M7 - cognition

cognition (definition) + 3 basic principles

Cognition = all mental processess that translate sensory information into knowledge.

There are 3 basic principles of cognition:

• Attention = the process of focusing our consciousness on a specific stimulus.

• Perception = the process of gathering information about the environment through our senses.

• Thinking = complex mental process.

Psychologist view culture as a form of cognition: “human culture is a unique meaning and information system” → norms, opinions, beliefs, values, worldviews, etc. are all cognitions. Cultural psychology asks how people’s attention, perception and thinking differs between cultures.

3 hypotheses on why illusions only work for industrialised/urbanised societies

Illusions like the Müller-Lyer illusion or the Ponzo-illusion only work on people from industrialised/urbanised societies.

These cultural differences could have multiple causes:

• Industrialisation created a carpentered world = environments that are man-made and where most things are square-shaped.

  • If you live in such an environment, you subconsciously expect objects to have square corners → if corners go to the outside, you expect that the object is turning to the outside, thus making it bigger; if the corners go inward, you expect that the object is turning inside, thus making it smaller (this is what makes the Müller-Lyer illusion work).

• Industrialisation made front-horizontal foreshortening more noticeable; vertical lines seem to go towards each other the further away they are.

  • In an industrialised/modern street, this is very noticeable, but not so much in nature  (e.g. an open field).

• Western cultures are more used to symbolising three dimensions in two, because they look more at paper, pictures and screens (2D-shapes). They might be more used to recognising and interpreting 2D-pictures.

analytic vs holistic cognition

Analytic cognition (Western):

• Analytic/logical thinking.

• Focus lies on cause-effect links among specific variables/objects.

• Deterministic and precise.

• People focus their attention in a context-independent way; they are focused on the main object, regardless of context.

• Categorisation is taxonomic/scientific; based on a single dimension or a shared property.

• Formal logic is used for reasoning.

• Attributions are internal/dispositional.

Holistic cognition (East-Asian):

• Holistic thinking.

• Focus lies on systems, interrelationships and mutual independence between variables/objects.

• Multiple explanations (not deterministic).

• People focus their attention in a context-dependent way; they are focused on the relationship between the object and the context in which it is presented.

• Categorisation is thematic; based on functional relationships between objects.

• Reasoning is dialectical (allows for seemingly contradictory statements to co-exist).

• Attributions are external/situational.

experiment on analytic vs holistic cognition (attention)

In an experiment by Masuda and Nisbett (2001), American and Japanese participants had to watch a clip of fish swimming around, and later they were asked to recall both the main objects (the fish) and the background (context).

• Both groups were equally good at remembering the main objects.

• Japanese participants were much better at recalling the background.

However, they later on presented both groups with objects, sometimes with the same/original background and sometimes not, and asked if they were present in the original scene:

• The Japanese were better at recalling what was part of the original scene when the same backgroun

  d was used.

• When there was no background, there was no difference between the Japanese and American participants.

• The Americans were better than the Japanese when they changed the background to something else.

This shows that the Japanese were focused more on the context, whilst the Americans were more focused on the main objects.

fundamental attribution error

Fundamental attribution error (self-serving bias) = the tendency to explain the behaviours of others using internal attributions, but to explain one’s own behaviour by using external attributions.

There are actually cultural differences in attributional styles, based on analytical vs holistic thinking (fundamental attribution error is more common for analytical thinking)

experiment on analytic vs holistic cognition (attribution)

In an experiment, American and Hinu-Indians had to give an explanation for people’s good or bad behaviour:

• The Americans used a lot more internal attributions, like personality/attitude.

• The Hindu-Indians used a lot more external attributions, like duties/social roles/situation-specific factors.

locus of control

Locus of control = how much a person believes they have control over their life.

• Internal = you believe your own actions and decisions shape your life events.

• External = you believe outside forces like fate, luck, or other people dictate your outcomes.

An association was expected between internal locus of control - analytical cognition and external locus of control - holistic cognition.

A meta-analysis didn’t show any cultural differences.

positive logical determinism vs naive dialectivism

Positive logcal determinism = there is one right solution; it’s either one thing or another. This is typical for analytical cognition & Western societies.

Naive dialectivism = contradictory statements are accepted and can co-exist. This is typical for holistic cognition & Asian societies.

social orientation hypothesis (Varnum, Grossman, Kitayama & Nisbett) & criticism

social orientation hypothesis = an independent self (found in Western/individualistic cultures) drives analytic cognitive styles; an interdependent self (found in East-Asian/collectivistic cultures) drives holistic cognitive styles.

This is because for the independent self, the most important elements are internal → this explains the tendency to make internal attributions about other people.

For the interdependent self, the most important elements overlap with others → this could be related to how attention is focused on relationships between elements, and to the tendency to make external attributions (people understand themselves/others in terms of context).

However, the social orientation hypothesis is a broad overgeneralisation:

• Cultural differences are often dependent on the (experimental) situation; e.g. regardless of people’s culture, when analytical thinking was primed, participants paid more attention to a single target.

• Some attributional biases are more universal → even East-Asian people made dispositional (internal) attributions when they had no access to information about the context; when everyone had both dispositional and situational information, Easterners and Westerners made the same kind of attribution.

• No cultural differences were found in locus of control.

• Some aspects of memory are universal.

• Education could be a mediator → in poor societies, classrooms are bigger and students learn through root learning (they have to memorise stuff themselves instead of interaction with the teacher). In rich Western countries, classrooms are typically smaller, which leaves more room for interactive learning.

measurement bias in IQ-tests

Racial/cultural differences in IQ could be based on measurement bias.

If for example an Dutch IQ test is used, some of the questions might only be applicable to Dutch people or similar cultures (e.g. if a question about a train is used, you must have had experience with being on a train).

culture-universal IQ-tests (example: Cattell Culture Fair Intelligence Test)

Culture-universal IQ-tests have been created to rule out measurement bias,

An example is the Cattell Culture Fair Intelligence Test. This test employs minimal use of language-based items, and more things like puzzles, etc.

But it was administered for Americans, Indians and Nigerians, and more than half of the items were still culturally biased → this makes it impossible to compare scores fairly across cultures.

IQ: nature vs nurture (flynn-effect & stereotype threat)

• Nature: IQ is mostly inherited/genetically based; differences between cultures could be explained by differences in genes.

  • However, ethnicity/race are social constructs and are not identical to genetic variation (e.g. people with the same genetic makeup can identify differently).

  • This confounds ethnicity with social, educational and economic factors that could influence IQ-scores.

• Nurture: IQ is based on situational factors.

  • The Flynn-effect = IQ-scores have been rising over time, which could be explained by situational factors such as better education, familiarity with testing, better nutrition, more intellectually stimulating environments, etc.

    • The Flynn effect is more pronounced for African-American youth than the general American population → black students are catching up at a high rate, because nowadays they have access to education, better environments, etc. This supports the idea that IQ is not genetically based

  • Stereotype threat = when widely known stereotypes exists about a group, this creates a threat for the members of that group (it might influence their performance/behaviour).

    • In an experiment the African-American participants’ performance was lower than white participants’ when they were told a verbal test was diagnostic of their intellectual abilities, and they were also reminded of their race.

    • In another study on children of immigrants in Europe, they manipulated whether participants got asked questions about their ethnicity before or after an IQ-test: when the questions were asked before, the participants scored lower than when they were asked afterwards.

unidimensional vs multidimensional models of intelligence

• Unidimensional models = view intelligence as one general factor (e.g. Spearman’s g).

  • Spearman’s g was found using a psychometric approach: standardised, quantifiable testing.

• Multidimensional models = there are different forms of intelligence (e.g. analytical, creative, social, practical, etc.; like Sternberg’s intelligence).

the bell curve (Hernstein & Murray)

In the book “The Bell Curve”, Hernstein & Murray claim that IQ is mainly genetic, and that cultural differences in IQ can be explained by genetics.

However, ethnicity and race are social constructs; therefore cultural differences in IQ cannot be explained by genetics.