差异，双语或家庭规模。心理差异可能成为成功融入社会和经济的障碍。例如，非西方学生可能会发现，在西方教育体系中，他们很难科普自主性和创造性思维。了解这些差异的根源有助于更好地克服这些差异，例如针对父母（如果父母有影响力）或媒体（如果媒体发挥作用）。

Until recently, psychologists assumed that people from different societies all think in the same way as we do in the West - that there is a universal human psychology shared by everyone on the planet. However, when psychologists started testing non-Western people, rather than the American and British undergraduates who typically do psychology experiments, they found intriguing cultural differences. For example, there are differences in perception: Westerners focus on single objects, whereas non-Westerners focus on the relationships between objects. If you show a British and a Japanese person a scene containing lots of objects, the British person is subsequently better at recognising the objects if they are presented on their own, whereas the Japanese person has better memory if the object is presented in the original scene. Or differences in explaining other people's behaviour: Westerners explain behaviour of others in terms of fixed personality traits, whereas non-Westerners explain actions in terms of social contexts. A British teacher might explain a student's poor exam performance in terms of their laziness or lack of intelligence, whereas a Korean teacher might appeal instead to the overbearing pressure to succeed academically.But why do people from different cultures think differently? This is the central question addressed by this project. Several explanations are possible: it could be that psychological variation is caused by genetic differences between populations, and cognitive style is inherited genetically from parents. Alternatively, parents could have a non-genetic influence, through direct teaching or passive observation. Or psychological traits could be transmitted non-parentally, via peers, formal schooling, or the mass media.We will take advantage of a unique natural experiment to tease apart these factors: immigration. If the UK-born children of non-Western immigrants resemble their parents in their psychological traits, we can infer that those traits are transmitted from parents either genetically or culturally. If, on the other hand, they resemble local non-immigrants, then non-parental influence must be at work. We will then see whether this shift is associated with specific factors, such as years of schooling, exposure to mass media, or bilingualism.Another way of explaining psychological variation is in terms of history. For example, it has been suggested that Western individualism arose in ancient Greece as a response to solitary herding, whereas Eastern collectivism arose in ancient China as a response to collective rice farming. We will test this by simulating these conditions in the lab, as an experimental "microcosm" of cultural history, to see whether solitary action stimulates individualism and collective action stimulates collectivism.Finally, we will develop a web app that will let us test these ideas in multiple countries, beyond the UK, and specifically targeting immigrant groups. If these relationships hold across several regions, we can be more confident that they are valid. On the other hand, differences between regions might also be valuable. If immigrants acculturate faster in London than elsewhere, as suggested by pilot data, we can identify why this is, such as differences in mass media influence, bilingualism or family size.This project has major potential benefits for the successful integration of immigrants to the UK. Psychological differences can constitute a barrier to successful social and economic integration. For example, non-Western students can find it difficult to cope in Western educational systems that favour autonomy and creative thinking. Knowing the origin of these differences can help to overcome them better, for example by targeting parents (if parents have an influence) or the media (if the media plays a role).