Abstract Cognition Across Cultures

How do minds differ across cultures? According to one long-standing perspective in the social sciences, people from Chinese cultures think less abstractly than people from Western cultures. Here, we argue that previous studies of attention, perception, and memory suggest that East Asians may think more abstractly than Westerners due to their greater sensitivity to social and physical contexts. We tested these competing hypotheses in studies focused on two operationalizations of abstract thought: event construal and analogical reasoning. In the first three studies (N = 1797), participants chose whether events were best described abstractly or concretely. Across six independent national samples, Chinese participants were more likely than U.S. participants to construe events abstractly. In the next study (n = 965), participants from a more context-sensitive Chinese subculture were more likely to construe events abstractly than those from a less context-sensitive subculture. In the final two studies, participants attempted to solve analogical reasoning problems. Across four independent national samples (N = 677), Chinese participants were more likely than U.S. participants to solve the analogical reasoning problems correctly. Together, these results challenge the claim that Westerners think more abstractly than Chinese people and suggest that context-sensitivity may be an engine of abstract cognition.