1 8.1. Cultural Differences in Processing Styles

Research by Nisbett has identified fundamental differences in how Western and Eastern cultures process information. In general, White people from the USA tend to be more individualistic in their outlook, whereas people from East Asia are more collectivistic and place a greater emphasis on the importance of community. Multiple studies have shown that US participants tend to focus on central elements in a picture or scene—like the globe in Figure 5.6 that we saw in Chapter 5, whereas East Asian participants attend more to context. Therefore, East Asian participants are more likely to notice the background objects as well as the larger objects in the foreground.