The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition: Contradiction, Change, and Holism 9780199348541

Table of contents :
Cover
Half title
The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition
Copyright
Contents
​Foreword
List of Contributors
Chapter 1 What Is Dialectical Thinking?Conceptualization and Measurement
Chapter 2 ​The Epistemology of Yin-​Yang Balancing as the Root of Chinese Cultural Traditions: The Indigenous Features and Geocentric Implications
Chapter 3 Culture and Lay Theories of Change
Chapter 4 ​Analytic versus Holistic Cognition: Constructs and Measurement
Chapter 5 ​Dialecticism across the Lifespan: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Ontogenetic and Cultural Factors Influencing Dialectical Thinking and Emotional Experience
Chapter 6 ​The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking
Chapter 7 ​Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-​Dialectically: Cultural Variations in Online Decision-​Making Processes
Chapter 8 ​Contextualization of Mental Representations and Evaluative Responses: A Theory-​Based Analysis of Cultural Differences
Chapter 9 ​Dialectical Thinking and Creativity from Many Perspectives: Contradiction and Tension
Chapter 10 ​Dialectical Thinking and Its Influence in the World: A New Perspective on East Asians’ Control Orientations
Chapter 11 ​Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups across Cultures
Chapter 12 ​Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage
Chapter 13 ​The Yin and Yang of Attitudes and Related Constructs: Dialectical and Holistic Influences
Chapter 14 ​The Dialectical Self: The Internal Consistency, Cross-​Situational Consistency, and Temporal Stability of Self-​Conception
Chapter 15 ​Dialecticism and the Future Self in Cultural Contexts: Relation to Well-​Being
Chapter 16 ​Contextual and Cultural Factors Influencing Malleable Racial Identity
Chapter 17 ​When in Rome Think Like a Roman: Empirical Evidence and Implications of Temporarily Adopting Dialectical Thinking
Chapter 18 ​Dialectical Emotions
Chapter 19 ​Dialecticism and Mental Health: Toward a Yin-​Yang Vision of Well-​Being
Chapter 20 ​The Yin-​Yang of Stress: The Link Between Dialectical Thinking and Coping Processes
Chapter 21 ​Dialectical Thinking and Attitudes toward Action/​Inaction Beyond East Asia
Index

Citation preview

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

 The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition Contradiction, Change, and Holism

Edited by

Julie Spencer-​R odgers Kaiping Peng

1

1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Spencer-​Rodgers, Julie, editor. | Peng, Kaiping, editor. Title: The psychological and cultural foundations of East Asian cognition : contradiction, change, and holism /​edited by Julie Spencer-​Rodgers, Kaiping Peng. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017023807 | ISBN 9780199348541 (jacketed hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Psychology—​Asia—​History. | Cognition. | Dialectic. | Holism. Classification: LCC BF108.A8 P79 2017 | DDC 153.095—​dc23 LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2017023807 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

CONTENTS

​Foreword  ix ​List of Contributors  xv



CHAPTER 1 ​What Is Dialectical Thinking? Conceptualization

and Measurement  1 Julie Spencer-​Rodgers, Elise Anderson, Christine Ma-​Kellams, Carol Wang, and Kaiping Peng



CHAPTER 2 ​The Epistemology of Yin-​Yang Balancing as the Root

of Chinese Cultural Traditions: The Indigenous Features and Geocentric Implications  35 Peter Ping Li



CHAPTER 3 Culture and Lay Theories of Change  81

Ning Zhang, Li-​Jun Ji, and Tieyuan Guo



CHAPTER 4 ​Analytic versus Holistic Cognition: Constructs

and Measurement  105 Minkyung Koo, Jong An Choi, and Incheol Choi



CHAPTER 5 ​Dialecticism across the Lifespan: Toward a Deeper

Understanding of the Ontogenetic and Cultural Factors Influencing Dialectical Thinking and Emotional Experience  135 Igor Grossmann



CHAPTER 6 ​The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking  181

Bobby K. Cheon, Rongxiang Tang, Joan Y. Chiao, and Yi-​Yuan Tang



CHAPTER 7 ​Judging the World Dialectically versus

Non-​Dialectically: Cultural Variations in Online Decision-​Making Processes  213 Takahiko Masuda, Liman Man Wai Li, and Matthew J. Russell



CHAPTER 8 ​Contextualization of Mental Representations and

Evaluative Responses: A Theory-​Based Analysis of Cultural Differences  243 Yang Ye and Bertram Gawronski



CHAPTER 9 ​Dialectical Thinking and Creativity from Many

Perspectives: Contradiction and Tension  267 Susannah B. F. Paletz, Kyle Bogue, Ella Miron-​Spektor, and Julie Spencer-​Rodgers



CHAPTER 10 ​Dialectical Thinking and Its Influence in the

World: A New Perspective on East Asians’ Control Orientations  309 Joonha Park, Susumu Yamaguchi, Takafumi Sawaumi, and Hiroaki Morio



CHAPTER 11 ​Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups across

Cultures  335 Saori Tsukamoto, Yoshihisa Kashima, Nick Haslam, Elise Holland, and Minoru Karasawa



CHAPTER 12 ​Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage  353

Susan E. Cross and Ben C. P. Lam



CHAPTER 13 ​The Yin and Yang of Attitudes and Related

Constructs: Dialectical and Holistic Influences  383 Christine Ma-​Kellams, Julie Spencer-​Rodgers, and Kaiping Peng



CHAPTER 14 ​The Dialectical Self: The Internal Consistency,

Cross-​Situational Consistency, and Temporal Stability of Self-​Conception  411 Sylvia Xiaohua Chen, Julie Spencer-​Rodgers, and Kaiping Peng



CHAPTER 15 ​Dialecticism and the Future Self in Cultural

Contexts: Relation to Well-​Being  443 Qi Wang, Yubo Hou, and Tracy Gould

vi 

| 

Contents



CHAPTER 16 ​Contextual and Cultural Factors Influencing Malleable

Racial Identity  465 Julie A. Garcia, Diana T. Sanchez, and Margaret Shih



CHAPTER 17 ​When in Rome Think Like a Roman: Empirical

Evidence and Implications of Temporarily Adopting Dialectical Thinking  489 Ashley M. Votruba and Virginia S. Y. Kwan



CHAPTER 18 ​Dialectical Emotions 

509

Brooke Wilken and Yuri Miyamoto



CHAPTER 19 ​Dialecticism and Mental Health: Toward a Yin-​Yang

Vision of Well-​Being  547 Y. Joel Wong and Tao Liu



CHAPTER 20 ​The Yin-​Yang of Stress: The Link Between Dialectical

Thinking and Coping Processes  573 Hi-​Po Bobo Lau and Cecilia Cheng



CHAPTER 21 ​Dialectical Thinking and Attitudes toward Action/​

Inaction Beyond East Asia  595 Ethan Zell, Rong Su, and Dolores Albarracín Index  611

Contents 

| vii

FOREWORD Richard E. Nisbett

I

n 1982, shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution, I was invited to give a series of lectures on social psychology at Beijing University. This was part of a faculty exchange program between that university and the University of Michigan set up by the developmental psychologist Harold Stevenson. Stevenson and the Chinese developmental psychologist Jing Qicheng opened up Chinese psychology to world psychology and world psychology to Chinese culture and thought. A striking aspect of my visit was an encounter with an undergraduate physics student who attended my lectures and came to visit me a couple of times in my apartment at the university’s Foreign Guest House. The student could barely speak English, but my conversations with him made it clear that he had a first class mind and that he had a talent and a passion for psychology. That student was Kaiping Peng. Kaiping switched his major to psychology and went on to get a degree in it from Beijing University. He must have greatly impressed his mentors, because he became assistant chair of the department there within a couple of years of receiving his degree. Then Kaiping did something surprising, which turned out to have a big impact on cultural psychology. A  decade after we met, Kaiping decided to get a PhD in psychology in the United States. To my good fortune—as well as the field of psychology—he came to the University of Michigan. Several Michigan psychologists were just beginning to be serious about studying culture. This required more courage than you might guess

because there was almost no work of value being done in the field of cultural psychology, and it was almost a sign of inferior intellect to say you were interested in culture. This was partly because there was so little good work one could point to and partly because of the conviction of (Western) psychologists that any problem of significance would produce solutions which would apply to the entire human race. Who cares that the French eat horses and the Khoikhoi think the moon is a physical manifestation of a supreme heavenly being? Everybody perceives, thinks, and experiences emotion in the same way in response to the same circumstances. One day shortly before Kaiping came to Michigan I walked into Hazel Markus’s office and said, “Guess what?” I’m going to teach a seminar on cultural psychology,” taking a step backward to await what I was sure would be her negative reaction to this announcement. “No you’re not,” Hazel said. “I’m going to teach a seminar on cultural psychology.” Of course, we both knew that response meant the two of us would be teaching that seminar. I was very excited at the prospect of constructing the course with Hazel, but not nearly as excited as I should have been, because the course, and the Culture and Cognition program that grew out of it, were remarkable for the importance of the ideas we dealt with and for the talent of the students who joined the enterprise. The students initially involved in the program included Kaiping, Michael Morris, Susan Cross, Nancy Wong, Margaret Evans, and Dov Cohen, as well as anthropology students Rachel Heiman and Janet McIntosh. Very shortly thereafter they were joined by some extraordinary people including several of the luminaries who are authors on some of the fascinating papers in this book. These include Incheol Choi, Ara Norenzayan, Li-​Jun Ji, Taka Masuda, and Jeffrey Sanchez-​Burks. Later came another raft of extraordinary people, including Yuri Miyamoto, Jan Leu, Igor Grossmann, Jinkyung Na, and Michael Varnum. That initial seminar was electric. It was clear early on that (1) you really could apply the experimental social psychologist’s methodological tools and habits of thought to questions of cultural difference and (2) Hazel and I didn’t know what we were doing any more than the students did—so they knew they were definitely getting in on the ground floor. After Kaiping had been at Michigan for a few months, he told me that he and I had completely different ways of thinking—and that our differences were characteristic of the differences between Chinese and Western culture generally. Naturally, I said, “Go on!” Kaiping then went on to sketch many of the ideas about holistic vs. analytic thinking that we subsequently tested. I was responsive to Kaiping’s

x 

| 

Foreword

assertions because I  had read philosopher Hajime Nakamura’s Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples. Many of the ideas about reasoning Kaiping described overlapped with what Nakamura wrote. So we began to work together on these ideas. And Kaiping worked also with Michael Morris, notably on the very important studies showing that Chinese causal attributions emphasize context and situations whereas American attributions focus on presumed attributes of the actor. One day Kaiping came to me with a list of ideas about East/​West differences that might be fruitful to pursue. Every one of the ideas was interesting and important. But dialectical reasoning, which Kaiping labeled “naïve dialecticism,” leaped off the page. Kaiping had a clear idea of the differences between Chinese and Western thought along lines that could be described as dialectical, and was also familiar with Western approaches to dialectical thinking in the tradition of Hegel and Kant. Igor Grossmann’s chapter in this volume does a very good job of developing the relations among dialectical thought in the East Asian tradition, the European (and especially German) tradition, and the psychological, ”post-​ formalist” tradition as represented by the German psychologist Klaus Riegel. The Asian and German forms of dialectical reasoning, especially as described by Riegel, are remarkably similar. This is quite surprising given that there would have been no direct contact between thinkers living several thousand miles apart. I won’t get ahead of the story by describing the basic differences between dialectical thinking and what your editors call linear thinking. I’ll leave that to the excellent chapters of this book. I  just foreshadow what the editors say in Chapter 1 by summarizing their characterization of dialectical thinking as involving the following: (1) Expectation of change (East Asians insist upon it, with the default assumption that change will be cyclical; Westerners expect either stability or linear change. (2) Tolerance of contradiction (East Asians accept it and make use of it to understand the world better; Westerners reject it, relying on formal logic to decide which of two contradictory propositions is true and dismissing the other). (3) Perception of interconnectedness (East Asians assume it and look for relationships in the environment; Westerners focus on salient objects and their intentions with regard to them). I would like to point in this foreword to some situations where the dialectical approach is particularly helpful and some situations where the linear logical approach is particularly helpful. The two approaches are complementary, and each serves as an excellent platform from which to learn from and critique the other approach.

Foreword 

| xi

The dialectical approach makes us attend to a wider range of facts and considerations before coming to a conclusion about some matter. This is surely all to the good. On the other hand, the linear/​logical approach is impatient and looks for ways to ignore facts. This is helpful or even essential when it’s time to make a decision, or set out the justification for a policy, or write the article. Too much attention to too many facts at the end stage can prevent a decision or muddle a justification or prevent a clear understanding of the main points of an argument. (Secretary of State Dean Acheson once warned President Truman that in describing a particular policy it was necessary “to be clearer than the truth”!) The dialectical approach, partly because of its attention to many considerations and facts, is the enemy of certainty, which is a trap that the linear/​ logical approach is more likely to fall into. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a severe critic of the linear/​logical approach. He points out that it encourages overly simple models of phenomena that reach conclusions that are inappropriately confident. A favorite example of mine showing this failing is the financial manager attempting to predict your financial situation at some point in the future by “Monte Carlo” runs of 10,000 situations and their likely outcomes. It’s common for this procedure to come up with a probability that you will have X amount of money at time Y with Z probability. The models that run those multiple situations, however, treat most factors as static or changing in a linear fashion. The models make no allowance for the possible appearance of what Taleb calls “black swans.” (All Europeans knew that all swans are white . . . until the first European went to Australia and discovered that there are black swans there.) Taleb’s black swans, in addition to being completely unanticipated, change the world or some important aspect of it beyond recognition. The 9/​11 attack was a black swan—completely unanticipated, catastrophic, and world-​changing. The 2008 collapse of the financial system is another black swan, anticipated by no economist or businessperson, and producing huge consequences for all aspects of economic life that persist today. It’s been estimated that the average American will have one-third less wealth in 2030 than would have been the case had the economy continued its merry linear journey. It’s safe to say that none of the 10,000 runs your financial manager carries out contains a black swan: no nuclear war, no asteroid destroying most of Central America, no revolution in China setting her back 30 years, no invention so spectacular that it renders money irrelevant. The linear/​logical approach does not include the inherent checks on certainty that the dialectical approach does. It’s no accident, incidentally,

xii 

| 

Foreword

that the person who brought us the concept of the black swan is not a Westerner. He is Lebanese in origin. The dialectical emphasis on change provides another hedge against overconfidence. If the world is constantly changing, outcomes are not likely to seem certain. The Greek insistence on stasis is a mystery to me. It’s a fifth century BC invention. The sixth century philosopher Heraclitus insisted that a man never steps into the same river twice— because the man is different and the river is different. Fifth-​century (and later) philosophers were contemptuous of this idea. It made the Greeks receptive to arguments against the possibility of change. Plato’s forms were eternal and unchanging. In contrast, for the Eastern approach to the world, change is the only constant. A  belief in change encourages regressive solutions to problems, which I think is normally helpful. An extreme event is a signal that the next-​encountered event of its type will not be so extreme. On the other hand, the sign of the Tao, which expresses the idea that the world is constantly changing its status—frequently to a status which is the opposite of the current one—can encourage a failure to give sufficient attention to the possibility that a process is genuinely linear. Not all change is cyclical. The dialectical stance is too ready to assume that a process will result in a course reversal. Li-​Jun Ji has shown one of the consequences of this stance. Chinese Canadian business school students are more likely than European Canadians to prefer to sell a stock they own which is losing value (in hopes that it will turn around and start making a profit) to a stock that is gaining value (in the expectation that it may soon undergo a reversal of fortune). Keeping your losers and selling your winners is the road to the poorhouse. The assumption of interconnectedness has a clear advantage over the focus on the most salient object in the environment:  you see more of what’s going on if you make this assumption. Taka Masuda has shown that, in a 20-​second video, Japanese subjects pick up 60 percent more context information than American students and see twice as much in the way of relationships than do American students. This might be a disadvantage if Japanese were to record less of the information about focal objects, but Taka’s research shows that the gain for context and relationship information is accomplished with no loss of information about focal objects. It’s easy to point to circumstances where the East Asian approach could lead to distraction and thus be disadvantageous, but honestly, wouldn’t you rather have the default of casting a wide perceptual (and conceptual) net rather than a narrow one?

Foreword 

| xiii

There is another very important advantage of the dialectical approach. It makes you wiser. This is shown in the work by Igor Grossmann and his colleagues, Jinkyung Na and Michael Varnum (with a little help early on from Shinobu Kitayama and me). This work shows that young Japanese are wiser in their approach to social conflict than young Americans. Wisdom was defined as paying attention to the perspectives of all the participants in the conflict, a recognition that the conflict was not stable but likely to change, a search for possibilities of compromise, and the absence of a stance of certainty. Interestingly, older Japanese were no wiser than younger Japanese. Older Americans were substantially wiser than younger Americans. Grossmann and company attributed these facts to the idea that socialization of Japanese encourages these kinds of dialectical approaches to conflict whereas socialization of Americans does not. However, Americans show greater wisdom in reflecting on social conflict as compared to younger Americans, presumably because they encounter more conflict and must induce effective approaches to it. Grossmann and company find that old Americans are as wise as old Japanese. Please note that the approaches I  am calling wiser are not just wiser in the view of those of us immersed in the research tradition represented in this book: The Chicago Wisdom network, consisting of psychologists, psychiatrists, members of the clergy, and philosophers interested in wisdom, rated subjects’ answers to the social conflict problems in the same way we did. I am so pleased that Julie Spencer-​Rodgers and Kaiping Peng have produced this volume. In the best dialectical spirit it has greatly widened the perspectives on dialecticism by bringing to the party so many impressive investigators representing such a broad array of viewpoints and methodologies. At the risk of seeming overconfident, I feel sure this book is going to simultaneously broaden our understanding of the dialectical perspective and win many new converts to an appreciation of its value.

xiv 

| 

Foreword

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Dolores Albarracín Departments of Psychology and Business Administration University of Illinois at Urbana-​Champaign Champaign, IL, USA Elise Anderson Department of Psychology and Child Development California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA, USA Kyle Bogue Learning Research and Development Center University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA, USA Sylvia Xiaohua Chen Department of Applied Social Sciences The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hung Hom, Hong Kong

Cecilia Cheng Department of Psychology The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam, Hong Kong Bobby K. Cheon School of Social Sciences Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Singapore Joan Y. Chiao International Cultural Neuroscience Consortium Highland Park, IL, USA Incheol Choi Department of Psychology Seoul National University Seoul, South Korea

Jong An Choi Center for Happiness Studies Seoul National University Seoul, South Korea Susan E. Cross Department of Psychology Iowa State University Ames, IA, USA Julie A. Garcia Department of Psychology and Child Development California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA, USA Bertram Gawronski Department of Psychology The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA Tracy Gould Department of Human Development Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA Igor Grossmann Department of Psychology University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Tieyuan Guo Department of Psychology University of Macau Taipa, Macau Nick Haslam Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences The University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia

xvi 

| 

List of Contributors

Elise Holland Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences The University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia Yubo Hou School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences Peking University Beijing, China Li-​Jun Ji Department of Psychology Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada Minoru Karasawa Department of Cognitive & Psychological Sciences Graduate School of Informatics Nagoya University Yoshihisa Kashima Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences The University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia Minkyung Koo College of Business University of Illinois at Urbana-​Champaign Champaign, IL, USA Virginia S. Y. Kwan Department of Psychology Arizona State University Tempe, AZ, USA

Ben C. P. Lam Department of Psychology Iowa State University Ames, IA, USA Hi-​Po Bobo Lau Department of Psychology The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam, Hong Kong Liman Man Wai Li Department of Psychology University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Peter Ping Li International Business School of Suzhou Xian Jiaotong-​Liverpool University Suzhou, China; Department of International Economics and Management Copenhagen Business School Frederiksburg, Denmark Tao Liu Department of Psychology Wheaton College Wheaton, IL, USA Christine Ma-​Kellams Department of Psychology University of La Verne La Verne, CA, USA Takahiko Masuda Department of Psychology University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Ella Miron-​Spektor Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management Technion-​Israel Institute of Technology Haifa, Israel Yuri Miyamoto Department of Psychology University of Wisconsin-​Madison Madison, WI, USA Hiroaki Morio Department of Informatics Kansai University Suita, Japan Susannah B. F. Paletz Center for Advanced Study of Language University of Maryland College Park, MD, USA Joonha Park Faculty of Management Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Nishin, Japan Kaiping Peng Department of Psychology Tsinghua University Beijing, China Matthew J. Russell Department of Psychology University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

List of Contributors 

| xvii

Diana T. Sanchez Department of Psychology Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ, USA Takafumi Sawaumi Faculty of Sociology Ryutsu Keizai University Chiba, Japan Margaret Shih Department of Psychology University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA, USA Julie Spencer-​Rodgers Department of Psychology and Child Development California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA, USA Rong Su Tippie College of Business University of Iowa Iowa City, IA, USA Rongxiang Tang Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, Missouri, USA Yi-​Yuan Tang Department of Psychological Sciences Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX, USA; Department of Psychology University of Oregon Eugene, OR, USA

xviii 

| 

List of Contributors

Saori Tsukamoto Division of Liberal Arts and Sciences Aichi Gakuin University Aichi, Japan Ashley M. Votruba Department of Psychology University of Nebraska-​Lincoln Lincoln, NE, USA Carol Wang Department of Psychology and Child Development California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA, USA Qi Wang Department of Human Development Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA Brooke Wilken Department of Psychology Ball State University Muncie, IN, USA Y. Joel Wong School of Education Indiana University Bloomington Bloomington, IN, USA Susumu Yamaguchi Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology The University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan

Yang Ye Department of Psychology The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada Ethan Zell Department of Psychology University of North Carolina, Greensboro Greensboro, NC, USA

Ning Zhang Department of Psychology Central University of Finance and Economics Beijing, China; Department of Psychology Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada

List of Contributors 

| xix

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition



­C HAPTER 1

What Is Dialectical Thinking? Conceptualization and Measurement Julie Spencer-​Rodgers, Elise Anderson, Christine Ma-​Kellams, Carol Wang, and Kaiping Peng

There is a plethora of theoretical models in the psychological, sociological, cultural studies, and anthropological literatures that describe differences between East Asian, Western, and other cultural groups and the multitude of dimensions on which these groups differ, including epistemologies, social orientation, self-​construals, values and norms, social, economic, and political structure, and so on. The chapters in this book focus on a collection of East Asian lay epistemologies or “ways of knowing” the world which have been dubbed “dialectical” and/​or “holistic” (Nisbett, 2003; Peng & Nisbett, 1999) and have been shown to influence cognition, emotion, and behavior (Ishii, 2013; Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010). This theoretical paradigm falls within the broader framework of psychological research on lay theories (also called naïve or folk theories; for examples, see Argyle, 1988; Furnham & Henderson, 1983; Hong, Levy, & Chiu, 2001; Molden & Dweck, 2006)  which emerged from developmental and social psychology (Heider, 1958; Kelly, 1955; Piaget & Garcia, 1983/​1989) and continues to guide much of the current empirical work in cultural psychology (e.g., Lu, Hamamura, Doosje, Suzuki, & Takemura, 2016; Wang et al., 2016). We first review some of the basic elements and origins of dialectical and holistic thinking.

Basic Elements and Origins of Dialectical and Holistic Thinking Peng and Nisbett (1999) first coined the terms dialectical thinking and naïve dialecticism, proposing that the Chinese way of perceiving

contradiction, change, and interconnections is distinctly different from that of Westerners, owing to the epistemological influences of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in East Asia. This form of thought is contrasted with linear thinking (Peng & Nisbett, 1999) or synthesis-​oriented thinking (Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004), which derives from Aristotelian formal logic and is influential in the West (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). Shortly thereafter, Nisbett (2003) published the Geography of Thought:  How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . and Why, outlining how Asian thought is relatively more holistic and Western thought more analytic. This early literature focused on East–​West variation in basic cognition, arguing that it comprised more than a mere collection of cultural artifacts but rather constituted a fundamental difference in cognitive orientation or style, with far-​reaching implications in a broad range of areas, including the physical sciences, mathematics, literature and art, language, social sciences, and so on. Peng, Spencer-​Rodgers, and Zhong (2006) further refined the theory of naïve dialecticism and reconceptualized “dialectical thinking” as a collection of lay or folk beliefs which are domain-​specific and context-​ dependent (i.e., may be activated in some situations, but not others), rather than as a cognitive style/​orientation, as the latter may represent an overly simplistic view of culture and its influence (see Kashima, 2009). Hence, in this respect, the theory of naïve dialecticism (Peng et  al., 2006) differs somewhat from cognitive holism (Choi, Koo, & Choi, 2007; Nisbett et  al., 2001; Nisbett, 2003)  in its strong emphasis on domain-​ and context-​specificity. Naïve dialecticism is hypothesized to have far-​ reaching effects on human behavior, as is evidenced by the breadth of chapters in this volume; however, dialectical thinking does not operate in all psychological domains, in all situations, at all times. For example, on average, East Asians are more dialectical (accepting of contradiction and change) than are Westerners with respect to self-​perception (e.g., they tend to view the self as internally inconsistent, dynamic, and fluid; Hamamura, Heine, & Paulhus, 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004; Spencer-​Rodgers, Boucher, Peng, & Wang, 2009a) but less so with respect to group perception (e.g., they tend to view groups as internally consistent, cohesive, entitative, and agentic; Kashima et al., 2005; Morris, Menon, & Ames, 2001; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, Hamilton, Peng, & Wang, 2007; Tsukamoto, Holland, Karasawa, & Kashima, 2015). Although we use the terms dialectical thinking and dialectical thinkers in this chapter for the sake of convenience, we do not wish to imply that dialecticism is a rigid cognitive style.

2 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Regrettably, there is some confusion and disagreement in the literature regarding whether dialecticism should be regarded as one aspect of a broader set of concepts termed cognitive holism (Choi et al., 2007; Nisbett et al., 2001; Nisbett, 2003) or, vice versa, whether holism should be regarded as one, more narrow aspect of naïve dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng et al., 2006). Some scholars use the terms interchangeably (e.g., Ma-​ Kellams & Blascovich, 2012). Nevertheless, regardless of the overarching nomenclature, both theories posit, and the empirical evidence has documented, that there are at least three ways in which East Asian and Western cognition tend to differ, as described next. Greater conceptual clarity and consistency in the use of the terms dialectical and holistic would be beneficial to the field. More importantly, however, scholars should identify which specific cognitive process (e.g., locus of attention, tolerance of contradiction) is being measured or manipulated in a study, rather than simply referring to “holistic attention,” “dialectical thinking,” and so on. 1. Expectation of change: East Asian = belief that all phenomena and events change cyclically. The anticipation that change is inevitable. Western = expectation of stability or linear change (steady increase or decrease). 2. Tolerance of contradiction: East Asian  =  acceptance of seeming contradiction, with no need for resolution OR a preference for moderation and compromise (Confucian doctrine of the mean; see Legge, 1873; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). The belief that contradiction is a natural, inherent, and inevitable feature of virtually all existence (concrete and otherwise). Western  =  rejection of seeming contradiction as being incompatible with Aristotelian formal logic, with a need for resolution or synthesis. 3. Perception of interconnectedness: East Asian  =  focus on the whole and relations among parts. The assumption that all objects, people, systems, or ideas are invariably interconnected. Western = focus on abstract focal objects devoid of their context. This leads to cultural differences in the following: a. Locus of attention: East Asians tend to exhibit field-​dependence or context-​dependence. Westerners exhibit field-​independence.

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 3

b. Categorization: East Asian = categories are based on family resemblance or similar features. Western = abstract, rule-​based categorization. Example: “man,” “woman,” “baby”—​which two go together? East Asian = “woman and baby” go together because the mother cares for the baby. Western = “man and woman” go together because both are adults. c. Reasoning about causality (causal attribution): East Asian = focus on contextual influences on behaviors of physical and social objects. Western = focus on internal forces, properties, and motives when explaining causes and behaviors. The expectation of change (Peng & Nisbett, 1999) emerges as one of the primary core aspects of dialectical thinking, or the idea that the social and natural worlds exist in a dynamic state rather than a static one. This idea is closely linked to the Tao concept of the full circle, wherein all entities change in inevitable cycles (Peng et  al., 2006; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, & Wang, 2010). Dialectical thinkers expect change more often, in greater magnitude, and with more variability in direction than those with a traditionally linear mindset, who expect stability or linear change with more predictable and gradual increases or decreases (see Chapter  3, this volume). For instance, in a series of studies, Chinese participants not only predicted more frequent and greater change in events, patterns, and subsequent points on a graph than Americans did, they also viewed others who predicted change as wise (Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001). The East Asian perspective on change is extensively reviewed in Chapter 3 of this volume and has been documented in a wide variety of areas, from stock market predictions to health beliefs (Alter & Kwan, 2009; Ji et al., 2001; Jiang, Lu, Hou, & Yue, 2013). To illustrate, it has been shown with East Asians’ emotional experiences (Bagozi, Wong, & Yi, 1999; Hui, Fok, & Bond, 2009):  contrary to European Americans, Japanese individuals tended to change their feelings more often (Oishi, Diener, Napa Scollon, & Biswas-​ Diener, 2004). Along similar lines, Chinese participants were more likely than European American ones to alter how they viewed themselves after being presented with contradictory feedback (Spencer-​Rodgers, Boucher, Mori, Wang, & Peng, 2009b). Anticipation of change can even be observed in East Asians’ responses

4 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

to others:  Chinese participants were more likely than their European American counterparts to expect the status quo to shift in the future (e.g., expecting lovers to break up and chess champions to lose their championship status; Ji et al., 2001). The second aspect of dialecticism, tolerance of contradiction, is theoretically aligned with the notion of change—​after all, things that are constantly changing will likely produce multiple versions of reality that may contradict or be inconsistent with one another (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng et al., 2006). Moreover, empirical studies have shown that beliefs about change and contradiction tend to covary, at least moderately (see Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010, for a review). As observed by Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et al. (2010), this covariation tends to be stronger when the domain is held constant—​for example, when assessing subscales that tap attitudes toward change and contradiction (Choi et al., 2007) or when assessing beliefs about the changeable and contradictory nature of the self (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2018). In Chinese cultural contexts, the concept of contradiction is oftentimes embodied in the image of the yin and yang: whereas yin commonly refers to darkness, the moon, and the feminine, yang refers to light, the sun, and the masculine (Chan, 2013; Nisbett et al., 2001; Peng et al., 2006). Importantly, however, yin and yang mutually constitute one another and thereby form a perfect contradiction—​the two forces oppose one another, but together they make a complete whole (Chan, 2013). The concept’s origins can be traced back to Chinese Taoist teaching—​a philosophical tradition akin to Confucianism and Buddhism, but one that centers less on religion and more on understanding the natural and social world. As Peng et al. (2006) argued, naïve dialecticism emerges essentially as a collective manifestation of folk Taoism and contains many of the concepts native to Taoist thought, including the existence of polar opposites (e.g., as embodied in yin and yang) and their dependence on one another. The East Asian perspective on contradiction can be contrasted with Western Aristotelian formal logic, which is governed by the laws of identity, non-​contradiction, and the excluded middle, which essentially state that all things must be equal to themselves and all things must belong to categories that are mutually exclusive (Festinger, 1957; Hegel, 2001; Nisbett et al., 2001; Nisbett, 2003; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Thus, a teacher must be a teacher and she or he cannot be a non-​teacher, at the same time. In the emotional domain, love must be love and it cannot be hate, at the same time. In other words, in the Western view, reality is fixed, objective, and knowable. In the East Asian view, reality is a process, subjective, and

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 5

in a state of constant flux and change. Thus, a teacher may at once be a student; love and hate may comfortably coexist. The seeming contradiction does not need to be resolved. The East Asian tendency to accept apparent contradiction has been documented in a broad range of psychological domains, from self-​perception to emotions and attitudes (Choi & Nisbett, 2000; Hamamura, 2004; Heine & Lehman, 1997; Kashima, Siegal, Tanaka, & Kashima, 1992; Wong, Ho, Li, Shin, & Tsai, 2011). To illustrate, persons from dialectical cultures (e.g., Chinese, Japanese) tend to endorse opposing statements about themselves (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009b) and treat incompatible arguments with less aversion (e.g., show less of a disconfirmation bias—​Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Related to this idea, persons with a dialectical mindset are less decisive and more comfortable holding ambivalent attitudes than are those with a linear mindset (Hamamura, 2004; Hamamura et  al., 2008; Hui et  al., 2009; Li, Masuda, & Russell, 2014; Ng & Hynie, 2014; Ng, Hynie, & MacDonald, 2012). This acceptance of seeming contradiction also extends to the domain of interpersonal relations—​for example, Asian Americans, relative to European Americans, report feeling more oppositional emotions toward their romantic partners (e.g., both love and negative emotions like contempt—​Shiota, Campos, Gonzaga, Keltner, & Peng, 2010; see also Goetz, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng, 2008, and Chapters 12 and 18, this volume). The concept of compromise, which derives from the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean (Zhong Yong; Legge, 1873), is another feature closely aligned with Peng and Nisbett’s (1999) theory of naïve dialecticism. Here, the idea is that, rather than siding with a certain stance or its opposite, one can instead opt for a compromise between the two. Individual differences in the tendency to hold dialectical self-​beliefs (Dialectical Self Scale; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2018) have been shown, for example, to predict the extent to which a moderate position is chosen over two polarized extremes in conflict situations (Kim & Kim, 2015), and highly dialectical cultures (e.g., mainland and Hong Kong Chinese, Japanese) are more likely to take a balanced view in terms of their attitudes than are less dialectical cultures (Zell et al., 2012). The dialectical proclivity to favor moderation and compromise has been studied extensively in managerial and organizational psychology, with East Asians preferring a compromising and accommodating “middle way” and informal procedures (e.g., mediation and bargaining) when resolving disputes, over adversarial stances and formal rules (Brew & Cairn, 1993; Lather, Jain, & Shukla, 2010; Lee & Rogan, 1991; Leung, 1987; Leung & Lind, 1986; Kim & Markman, 2013).

6 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

In addition to contradiction and change, the interconnected nature of all things emerges as the third core concept in naïve dialecticism. In the existing literature, this idea also has been referred to as holism or the principle of relationship (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng et al., 2006). Its origins once again relate closely to the Taoist idea of yin and yang—​not only are these elements contradictory and oppositional, but they also are fundamentally connected and unified. A related Taoist idea is the notion that the world consists of five interrelated elements (fire, water, earth, metal, and wood); importantly, these do not exist in isolation but interact with one another to produce natural phenomena (Chan, 1969; Nisbett et al., 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng et al., 2006). This Taoist perspective can be contrasted with Western Aristotelian formal logic, which permits the abstraction of objects, ideas, and events from their context, such that phenomena can be analyzed in isolation (Nisbett, 2003; Norenzayan, Smith, Kim, & Nisbett, 2002; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng et al., 2006). Psychologically speaking, this concept of holism has been documented in East Asians’ self-​descriptions, which tend to refer more to the unity of humans with the larger universe (Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011; Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2009b). It also can be seen in broader societal beliefs regarding karma (a belief that the actions of an individual effect destiny, such that good deeds produce positive outcomes and bad deeds produce negative ones) and reincarnation (Shweder, 1991). Moreover, holistic tendencies can be observed in various judgment and decision-​making tasks:  East Asians, relative to European Americans, are more sensitive to covariation between events (Ji, Peng, & Nisbett, 2000), perceive more downstream consequences of events (Maddux & Yuki, 2006), and are more prone to be influenced by the frame/​context when judging an object within the frame/​ context (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). This highlights the emphasis dialectical thinkers place on the whole, versus the individual parts, such that the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts. Finally, East–​West cultural differences have been observed in the three remaining cognitive processes:  locus of attention, categorization, and causal attribution. These elements are more generally associated with “holistic thinking” (Buchtel & Norenzayan, 2009; Choi, Dalal, Kim-​ Prieto, & Park, 2003; Choi et al., 2007; Ishii, 2013; Nisbett, 2003). Given that Koo, Choi, and Choi offer a comprehensive and in-​depth overview of these features of holistic thinking in Chapter 4 of this volume, we will not expand on them here. In general, these reflect the broader tendency of people from East Asian cultures to think contextually rather than focally, and to attend to relationships rather than to rules. To illustrate, East Asians tend

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 7

to focus on the background rather than simply the central object, and they use situational cues rather than internal properties to explain physical and social behaviors (Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan, 1999; Goto, Ando, Huang, Yee, & Lewis, 2010; Ji et al., 2000; Morris & Peng, 1994). Likewise, they tend to use similar features and family resemblance instead of taxonomical rules to determine membership in a category (see Table 1.1; Norenzayan et al., 2002). As the boundary conditions of cultural variation in dialectical and holistic thinking are identified (e.g., Leu et al., 2010; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2007), scholars are urged to regard these theoretical paradigms as consisting of a loosely connected set of cognitive processes, rather than as inflexible cognitive orientations or styles, and to recognize that although they may be culturally normative, “default” ways of thinking in many East Asian cultural groups (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010), they vary both across cultures (e.g., they may be less prevalent in more Westernized societies, such as Singapore in contrast to mainland China; Zell et  al., 2012)  and within cultures (e.g., there are significant individual differences in the extent to which mainland Chinese hold dialectical views of the self, as indexed with the Dialectical Self Scale; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2018). Moreover, dialecticism and holism are variable within individuals over time (e.g., dialecticism changes across the lifespan; see Chapter 5, this volume), domains (e.g., self vs. group perception), and across situations (Chen, Benet-​Martinez, & Ng, 2014; Chen & Bond, 2010). This can affect both the measurement and manipulation of these constructs, topics discussed later in this chapter. In sum, researchers are recommended to clearly delineate the cognitive processes they are examining in a study and to consider the sample characteristics (e.g., age of the participants, developmental stage, acculturation, etc.), domain, and situational factors when developing predictions regarding cultural variation in dialectical and holistic thinking.

Eastern versus Western Dialectical Thinking It is important to note that there is a strong distinction between Eastern dialecticism and Western dialecticism (including Hegel’s dialectics and its Marxist variant; Bencivenga, 2000), as well as the thinking of the neo-​ Piagetians (postoperational theorists), such as Riegel (1973) and Basseches (1980, 2005). This topic is covered extensively in Chapter  2 and Chapter 5, and hence we only briefly touch on it here.

8 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Table 1.1 Sample of Dialectical and Holistic Thinking Primes Study

Construct

Manipulation

Manipulation Check

Dependent Variable

Parker-​Tapias & Peng, 2001

Tolerance of contradiction and change

Experimental condition: Participants write about a time in adolescence when thinking about the world as full of change and contradiction and looking at issues from different perspectives was helpful. Control condition: write about a time when thinking about the world as stable and consistent and discovering the truth was useful.

Number of transitional words and qualifiers (e.g., “sometimes”)

Planned health behaviors

Paletz & Peng, 2009 (adapted from above)

Same

Same

Same

Creativity (problem finding originality)

Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004 (adapted from Parker-​ Tapias & Peng, 2001)

Tolerance of contradiction

Experimental condition: “Life can be full of contradiction and uncertainty. We would like you to reflect, in writing, on a time in your life when it was full of contradiction and uncertainty . . . the situations or experiences had positive outcomes and consequences for you . . . as well as equally negative outcomes or consequences for you.” Control condition: No writing task

DSS

Global self-​esteem; Ambivalent self-​esteem; Life satisfaction

Used in Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010

Same

Same

DSS

Emotional and evaluative complexity

Used in Cheng, 2009

Same

Experimental condition: Same. Control condition: Participants read a passage and describe ways to increase tourism in Hong Kong.

None

Coping flexibility

Used in Williams & Aaker, 2018

Adapted to prime dialectical emotions

Experimental condition: “Recall experiences in which you experienced both positive and negative feelings or emotions at the same time, and when it seemed like these mixed emotions were right and reflected the true complexity of the situation.” Control condition: Participants write about what they did the day before.

None

Perceived verisimilitude of advertisements (realistic and lifelike quality) and discomfort

(continued)

Table 1.1  (continued) Study

Construct

Manipulation

Manipulation Check

Dependent Variable

Chen, Benet-​Martínez, & Ng, 2014

Possibly a global prime of dialectical and holistic thinking

Experimental condition: Speaking in Chinese Control condition: Speaking in English

None

DSS; changeable personality traits and behaviors (self-​rated and coded by observers)

Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011

Same

Experimental condition: Completing measures written in Chinese Control condition: Completing measures written in English

None

DSS; Analysis-​Holism Scale; self-​concept inconsistency; self-​esteem; etc.

Ma-​Kellams, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng, 2011

Possibly a global prime of dialectical and holistic thinking

Participants read a fictitious ScienceNOW article: Dialectical/​holistic condition: “Individuals who consider multiple sides of the same issue during problem-​solving tasks tend to perform better.” Linear/​analytic condition: “Individuals who seek to find the right answer during problem-​solving tasks (as opposed to simply considering multiple sides of the same issue) tend to perform better.”

Responses verified by coders

Ambivalent ingroup attitudes

Used in Ma-​Kellams & Blascovich, 2012

Same

Same

None

Striving to enjoy life (following mortality salience prime)

Russell, 2013

Tolerance of contradiction Expectation of change (consistency norms vs. contradiction norms)

Experimental condition: Participants read a description of the theories and then a story that reminds them that people are often inconsistent across situations, and write about how this applies to their lives. Control condition: No writing task

Perceived self-​consistency

Standard deviation index (Personality trait ratings in different roles/​situations) DSS scores used as a moderator

Alter & Kwan, 2009

Expectation of change

Experimental condition: yin–​yang symbol Control condition: neutral symbols (e.g., crosshatch symbol)

Association with change-​and balance-​ related words

Change-​oriented predictions and judgments

DSS, Dialectical Self Scale.

Examples of Western dialecticism extend as far back as Plato. In his classic work, Phaedrus, Plato uses “dialectic” to refer to an epistemological strategy, or a way of arriving at knowledge through reasoning and argumentation (Fink, 2012; Yunis, 2009). Plato’s notion of dialectic involves taking oppositional positions on a given issue. However, it appears that this idea of dialectic in Plato’s mind would occur primarily in the context of a philosophical debate (i.e., akin to dialogue), where two parties holding opposing views could collaborate to arrive at a shared knowledge (Fink, 2012; Yunis, 2009). Thus, Plato’s dialectic approximates a rhetorical strategy more than a way of understanding the world. Similar to Plato’s dialectic, Hegel’s dialectic also involved engagement with oppositional sides of an issue, but unlike Plato—​who primarily envisioned this process in the context of a debate—​Hegel’s version was more abstract in nature. Opposition did not come in the form of people but rather ideas; this was at the heart of his transcendental philosophy movement (Bencivenga, 2000; Forster, 1993; Gadamer, 1976). Hegel’s dialectic is most commonly associated with the notion of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis—​a schema for understanding an idea through its opposition that entails a starting point (i.e., a thesis), followed by a contradiction or negation of the original point (i.e., an antithesis), and ending with a compromise between the two (i.e., a synthesis; Schnitker & Emmons, 2013). However, some scholars contend that Hegel’s understanding of dialecticism cannot be reduced to this triad and that, in actuality, Hegelian dialectic more accurately refers to the notion that any concept and its opposing idea should be scrutinized using reason (Bencivenga, 2000; Mueller, 1958). Regardless of the centrality of thesis–​antithesis–​synthesis, Hegel’s dialectic does focus squarely on the notion of considering oppositional ideas in connection with one another (Bencivenga, 2000; Fraser, 1997). In his own words: “It is in this dialectic as it is here understood, that is, in the grasping of opposites in their unity or of the positive in the negative” (Hegel, 2001, p. 21). Similar to Hegel, naïve dialecticism also rejects the laws of identity and non-​contradiction as the only ways to understand the world, endorsing instead the idea that contradiction is actually an essential part of all entities (for a discussion of Hegel’s treatment of the principles of identity and non-​contradiction, see Riegel, 1973). Apart from Hegel, the other variant of dialecticism most well known among Western thinkers is Karl Marx. Strongly influenced by Hegel, Marx’s dialectic focuses on the role of change, interaction, and contradiction (Ollman, 2003; Paolucci, 2007), although Marx also criticized Hegel’s version of dialecticism as being confined to abstract ideas as opposed to

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 11

concrete realities; in other words, Marx’s dialectic appears to be a more materialist version of Hegel’s dialectic (for a review of Marxist versus Hegelian dialectics, see Fraser, 1997). In this sense, Marx was perhaps most well known for applying the ideas of dialecticism to his analysis of capitalism and labor (which constituted for him the epitome of contradiction). Still, Marx applied his principles not only to social forces but to nature more broadly, and argued that contradiction and change mutually constitute one another (Ollman, 2003; Paolucci, 2007). In more recent years, neo-​Piagetians (e.g., Basseches, 1984, 2005; Riegel, 1973)  also have taken on dialectics, in the domain of cognitive development. Riegel (1973), for example, proposes that beyond Piaget’s original four stages of cognitive development (which culminates in abstract thinking, Piaget, 1972)  a fifth stage exists—​one that involves dialectical operations. Riegel (1973) further argues that while dialectical processes are at play in many of Piaget’s original stages, Piaget nevertheless treats contradictions as something that ultimately need to be resolved. In contrast, Riegel’s argument is that dialectical operations represent a more developmentally mature way of thinking and one that an individual can engage in at any stage of development. Basseches (1980, 2005) took this idea further and argued that the dialectical principles of change and contradiction represent a way of organizing thought that can be applied broadly to intellectual development among adults, particularly in the context of higher education and therapy. He argues that the issues commonly faced in adult life can be resolved with a dialectical approach that involves the recognition of the fluid, changeable nature of people, their interconnectedness, and the potential for transformation. Next, we differentiate naïve dialecticism from other cultural variables commonly associated with East Asian societies, namely collectivism (Triandis, 1995) and interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

Naïve Dialecticism versus Collectivism/​Interdependence Rankings of cultures on the dimensions of linear–​ dialectical and individualist–​collectivist reveal that Anglo-​Americans are the most linear and individualist, and East Asians are generally the most dialectical and collectivist (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010; Triandis, 1995; Zell et  al., 2012). As a result, these cultural dimensions are sometimes confused in the literature. It is important to note that while members of East Asian cultures (e.g., Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans) are typically both dialectical and collectivist/​interdependent (Triandis, 1995; Zell et al.,

12 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

2012), not all members of collectivist/​interdependent cultures are dialectical. To illustrate, many highly collectivist cultures, such as Mexicans and Spaniards, score relatively low on the Dialectical Self Scale, compared to East Asians (Spencer-​Rodger, Williams, et al., 2010; Zell et al., 2012). Individualism–​collectivism is a type of social orientation and system of values (Triandis, 1995)  and independence–​interdependence is a form of self-​ construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Individualism encompasses concepts such as independence and self-​reliance, competition, and hedonism; collectivism includes ideas such as interdependence, context-​ dependence, filial piety, and ingroup solidarity (Cousins, 1989; Triandis, 1995). Markus and Kitayama (1991) described the independent construal of self as an autonomous sense of self, one that is relatively distinct from others. Those with an independent construal of self strive to assert their individuality and uniqueness and stress their separateness from the outer social world. In contrast, the interdependent construal of self is characterized by the embeddedness of the self within social relationships, especially those with family, friends, and ingroup members. The most popular measures of dialecticism (Dialectical Self Scale [DSS]; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2018) and holism (Analysis-​Holism Scale [AHS]; Choi et  al., 2007)  are largely uncorrelated with those of individualism–​ collectivism (Triandis, 1996)  and independent–​ interdependent self-​ construals (Singelis, 1994). For example, the association between dialectical self-​conceptions (DSS) and the Self Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994) was r = .08 among Americans (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010)  and r  =  .07 among Chinese (Hui et  al., 2009). Similarly, among Koreans (Choi et al., 2007), the correlation was r = .09 between holism (AHS scores) and the Individualism-​Collectivism Scale (Triandis, 1996), and r = .08 with the Self Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994). These findings highlight the fact that dialecticism/​holism and collectivism/​interdependence are theoretically and empirically distinct constructs.

Measurement of Dialectical and Holistic Thinking In many cross-​cultural studies, group membership (as a categorical variable) is used as a proxy to measure culture, such as East Asian versus Western lay epistemologies, norms, and values. Thus, East Asians (e.g., mainland Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans) are assumed to predominantly endorse Taoist folk beliefs and Westerners (e.g., Americans, Canadians, and Australians) are thought to hold linear Aristotelian lay beliefs, and observed group-​level differences in various phenomena are attributed to

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 13

the underlying cultural variable of interest, without actually having been measured. To address this limitation and to provide a more direct measure of culture, scholars have developed inventories to assess dialecticism and holism as individual difference variables, to examine both cross-​cultural and within-​cultural variability in these lay epistemologies. There are numerous disadvantages to measuring culture at the individual level with self-​report inventories (Harkness, van de Vijver, & Mohler, 2002; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). In particular, this methodology assumes that people are sufficiently introspective and insightful to report their fundamental epistemologies. Culturally based response biases are also problematic (Harkness et al., 2002). Dialectical thinkers, for example, possess an “ambivalent response style” (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004) and tend to endorse both positively and negatively phrased questionnaire items, a point to which we return later in the chapter. Nonetheless, several comprehensive Likert-​type inventories have been developed and are briefly reviewed herein, including the Dialectical Self Scale (DSS; Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2018), the Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS; Choi et al., 2007), the Chinese Dialectical Thinking Styles Scale (CDTSS; Hou, 2004), and the Chinese Holistic Thinking Styles Scale (CHTSS; Hou & Zhu, 2002). We also touch on several measures that capture specific aspects of dialectical and holistic thinking, such as Zhong Yong or “middle way” thinking (e.g., Chiu, 2000; Huang, Lin, & Yang, 2012; Wu & Lin, 2005), as well as non-​Likert-​type assessments. Our goal here is not to present an exhaustive review of all measures of East Asian forms of thinking; rather, we focus on a few of the most widely used scales. The DSS (30 citations in Tests & Measures; Psychinfo, 2016)  and AHS (10 citations in Psychinfo, 2016)  have been employed extensively in multi-​country and cross-​cultural studies and have been translated and administered in numerous languages (Choi et  al., 2007; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2018). They are reviewed separately below. The CDTSS, CHTSS, and Zhong-​Yong inventories are “indigenous” Likert-​type surveys and were developed in Chinese by Chinese scholars. The CDTSS is a 13-​item questionnaire comprised of three dimensions:  belief in connection (e.g., “There is connection between those things that seem isolated”), acceptance of contradiction, and acceptance of change (Hou, 2004). The CHTSS taps five dimensions: connection (e.g., “Many things that seem isolated are actually related”), change, contradiction, compromise, and harmony (Hou & Zhu, 2002). The Zhong-​Yong inventory assesses the extent to which people perceive that they follow the doctrine of the mean (e.g., considering matters carefully from different

14 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

perspectives and exercising appropriate behaviors to account for the whole situation; Wu & Lin, 2005). To our knowledge, the aforementioned indigenous scales have been used exclusively in mainland China and Hong Kong and have not been translated into English or other languages. Cross-​ cultural studies utilizing these Likert-​type instruments would be very valuable to the field.

Dialectical Self Scale (DSS) The DSS was designed to measure the “dialectical self” or the extent to which the self is perceived to be internally inconsistent and changeable (Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 20041). The scale was developed in English by Chinese and American scholars and, to date, has been translated into 15 languages (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2018; Zell et al., 2012). It consists of 32 items and includes three theoretical factors: tolerance of contradiction (e.g., “I often find that things will contradict each other”), cognitive change (“I often find that my beliefs and attitudes will change under different contexts”), and behavioral change (“I often change the way I am, depending on who I am with”). However, the three factors are highly correlated and confirmatory factor analyses using large-​scale, multi-​country data sets indicate that the 32 items tap a single latent construct (Zell et al., 2012). Therefore, the 32 items can be averaged to create a global DSS score. Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues note the DSS was designed to assess dialectical self-​conceptions (Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2004; Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010) and should not be construed as a general measure of dialectical thinking. In fact, the authors recommend that scholars develop scales to assess dialectical thinking in specific domains, such as social perception (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2018), as naïve dialecticism is not a rigid cognitive style that is applied equally in all domains and contexts. To illustrate, Wong et al. (2011) created a measure to tap dialectical beliefs about emotions (e.g., “I thought that something bad might happen if I continued feeling delighted”). This is a primary distinction between the DSS and many of the other psychometric instruments of East Asian forms of thought, including the AHS, as the latter are considered to be broad “thinking style” surveys (Choi et al., 2007; Hou, 2004). The DSS possesses good cross-​ cultural measurement equivalence, internal consistency reliability, and test-​retest reliability, as assessed in various data sets from 21 countries (Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2018; Zell et al., 2012). With respect to criterion or known-​groups validity, a meta-​ analysis found that people from East Asian dialectical countries (e.g.,

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 15

China, Japan) score significantly higher on the DSS than do people from countries that are non-​dialectical and individualist (e.g., United States, Switzerland), as well as those that are non-​dialectical and collectivist (e.g., Mexico, Spain; Szabo & Spencer-​Rodgers, 2014). Again, this highlights the conceptual and empirical distinction between dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999)  and collectivism (Triandis, 1995), a point discussed earlier. With respect to convergent/​discriminant validity (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2018), the DSS is moderately, but not too highly, correlated with conceptually similar constructs, such as self-​concept stability (Rosenberg, 1965) and self-​concept clarity (Campbell et al., 1996). Since the DSS was created to assess the dialectical self, it is not surprising that it most strongly predicts constructs that are highly relevant to the self-​concept, such as emotional ambivalence and mental health (see Chapters 18 and 19, respectively). Another recent meta-​analysis (Szabo, Sawyer, Patton, & Spencer-​Rodgers, 2015) revealed that these correlations hold for members of East Asian and Western cultures alike, although they tend to be higher for East Asians, presumably because dialectical thinking is more normative in these cultures. The DSS has been further used as a manipulation check in experimental studies that have sought to prime dialectical self-​conceptions (e.g., Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004; Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2009b), and scores on the DSS (or its subscales) mediate cultural differences in self-​concept inconsistency (Spencer-​Rodgers, et al., 2009b), self-​verification (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009a), emotional ambivalence (Stastny, 2011), and psychological well-​ being (Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2004), thus providing evidence of the causal influence of the dialectical self. Although most scholars have conducted studies using global DSS scores, some have computed separate subscale scores, corresponding to the three theoretical factors, and studies have documented their predictive utility. For example, the behavioral change subscale of the DSS mediates cultural differences in self-​concept inconsistency (English & Chen, 2007). A shorter, 14-​item version of the scale also has been created and is highly correlated with the 32-​item questionnaire (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004), although researchers should be aware that this briefer scale has not undergone the same degree of psychometric testing as the full DSS. Several other measures of dialecticism have been employed in past research and are worthy of note. The DSS has been assessed at the country level by adapting the scale to assess people’s perceptions of the extent to which their fellow citizens possess dialectical selves (e.g., “People in this country often find that their beliefs and attitudes will change under different

16 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

contexts”; Church et al., 2012). A more subtle, open-​ended measure of the dialectical self was created by Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2009a). People’s free response self-​descriptions on the Twenty Statements Test (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954) are coded according to a Dialectical Coding Scheme to index the extent to which people characterize themselves as internally inconsistent, changeable, and holistic. In one of the earliest studies on this topic, dialectical thinking was assessed by people’s preference for Chinese and English proverbs that emphasize paradox (e.g., “Too humble is half proud”; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). More recently, an implicit measure has been constructed based on the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGee, & Schwartz, 1998), and preliminary research shows that mainland Chinese associate dialectical words with the self and ingroup members and non-​dialectical words with others and outgroup members more quickly than do Americans (Bai, Peng, & Yu, 2014).

Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS) Another popular measure of East Asian forms of thinking is the Analysis-​ Holism Scale (AHS; Choi et al., 2007). Interested readers are referred to Chapter 4 of this volume for a detailed review of its psychometric properties. The scale consists of 24 items that capture individual differences in the tendency to think analytically versus holistically. The scale was originally written in Korean and subsequently translated into English to test for cultural differences between Koreans and Americans (I. Choi, personal communication, 2015). The instrument taps four dimensions:  causality (e.g., “Everything in the universe is somehow related to each other”), attitudes toward contradiction (e.g., “We should avoid going to extremes”), locus of attention (e.g., “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”), and perception of change (e.g., “Current situations can change any time”; Choi et al., 2007). Causality refers to the degree to which one perceives and considers interconnections between different elements. The contradiction dimension indexes the extent to which one tries to reach a compromise solution when two contradictory opposites exist rather than favor one side. The attention subscale captures the degree to which one directs one’s attention toward the field and relationships between objects, relative to a single focal object in the field. Lastly, the change subscale gauges the extent to which one views phenomena as existing in a state of perpetual flux in contrast to stability. Although the two most popular survey measures—​the DSS and AHS—​ both draw from Nisbett’s (2003) broader theoretical framework, it is

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 17

important to note that they tap different psychological constructs. Whereas the DSS assesses tolerance for contradiction and expectation of change in the self (e.g., “I am constantly changing and am different from one time to the next”), the AHS assesses domain-​general holistic thinking about the nature of the world (e.g., “Current situations can change at any time”). Accordingly, the DSS most strongly predicts outcomes in the areas of the self, emotions, and mental and physical health (e.g., Hamamura, 2004; Jiang et al., 2013; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004), whereas the AHS most strongly predicts outcomes in categorization, causal reasoning, and perceptual tasks, such as physical similarity judgments (see Chapter  4). The DSS and AHS themselves are uncorrelated for the most part at both the level of their global scores and subscales (e.g., the DSS-​contradiction and AHS-​contradiction are only weakly related: r = .10, p = .34; Stastny, 2011). Moreover, the AHS includes two dimensions (causality, locus of attention) that the DSS does not. Thus, there are theoretical grounds and predictive utility in drawing distinctions between them.

Holistic Self Another instrument used to capture one aspect of holism. the self-​universe connection, is the pictorial holism measure (Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011). The scale was adapted from the Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992) and asks respondents to select the Venn diagram or set of overlapping circles (of seven sets) that best represents the degree of perceived closeness between the self and the universe (ranging from completely separate to completely overlapping). The Dialectical Coding Scheme, described earlier, also taps this self-​universe connection; people’s free responses to the question “Who am I?” (Twenty Statements Test; Kuhn & McPartland, 1954) are coded as holistic if they reflect an awareness of the interrelatedness of the self with all living and nonliving things, or a recognition that the self is just one part of a greater whole (e.g., “I am a biological entity above all,” “I am someone insignificant in the universe”; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009b). Additional scales, such as Likert-​ type surveys, and more research are needed on the “holistic self” and its correlates. One interesting avenue of future research would be to investigate whether the “holistic self” is the epistemological precursor to the “collective self” (Triandis, 1995) and the “interdependent self” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), as the holistic self conceptualizes the individual as inextricably linked to all living and nonliving things, including, but not just limited to, other human beings (alternatively, some have argued that a

18 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

collective/​interdependent social orientation might have given rise to cognitive holism; Varnum, Grossmann, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2010). As evidenced in this section, a considerable number of instruments have been constructed to measure dialectical and holistic forms of thought, although, to our knowledge, only the validity and reliability of the DSS and AHS have been established using multi-​country samples. Once again, a general guideline for researchers is that they should take into account the specific cognitive process (e.g., acceptance of contradiction, change, locus of attention, etc.), the level of analysis (e.g., self-​belief versus general attitude), sample characteristics (demographic factors), and the domain of interest (e.g., mental health, physical perception) when selecting or constructing a measure of dialecticism or holism.

Manipulation of Dialectical and Holistic Thinking In addition to being measured as individual difference variables, dialectical and holistic thinking has been successfully primed in experimental studies among East Asians and Westerners alike (see Table 1.1). The latter points to the fact that dialectical and holistic forms of thinking (e.g., tolerance of contradiction) exist in Western cultures, although they derive from different epistemological and philosophical traditions, are generally less prevalent (e.g., are activated in fewer contexts), and may have different correlates and behavioral consequences (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et  al., 2010). As with all cultural variables (Kashima, 2009), constructs like dialecticism and holism are normally distributed in country samples; although mean differences are observed at the country level, some East Asians are highly linear and analytic, and some Westerners are highly dialectical and holistic (Zell et al., 2012). In East Asian countries, dialectical forms of thinking are activated and reinforced more frequently and, hence, over time, become normative and habitual (“default”) ways of thinking (Peng et al., 2006). To prime holistic and analytic reasoning (e.g., field dependence and independence), scholars have used manipulations of visual attention, language, and assorted reading and writing tasks. As an illustrative example, scholars have employed visual tasks in which people are directed to attend to the context (thus priming holistic reasoning) or the focal object (thus priming analytic reasoning). Koo and colleagues (Chapter 4) and Masuda and colleagues (Chapter 7) review the literature in which holistic and analytic thinking have been measured and manipulated. Therefore, we focus

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 19

here on manipulations of “dialectical thinking” (i.e., tolerance of contradiction and expectation of change). Scholars have used various methods to prime “dialectical thinking,” such as reading and autobiographical writing tasks, cultural symbols, and language. In one of the first experimental manipulations of dialecticism, Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2004; Study 4) asked mainland Chinese and European Americans to think about and describe a time in their lives when they experienced a great deal of contradiction and change (e.g., “Life can be full of contradiction and uncertainty. We would like you to reflect, in writing, on a time in your life when it was full of contradiction and uncertainty,” p. 1427). Drawing upon this earlier work, Williams and Aaker (2002) created a dialectical emotion prime and asked Anglo-​ Americans “to recall experiences in which you experienced both positive and negative feelings or emotions at the same time, and when it seemed like these mixed emotions were right and reflected the true complexity of the situation” (p. 20). In both studies, relative to controls, primed participants exhibited more ambivalent responses following the writing task (albeit nonsignificantly so among European Americans in Spencer-​ Rodgers et al.’s study [2004], presumably because it is more difficult to prime dialectical thinking in a highly linear culture). Alter and Kwan’s (2009) seminal research on extracultural cognition (the adoption of foreign cultural worldviews) used a more subtle method, the yin–​yang symbol, to activate the dialectical expectation of change. European Americans who previously had been exposed to East Asian cultural values, traditions, and philosophies (such as through overseas travel) were primed with the yin–​yang symbol and subsequently made more change-​oriented predictions and judgments, in line with the dialectical expectation of cyclical (vs. linear) change, relative to controls primed with culturally neutral geometric figures. This study attests to the fact that some European Americans can readily adopt a dialectical perspective. Chapter 17 reviews research showing that people can take on the perspectives and worldviews of a foreign culture, such as through travel and exposure to media, a topic that will become increasingly important with globalization. It would be interesting to examine whether the yin–​yang symbol primes other East Asian lay epistemologies, such as tolerance of contradiction. A similarly unobtrusive, yet very powerful, prime is language. In fact, Ping Li (see Chapter 2) argues that the Chinese language itself, with its compound characters (both graphic and phonetic), ultimately gives rise to dialectical (yin–​yang) thinking. Consequently, Ping Li hypothesizes that

20 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

dialectical cognition can be acquired by learning Chinese, either as a child, in the case of native speakers, or as an adult, as in the case of Western college students. Among bilingual-​biculturals, spoken or written language can activate different cultural mindsets in different contexts (Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011; Chen & Bond, 2010). Reading or speaking in Chinese activates more dialectical thought: when Chinese bilinguals completed a battery of questionnaires in Mandarin (vs. English), they scored higher on the Dialectical Self Scale and responded more ambivalently when rating themselves on 48 contrasting personality traits (e.g., generous vs. thrifty), in line with the dialectical tendency to view the self as contradictory (Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011). Language can even prime culturally distinct social behaviors and communication styles:  Chinese bilinguals’ communication style was rated as more dialectical by observers, with people displaying greater variability and changeability in their personality characteristics and nonverbal behaviors when they were speaking to an interaction partner in Chinese then when conversing in English (Chen et al., 2014). While dialectical thinking has been manipulated effectively in numerous studies, fewer scholars have primed linear thinking explicitly. In the existing literature, the general approach has been to activate or intensify dialectical thinking among experimental participants and then compare their responses to those of controls who are presented with neutral stimuli (and therefore, exhibit their default thinking pattern). For example, the control conditions in autobiographical memory studies have consisted of neutral writing tasks (e.g., describing what one has done the day before; Williams & Aaker, 2002) or simply no writing task (Russell, 2013; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). The control stimuli in Alter and Kwan’s study (2009) consisted of neutral geometric figures and symbols. One possible explanation for this approach is that it may be difficult to prime linear thinking among members of highly dialectical cultures. Anecdotally, in our laboratory, we have observed that it is sometimes difficult to prime linear thinking among mainland Chinese, and linear primes can even produce contrast effects, with participants responding even more dialectically, rather than less dialectically, following the linear prime, presumably because they consciously or unconsciously reject the manipulation. Alternatively, researchers may need to craft better linear primes for use with members of highly dialectical cultures. One study overtly primed linear (and dialectical) thinking among Americans of Chinese descent. As biculturals, Asian Americans have been exposed to both Aristotelian-​and Confucian-​based lay epistemologies

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 21

and can adopt both linear and dialectical mindsets (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010). Ma-​Kellams, Spencer-​Rodgers, and Peng (2011) asked Chinese American participants to read a fictitious ScienceNOW article that endorsed either a linear orientation (“Aristotle was Right: Truth is Truth”) or a dialectical one. The article briefly described the orientation and offered bogus evidence in support of the theory (e.g., linear: individuals who seek to find the right answer during problem-​solving tasks [as opposed to simply considering multiple sides of the same issue] tend to perform better). Participants subsequently wrote several paragraphs in support of the theory, drawing on examples from their own lives. Linearly primed participants demonstrated less ambivalent (dialectical) ingroup attitudes than did dialectically primed participants. In another study (Ma-​Kellams & Blascovich, 2012), this ScienceNOW prime also effectively activated analytic (vs. holistic) thinking among first-​and second-​ generation East Asian Americans. Future research could examine whether this manipulation successfully primes linear thinking among members of highly dialectical cultures (e.g., mainland Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans; e.g., as indexed by lower scores on the Dialectical Self Scale [Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2018]). In sum, the aforementioned literature attests to the fact that dialectical and linear lay epistemologies are available and accessible in a wide range of cultural groups, although it may prove more difficult to prime linear thinking in certain cultural groups and dialectical thinking in others (e.g., European Americans; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). Experimental studies that employ cultural primes are important though, as they permit scholars to directly manipulate the cultural variable of interest and hence make stronger causal inferences. Bilinguals and biculturals who espouse multiple cultural worldviews may be particularly well suited for this type of experimental research.

Measurement Issues: Dialectical Thinking and Response Styles In this chapter, we have reviewed a growing corpus of research that indicates that East Asian dialectical cultures expect contradiction, change, and interconnections. This research raises an important question that cross-​ cultural scholars must grapple with: how does dialecticism, especially tolerance of contradiction, influence the ways in which people respond to self-​report measures in the first place?

22 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

The literature has long established that cross-​cultural variation in questionnaire response styles exists (e.g., Bachman & O’Malley, 1984; Chun, Campbell, & Yoo, 1974; Hamamura et al., 2008). Although cross-​cultural psychologists rely heavily on Likert-​ type surveys because of considerations of accessibility, ease of administration, and convenience, these self-​report methods are prone to a number of biases, including, but not limited to, social desirability concerns, acquiescence bias, moderacy bias, extreme responding, and ambivalent response styles (Nederhof, 1985; Paulhus & Vazire, 2007; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2004). Furthermore, response tendencies differ across cultures. For example, European Americans/​Canadians and Latino Americans tend to show an extreme response style (i.e., a preference for the highest and lowest response options on Likert-​type scales), whereas Asian Americans/​Canadians are prone to showing moderacy (i.e., a preference for midpoint response options; Bachman & O’Malley, 1984; Chen, Lee, & Stevenson, 1995; Hui & Triandis, 1989), a cultural difference that is due, at least in part, to East Asian dialecticism (Hamamura et al., 2008). Dialectical thinking fosters a compromise approach and an avoidance of extreme positions, hence East Asians are inclined to select “middle of the road” responses. Moreover, because dialectical thinkers embrace contrary views, whereas linear thinkers actively suppress them or seek to integrate them to a point of synthesis (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng et al., 2006), dialectical thinkers differentiate less between items designed to tap opposite poles of the same construct (e.g., positive and negative emotions) and tend to endorse both positive-​and negative-​keyed items on questionnaires. Indeed, this dialectical tendency to endorse contradictory items (Wong, Rindfleish, & Burroughs, 2003)  or “ambivalent response style” (Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2004)  generally results in lower Cronbach’s alphas (an index of internal consistency reliability) in East Asian samples and the higher ambivalence scores observed among East Asians, relative to European Americans/​Canadians, in many studies (Boucher, Peng, Shi, & Wang, 2009; Hamamura, 2004; Hamamura et al., 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). Hamamura et  al. (2008) empirically examined the relationship between culture, dialectical thinking, and response biases on various attitudinal measures. East Asians showed ambivalent and moderate response styles, and dialectical thinking (Dialectical Self Scale) partially mediated the effect of culture on response styles. One important consequence of East Asians’ tendency to respond ambivalently to contradictory items on self-​report measures is that their

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 23

overall mean scores are often lower because of this cultural bias (Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2004). Take, for example, the case of self-​esteem, as measured with the Rosenberg Self-​Esteem Scale (RSES, Rosenberg, 1965). Dialectical thinkers tend to endorse both the positively and negatively keyed items, therefore, when the latter are reverse-​scored and all of the items are averaged, their overall mean self-​esteem scores are lower than those of non-​dialectical thinkers. Hamamura et al. (2008) found that self-​ esteem was confounded with ambivalence and moderacy: individuals with high self-​esteem on the RSES responded with low ambivalence and in an extreme manner. However, low RSES scores could either reflect mostly negative and few positive self-​beliefs or simply an ambivalent or moderate response style. This work suggests that researchers should exercise caution when drawing inferences about cultural differences in self-​esteem (and other constructs) based on questionnaire data. The dialectical tendency to accept and expect change also influences response tendencies among members of highly dialectical cultures and can give rise to temporal and cross-​situational instability in dialectical thinkers’ questionnaire responses and behaviors (Church et  al., 2008, 2012; English & Chen, 2011; Oishi et al., 2004; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009a). Consequently, test-​retest reliabilities may be lower among those with a dialectical mindset, relative to those with a linear one (see Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010). The debate over whether the problem of cross-​cultural variation in response styles is or is not insurmountable in cross-​cultural research—​ and whether they render the existing documentation of cross-​cultural differences artifactual—​is ongoing. This topic has long been investigated by cross-​cultural scholars and psychometricians (e.g., Chen et al., 1995; Harkness et  al., 2002; Schmitt & Allik, 2005; van de Vijver & Leung, 1997), and a number of methodological tools, such as the testing of invariance (or measurement equivalence) with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, have been developed (Harkness et al., 2002). While these statistical tools can help researchers to identify potential cultural biases in their data sets, they are largely ineffectual in correcting for them. Therefore, the establishment of measurement equivalence is regarded as an important first step when conducting cross-​cultural analyses. The research on the role of dialectical thinking in shaping response styles raises questions about the utility of taking self-​report instruments developed in Western contexts and applying them in cross-​cultural contexts. The findings with the Rosenberg Self-​Esteem Scale, which Hamamura et  al. (2008) have shown were inextricably confounded with culturally

24 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

bound response styles (i.e., moderacy and ambivalence), are illustrative of the potential issues that can arise when a popular instrument is used in a different geographical region or cultural context, without consideration of how members of that region may respond to scale items. In light of the dialectical/​ambivalent response style, as suggested by Spencer-​Rodgers et al. (2004), scholars should consider assessing positive and negative dimensions of a given construct separately (e.g., favorable vs. unfavorable attitudes, positive vs. negative emotions) in highly dialectical cultures, as these dimensions may be orthogonal (e.g., Bagozzi et al., 1999). Stated differently, dialectical thinkers likely endorse multiple views of reality, thus the complexity of their cognitions and emotions may not be adequately captured in surveys that only tap a single dimension. For example, positive and negative attitudes may be distinct, even uncorrelated with each other, and correlate differently with other outcome variables. Furthermore, existing findings relating to cross-​cultural differences based on questionnaire data should be revisited and replicated with alternative measures (e.g., behavioral measures) included in the paradigm. This approach would help tease apart the universality from culture-​specificity of well-​established findings based on survey data.

Conclusion As summarized here, cultural psychologists have investigated a constellation of Confucian-​based lay epistemologies that have been dubbed “dialectical” (Peng & Nisbett, 1999)  and/​or “holistic” (Nisbett, 2003). We have sought to define East Asian dialectical thinking, differentiating naïve dialecticism from cognitive styles and orientations, as well as from related concepts, namely Western Hegelian and Marxist dialectical thinking, and other cultural variables, notably collectivism and interdependence. We reviewed the various methods scholars have used to measure and manipulate dialectical (and holistic) thinking, and we examined the conundrum that dialectical thinking (especially tolerance of contradiction) poses for cross-​cultural research based on survey methods. The remaining chapters in this volume speak to the numerous consequences of naïve dialecticism, for example, for self-​perception (Chapters  14 and 15), emotional experience (Chapter  18), racial identity (Chapter  16), coping processes (Chapter 20), and mental health (Chapter 19). Numerous avenues exist for future research. More experimental and behavioral studies are needed, especially in light of the challenges that dialectical tolerance of contradiction presents for survey research. People

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 25

could be primed to think dialectically or linearly (e.g., with Ma-​Kellams’ ScienceNOW prime), and following methods developed by Chen and colleagues (2014), their behaviors could be observed and coded to document whether they exhibit more (or less) contradictory and changeable qualities (e.g., extraversion and introversion). The naïve dialecticism and cognitive holism paradigms, as with most of the cross-​cultural psychological literature (Bond & Cheung, 1983; Oyserman et al., 2002; Shweder, 1999; Singelis, 1994), have relied heavily on college student samples, thus our findings and conclusions may be biased by the use of research participants who are young, urban, well educated, and from middle to high socioeconomic backgrounds. Future studies could investigate the relationship between dialectical thinking and various demographic variables, including age, education, income, population density, religion, political orientation, and so on. Lastly, while strides have been made in examining naïve dialecticism and cognitive holism outside of East Asia and English-​ speaking countries (e.g., Turkey, Italy, Colombia, United Arab Emirates; Crook, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng, 2014; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010b; Zell et al., 2012), much work needs to be done to document the nature and extent of dialectical and holistic thinking around the world.

Note 1. Note that the DSS does not measure the “holistic self” (the third principle of naïve dialecticism) or the extent to which the self is perceived to be interconnected with all living and nonliving things in the universe. Early scale development research indicated that this factor was only marginally correlated with the remaining three factors and, hence, it was excluded from the final version of the scale.

References Alter, A. L., & Kwan, V. S. Y. (2009). Cultural sharing in a global village: Evidence for extracultural cognition in European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(4), 742–​760. doi:10.1037/​a0014036 Argyle, M. (Ed.). (1988). Lay theories: Everyday understanding of problems in the social sciences (Vol. 15). St. Louis, MO: Oxford, Elsevier. Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). Inclusion of other in the Self Scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(4), 596–​612. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.63.4.596 Bachman, J. G., & O’Malley, P. M. (1984). Yea-​ saying, nay-​ saying, and going to extremes:  Black–​white differences in response styles. Public Opinion Quarterly, 48(2), 491–​509.

26 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Bagozzi, R. P., Wong, N., & Yi, Y. (1999). The role of culture and gender in the relationship between positive and negative affect. Cognition and Emotion, 13(6), 641–​672. doi:10.1080/​026999399379023 Bai, Y., Peng, K., & Yu, F. (2014). Chinese people’s implicit dialectical self: Results base on IAT measure. Advances in Psychological Science, 22(3), 418–​421. doi:10.3724/​ SP.J.1042.2014.00418 Basseches, M. (1980). Dialectical schemata:  A framework for the empirical study of the development of dialectical thinking. Human Development, 23(6), 400–​421. doi:10.1159/​000272600 Basseches, M. (1984). Dialectical thinking and adult development. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Basseches, M. (2005). The development of dialectical thinking as an approach to integration. Integral Review, 1(1), 47–​63. Bencivenga, E. (2000). Hegel´s dialectical logic. New York: Oxford University Press. Bond, M. H., & Cheung, T.-​S. (1983). College students’ spontaneous self-​concept: The effect of culture among respondents in Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 14(2), 153–​ 171. doi:10.1177/​ 0022002183014002002 Boucher, H. C., & O’Dowd, M. C. (2011). Language and the bicultural self. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17(2), 211–​216. doi:10.1037/​a0023686 Boucher, H. C., Peng, K., Shi, J., & Wang, L. (2009). Culture and implicit self-​ esteem: Chinese are “good” and “bad” at the same time. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 40(1), 24–​45. doi:10.1177/​0022022108326195 Brew, F. P., & Cairn, D. R. (1993). Styles of managing interpersonal workplace conflict in relation to status and face concern: A study with Anglos and Chinese. International Journal of Conflict Management, 15(1), 27–​56. Buchtel, E. E., & Norenzayan, A. (2009). Thinking across cultures: Implications for dual processes. In J. St. B. T. Evans & K. Frankish (Eds.), In two minds: Dual processes and beyond (pp. 217–​238). Oxford, UK:  Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/​ acprof:oso/​9780199230167.003.0010 Campbell, J. D., Trapnell, P. D., Heine, S. J., Katz, I. M., Lavallee, L. F., & Lehman, D. R. (1996). Self-​concept clarity:  Measurement, personality correlates, and cultural boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(1), 141–​156. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.70.1.141 Chan, C. (October 9, 2013). Chinese characters: Ying, yang. The Epoch Times. Retrieved from www.theepochtimes.com/​n3/​313856-​chinese-​characters-​yin-​yang-​陰-​陽/​ Chan, W.-​T. (1969). A sourcebook in Chinese philosophy. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press. Chen, C., Lee, S.-​Y., & Stevenson, H. W. (1995). Response style and cross-​cultural comparisons of rating scales among East Asian and North American students. Psychological Science, 6(3), 170–​175. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.1995.tb00327.x Chen, S. X., Benet-​Martinez, V., & Ng, J. C. K. (2014). Does language affect personality perception? A functional approach to testing the Whorfian hypothesis. Journal of Personality, 82(2), 130–​143. doi:10.1111/​jopy.12040 Chen, S. X., & Bond, M. H. (2010). Two languages, two personalities? Examining language effects on the expression of personality in a bilingual context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(11), 1514–​1528. doi:10.1177/​0146167210385360

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 27

Cheng, C. (2009). Dialectical thinking and coping flexibility: A multimethod approach. Journal of Personality, 77(2), 471–​494. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​6494.2008.00555.x Chiu, C.-​Y. (2000). Assessment of Zhong-​Yong (dialectic) thinking: Preliminary findings from a cross-​regional study. Hong Kong Journal of Social Sciences,18, 33–​54. Choi, I., Dalal, R., Kim-​Prieto, C., & Park, H. (2003). Culture and judgment of causal relevance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(1), 46–​59. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.84.1.46 Choi, I., Koo, M., & Choi, J. A. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(5), 691–​705. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167206298568 Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 890–​905. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.79.6.890 Choi, I., Nisbett, R. E., & Norenzayan, A. (1999). Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality. Psychological Bulletin, 125(1), 47–​63. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​2909.125.1.47 Chun, K.-​T., Campbell, J., & Yoo, J. (1974). Extreme response style in cross-​cultural research. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 4(5), 465–​ 480. doi:10.1177/​ 002202217400500407 Church, T. A., Alvarez, J. M., Katigbak, M. S., Mastor, K. A., Cabrera, H. F., Tanaka-​ Matsumi, J., . . . Buchanan, A. L. (2012). Self-​concept consistency and short-​term stability in eight cultures. Journal of Research in Personality, 46(5), 556–​570. doi:10.1016/​j.jrp.2012.06.003 Church, A. T., Katigbak, M. S., Reyes, J. A. S., Salanga, M. G. C., Miramontes, L. A., & Adams, N. B. (2008). Prediction and cross-​situational consistency of daily behavior across cultures:  Testing trait and cultural psychology perspectives. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(5), 1199–​1215. doi:10.1016/​j.jrp.2008.03.007 Cousins, S. D. (1989). Culture and self-​perception in Japan and the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(1), 124–​ 131. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.56.1.124 Crook, S., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2014). Dialectical thinking in Arabic-​, English-​, and Chinese-​speaking nations. Approches: Revue des Sciences Humaines, 14, 12–​27. English, T., & Chen, S. (2007). Culture and self-​concept stability:  Consistency across and within contexts among Asian Americans and European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(3), 478–​490. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.93.3.478 English, T., & Chen, S. (2011). Self-​concept consistency and culture:  The differential impact of two forms of consistency. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(6), 838–​849. doi:10.1177/​0146167211400621 Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Fink, J. L. (Ed.). (2012). The development of dialectic from Plato to Aristotle. New York: Cambridge University Press. Forster, M. (1993). Hegel’s dialectical method. In F. C. Beiser (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Hegel (pp. 130–​170). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Fraser, I. (1997). Two of a kind: Hegel, Marx, dialectic and form. Capital & Class, 21(1), 81–​106. doi:10.1177/​030981689706100105

28 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Furnham, A., & Henderson, M. (1983). Lay theories of delinquency. European Journal of Social Psychology, 13(2), 107–​120. doi:10.1002/​ejsp.2420130202 Gadamer, H.-​G. (1976). Hegel’s dialectic:  Five hermeneutical studies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Goetz, J. L., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2008). Dialectical emotions: How cultural epistemologies influence the experience and regulation of emotional complexity. In R. M. Sorrentino & S. Yamaguchi (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition across cultures (pp. 517–​539). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Goto, S. G., Ando, Y., Huang, C., Yee, A., & Lewis, R. S. (2010). Cultural differences in the visual processing of meaning: Detecting incongruities between background and foreground objects using the N400. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-​3), 242–​253. doi:10.1093/​scan/​nsp038 Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464–​1480. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.74.6.1464 Hamamura, T. (2004). Cultural difference in dialectical response style:  How much yes is in your yes? (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. doi: 10.14288/​1.0091822 Hamamura, T., Heine, S. J. & Paulhus, D. L. (2008). Cultural differences in response styles: The role of dialectical thinking. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(4), 932–​942. doi:10.1016/​j.paid.2007.10.034 Harkness, J. A., van de Vijver, F. J.  R., & Mohler, P. P. (2002). Cross-​cultural survey methods. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Hegel, G. W. F. (2001). The science of logic. Blackmask Online. Retrieved from http://​ www.hegel.net/​en/​pdf/​Hegel-​Scilogic.pdf. Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New  York:  John Wiley & Sons. Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). Culture, dissonance, and self-​affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 389–​400. doi:10.1177/​0146167297234005 Hong, Y.-​Y., Levy, S. R., & Chiu, C.-​Y. (2001). The contribution of the lay theories approach to the study of groups. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(2), 98–​106. doi:10.1207/​S15327957PSPR0502_​1 Hou, Y. B. (2004). Research on the structure of Chinese thinking styles and its influence (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Peking University, Beijing. Hou, Y. B., & Zhu, Y. (2002, August). The Chinese holistic thinking styles: Their structure and effect. Paper presented at the APA Annual Symposium, Chicago, IL. Huang, C.-​L., Lin, Y.-​C., & Yang, C.-​F. (2012). Revision of the Zhong Yong belief-​value scale. Indigenous Psychological Research in Chinese Society, 38, 3–​41. Hui, C. M., Fok, H. K., & Bond, M. H. (2009). Who feels more ambivalence? Linking dialectical thinking to mixed emotions. Personality and Individual Differences, 46(4), 493–​498. doi:10.1016/​j.paid.2008.11.022 Hui, C. H., & Triandis, H. C. (1989). Effects of culture and response format on extreme response style. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 20(3), 296–​309. doi:10.1177/​ 0022022189203004 Ishii, K. (2013). Culture and the mode of thought:  A review. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(2), 123–​132. doi:10.1111/​ajsp.12011

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 29

Ji, L.-​J., Nisbett, R. E., & Su, Y. (2001). Culture, change, and prediction. Psychological Science, 12(6), 450–​456. doi:10.1111/​1467-​9280.00384 Ji, L.-​J., Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(5), 943–​ 955. doi:10.1037//​0022-​3514.78.5.943 Jiang, F., Lu, S., Hou, Y., & Yue, X. (2013). Dialectical thinking and health behaviors: The effects of theory of planned behavior. International Journal of Psychology, 48(3), 206–​214. doi:10.1080/​00207594.2012.656130 Kashima, Y. (2009). Culture comparison and culture priming: A critical analysis. In R. S. Wyer, C.-​Y. Chiu, & Y.-​Y. Hong (Eds.), Understanding culture: Theory, research, and application (pp. 53–​77). New York: Psychology Press. Kashima, Y., Kashima, E., Chiu, C. -​Y., Farsides, T., Gelfand, M., Hong, Y. -​Y., . . . Yzerbyt, V. (2005). Culture, essentialism and agency: Are individuals universally believed to be more real entities than groups? European Journal of Social Psychology, 35(2), 147–​169. doi:10.1002/​ejsp.237 Kashima, Y., Siegal, M., Tanaka, K., & Kashima, E. S. (1992). Do people believe behaviours are consistent with attitudes? Towards a cultural psychology of attribution processes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31(2), 111–​124. doi:10.1111/​ j.2044-​8309.1992.tb00959.x Kelly, G. A. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs. New York: Norton. Kim, J.-​H., & Kim, J. (2015). The dynamics of polarization and compromise in conflict situations: The interaction between cultural traits and majority–​minority influence. Communication Monographs, 1–​14. doi:10.1080/​03637751.2015.1075655 Kim, K., & Markman, A. B. (2013). Individual differences, cultural differences, and dialectic conflict description and resolution. International Journal of Psychology, 48(5), 797–​808. doi:10.1080/​00207594.2012.711908 Kuhn, M. H., & McPartland, T. S. (1954). An empirical investigation of self-​attitudes. American Sociological Review, 19(1), 68–​76. doi:10.2307/​2088175 Lather, A. S., Jain, S., & Shukla, A. D. (2010). Cross cultural conflict resolution styles: An extensive literature review. [Special Issue]. Asian Journal of Management Research, 1, 130–​146. Lee, H. O., & Rogan, R. G. (1991). A cross-​cultural comparison of organizational conflict management behaviors. International Journal of Conflict Management, 2(3), 181–​ 199. doi:10.1108/​eb022698 Legge, J. (1873). Confucian analects, the great learning, and the doctrine of the mean. New York: Dover Books. Leu, J., Mesquite, B., Ellsworth, P. C., ZhiYong, Z., Huijuan, Y., Buchtel, E., . . . Masuda, T. (2010). Situational differences in dialectical emotions: Boundary conditions in a cultural comparison of North Americans and East Asians. Cognition and Emotion, 24(3), 419–​435. doi:10.1080/​02699930802650911 Leung, K. (1987). Some determinants of reactions to procedural models for conflict resolution: A cross-​national study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(5), 898–​908. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.53.5.898 Leung, K., & Lind, E. A. (1986). Procedural justice and culture: Effects of culture, gender, and investigator status on procedural preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(6), 1134–​1140. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.50.6.1134

30 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Li, L. M.  W., Masuda, T., & Russell, M. J. (2014). The influence of cultural lay beliefs:  Dialecticism and indecisiveness in European Canadians and Hong Kong Chinese. Personality and Individual Differences, 68, 6–​ 12. doi:10.1016/​ j.paid.2014.03.047 Lord, C. G., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1979). Biased assimilation and attitude polarization:  The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(11), 2098–​2109. doi:0022-​3514/​79/​3711-​2098 Lu, M., Hamamura, T., Doosje, B., Suzuki, S., & Takemura, K. (2016). Culture and group-​based emotions: Could group-​based emotions be dialectical? Cognition and Emotion, 25(1), 1–​13. doi:10.1080/​02699931.2016.1185394 Maddux, W. W., & Yuki, M. (2006). The “ripple effect”: Cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(5), 669–​683. doi:10.1177/​0146167205283840 Ma-​Kellams, C., & Blascovich, J. (2012). Enjoying life in the face of death: East-​West differences in responses to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(5), 773–​786. doi:10.1037/​a0029366 Ma-​Kellams, C., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2011). I am against us? Unpacking cultural differences in ingroup favoritism via dialecticism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(1), 15–​27. doi:10.1177/​0146167210388193 Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self:  Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–​253. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.98.2.224 Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 922–​934. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.81.5.922 Molden, D. C., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). Finding “meaning” in psychology: A lay theories approach to self-​regulation, social perception, and social development. American Psychologist, 61(3), 192–​203. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.61.3.192 Morris, M. W., Menon, T., & Ames, D. R. (2001). Culturally conferred conceptions of agency: A key to social perception of persons, groups, and other actors. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(2), 169–​182. doi:10.1207/​s15327957pspr0502_​7 Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attribution of physical and social events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 949–​971. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.67.6.949 Mueller, G. E. (1958). The Hegel legend of “thesis-​antithesis-​synthesis.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 19(3), 411–​414. doi:10.2307/​2708045 Nederhof, A. J. (1985). Methods of coping with social desirability bias: A review. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15(3), 263–​280. doi:10.1002/​ejsp.2420150303 Ng, A., & Hynie, M. (2014). Cultural differences in indecisiveness:  The role of naïve dialecticism. Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 45–​ 50. doi:10.1016/​ j.paid.2014.06.022 Ng, A. H., Hynie, M., & MacDonald, T. K. (2012). Culture moderates the pliability of ambivalent attitudes. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43(8), 1313–​1324. doi:10.1177/​0022022111429718 Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently  . . .  and why. New York: Free Press.

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 31

Nisbett, R. E., & Miyamoto, Y. (2005). The influence of culture:  Holistic versus analytic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(10), 467–​ 473. doi:10.1016/​ j.tics.2005.08.004 Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought:  Holistic vs. analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–​310. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.108.2.291 Norenzayan, A., Smith, E. E., Kim, B. J., & Nisbett, R. E. (2002). Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning. Cognitive Science, 26(5), 653–​684. doi:10.1207/​ s15516709cog2605_​4 Oishi, S., Diener, E., Napa Scollon, C., & Biswas-​Diener, R. (2004). Cross-​situational consistency of affective experiences across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(3), 460–​472. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.86.3.460 Ollman, B. (2003). Dance of the dialectic:  Steps in Marx’s method. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Oyserman, D., Coon, H. M., & Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Cultural psychology, a new look:  Reply to Bond (2002), Fiske (2002), Kitayama (2002), and Miller (2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128(1), 110–​117. doi:10.1037//​0033-​2909.128.1.110 Paletz, S. F., & Peng, K. (2009). Problem finding and contradiction:  Examining the relationship between naive dialectical thinking, ethnicity, and creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 21(2-​3), 139–​151. doi:10.1080/​10400410902858683 Paolucci, P. (2007). Marx’s scientific dialectics: A methodological treatise for a new century. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Parker-​Tapias, M., & Peng, K. (2001, August). Locating cultures in the theory of planned behavior. Paper presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention, San Francisco, CA. Paulhus, D. L., & Vazire, S. (2007). The self-​report method. In R. W. Robins, R. C. Fraley, & R. Krueger (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in personality psychology (pp. 224–​239). New York: Guilford Press. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54(9), 741–​754. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.54.9.741 Peng, K., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Zhong, N. (2006). Naïve dialecticism and the Tao of Chinese thought. In U. Kim & K.-​S. Yang (Eds.), Handbook of indigenous and cultural psychology (pp. 247–​262). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Piaget, J. (1972). The psychology of intelligence. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield. Piaget, J., & Garcia, R. (1989). Psychogenesis and the history of the sciences (H. Fielder, Trans.). Paris: Flamarion. (Original work published 1983.) Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J.-​Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879–​903. doi:10.1037/​ 0021-​9010.88.5.879 Riegel, K. F. (1973). Dialectical operations: The final period of cognitive development. Human Development, 16(5), 346–​370. doi:10.1159/​000271287 Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-​image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Russell, M. J. (2013). How salience of consistency norms affects individual differences in ambivalent answering in North Americans (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta.

32 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Schmitt, D. P., & Allik, J. (2005). Simultaneous administration of the Rosenberg Self-​ Esteem Scale in 53 nations: Exploring the universal and culture-​specific features of global self-​esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(4), 623–​642. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.89.4.623 Schnitker, S. A., & Emmons, R. A. (2013). Hegel’s thesis-​antithesis-​synthesis model. In A. L. C. Runehov & L. Oviedo (Eds.), Encyclopedia of sciences and religions (p. 978). Dordrecht, Netherlands:  Springer. doi:10.1007/​978-​1-​4020-​8265-​8_​ 200183 Shiota, M. N., Campos, B., Gonzaga, G. C., Keltner, D., & Peng, K. (2010). I love you but . . .: Cultural differences in complexity of emotional experience during interaction with a romantic partner. Cognition and Emotion, 24(5), 786–​799. doi:10.1080/​ 0269993 09029904 80 Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shweder, R. A. (1999). Why cultural psychology? Ethos, 27(1), 62–​73. doi:10.1525/​ eth.1999.27.1.62 Singelis, T. M. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-​ construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(5), 580–​591. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167294205014 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2009a). Cultural differences in self-​verification: The role of naïve dialecticism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 860–​866. doi:10.1016/​j.jesp.2009.03.004 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Mori, S. C., Wang, L., & Peng, K. (2009b). The dialectical self-​ concept:  Contradiction, change, and holism in East Asian cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(1), 29–​ 44. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167208325772 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2004). The dialectical self: Contradiction, change, and holism in the East Asian self-​concept. In R. M. Sorrentino, D. Cohen, J. M. Olson, & M. P. Zanna. (Eds.), Culture and social behavior: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 10, pp. 227–​249). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2010). Dialecticism and the co-​occurrence of positive and negative emotions across cultures. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 41(1), 109–​115. doi: 10.1177/​0022022109349508 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(11), 1416–​1432. doi:10.1177/​0146167204264243 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Srivastava, S., Boucher, H. C., English, T., Paletz, S. B., & Peng, K. (2018). The Dialectical Self Scale (Unpublished manuscript). Department of Psychology, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., Hamilton, D. L., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2007). Culture and group perception: Dispositional and stereotypic inferences about novel and national groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(4), 525–​543. doi: 10.1037/​0022-​3514.93.4.52 Spencer-​ Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction:  A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(3), 296–​312. doi: 10.1177/​ 1088868310362982

What Is Dialectical Thinking? 

| 33

Stastny, B. (2011). The relationship between dialecticism and mixed emotion (Unpublished manuscript). Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX. Szabo, L., Sawyer, J., Patton, A., & Spencer-​Rodgers, J. (2015, February). Construct validity of the Dialectical Self Scale: A meta-​analytic approach. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Long Beach, CA. Szabo, L. & Spencer-​Rodgers, J. (2014, July). A meta-​analysis of cultural differences on the Dialectical Self Scale. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the International Association for Cross-​Cultural Psychology, Reims, France. Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism & collectivism. New directions in social psychology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Triandis, H. C. (1996). The psychological measurement of cultural syndromes. American Psychologist, 51(4), 407–​415. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066x.51.4.407 Tsukamoto, S., Holland, E., Haslam, N., Karasawa, M., & Kashima, Y. (2015). Cultural differences in perceived coherence of the self and ingroup: A Japan–​Australia comparison. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 18(1), 83–​89. doi:10.1111/​ajsp.12090 van de Vijver, F. J. R., & Leung, K. (1997). Methods and data analysis for cross cultural research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Varnum, M. E.  W., Grossmann, I., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2010). The origin of cultural differences in cognition:  The social orientation hypothesis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 9–​13. doi:10.1177/​0963721409359301 Wang, F., Peng, K., Bai, Y., Li, R., Zhu, Y., Sun, P., . . . Sui, J. (2016). The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex modulates dialectical self-​thinking. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1–​9. doi:10.3389/​fpstg.2016.00152 Williams, P., & Aaker, J. L. (2002). Can mixed emotions peacefully coexist? Journal of Consumer Research, 28, 636–​649. doi:0093-​5301/​2002/​2804-​0008 Williams, P., & Aaker, J. (2018). When do mixed emotions reflect reality?, unpublished manuscript, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Wong, N., Rindfleish, A., & Burroughs, J. E. (2003). Do reverse-​worded items confound measures in cross-​cultural consumer research? The case of the Material Values Scale. Journal of Consumer Research, 30, 72–​91. doi:10.1086/​374697 Wong, Y. J., Ho, M.-​H. R., Li, P., Shin, M., & Tsai, P.-​C. (2011). Chinese Singaporeans’ lay beliefs, adherence to Asian values, and subjective well-​being. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(6), 822–​827. doi:10.1016/​j.paid.2011.01.003 Wu, C.-​H., & Lin, Y.-​C. (2005). Development of a Zhong-​Yong thinking style scale. Indigenous Psychological Research in Chinese Societies, 24, 247–​300. Yunis, H. (2009). Dialectic and the purpose of rhetoric in Plato’s Phaedrus. In Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, 24, 229–​248. doi:10.1163/​ ej.9789004177420.i-​310.53 Zell, E., Su, R., Li, H., Ho, M.-​H. R., Hong, S., Kumkale, T., . . . Abarracín, D. (2012). Cultural differences in attitudes toward action and inaction:  The role of dialecticism. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(5), 521–​528. doi:10.1177/​ 1948550612468774

34 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition



­C HAPTER 2

The Epistemology of Yin-​Yang Balancing as the Root of Chinese Cultural Traditions The Indigenous Features and Geocentric Implications Peter Ping Li

There is an emerging consensus that social research should adopt an interdisciplinary and multi-​ perspective approach (e.g., see Suddaby, Hardy, & Huy, 2011, for a review in the field of management). However, there is little evidence that scholars are actively responding to this shared vision, despite the repeated calls for such an integrative approach. The lack of evidence is arguably not because of the lack of motive or effort, but primarily due to the lack of ability given the methodology of logical analysis rooted in the epistemology of rational reductionism and the ontology of realism–​idealism separation, all of which are rooted in Western philosophical traditions. In particular, the “either/​or” logic (i.e., the epistemology of dualism or dichotomy) has generated hyper-​specialized knowledge that has resulted in increasingly impermeable boundaries between diverse disciplines (Morin, 2008). Today’s inherently and increasingly holistic and dynamic reality is forcing us to look for our “lost key” in a new place with new light. The new place is where the East and the West can meet, and the new light is the geocentric (the West-​East balance) meta-​paradigm (Li, 1998, 2008, 2012a; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). The real challenge is to discern how to achieve geocentric integration between the West and the East at the fundamental level of philosophy. The hope is that the philosophical traditions in the East will facilitate such an integration. In particular, the Eastern philosophy of wisdom has a unique

capacity to reframe any paradox from a negative problem (i.e., inconsistency to be resolved by dualism, in terms of separating opposite elements) to a positive solution (i.e., completeness to be achieved by duality, in terms of integrating opposite elements) and balance logical analysis with intuitive imagination. Extending the framework of exploration and exploitation (March, 1991), it is possible to integrate the Eastern philosophy of wisdom (science–​art integration for exploration) with the Western philosophy of knowledge (science–​art separation for exploitation) into a geocentric meta-​ paradigm of learning (to balance the separation and integration between science and art for exploration and exploitation), if we treat the Eastern and Western philosophical traditions as a duality, which refers to opposites-​in-​unity as partially conflicting and partially complementary (相生相克 in Chinese; Li, 2012a, 2012b, 2014a, 2016). From the outset, I need to make explicit here that the East here refers to the geographical areas traditionally influenced by ancient Chinese civilization, while the West refers to those areas traditionally influenced by ancient Greek civilization (Li, 2012a), with India and the Middle East as the bridges between the East and the West. Hence, “Chinese” and “Eastern” (primarily East Asia) will be used interchangeably. Further, the Eastern and Western philosophies I refer to here are the orthodox and traditional (dominant and mainstream) ones in the West and the East, so I will focus first on their distinction and later on their integration, even though I fully recognize the diversities within the East and the West, as well as the parallels between the East and West in terms of peripheral and emerging philosophies. The intent is not to discredit the philosophical tradition in the West but to expose its limitations or boundary conditions that have not yet been critically scrutinized. Further, my intent is not to overrate the philosophical tradition in the East but to reveal its value and potential contributions that remain largely unfamiliar to the West. Finally, the peripheral and emerging philosophies on each side of the East–​West divide (e.g., Western views on intuition and wisdom, and Eastern views on logic and rationality) are largely compatible with the orthodox and traditional philosophies on either side (e.g., Western views on logic and rationality, and Eastern views on intuition and wisdom). Thus, there is the possibility for an East–​West integration, albeit with an asymmetrical balance, with more emphasis on the Eastern philosophy of wisdom (Li, 2012a, 2012b; also see Chia & Holt, 2007; Jullien, 1998; Weick & Putnam, 2006). The purpose and contributions of this chapter are threefold: (1) to provide a tentative sketch of the Eastern philosophy of wisdom, in contrast to the Western philosophy of knowledge; (2) to provide a detailed elaboration

36 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

of the epistemology of yin-​yang balancing, in contrast to Western logic systems; and (3)  to provide a working framework in which to integrate the traditional Eastern and Western philosophies into a geocentric meta-​ paradigm. The central theme of this chapter is that the Eastern philosophy of wisdom is primarily concerned with the creation of novel knowledge and wisdom, with more open-​ended and more open-​minded exploration; in contrast, the Western philosophy of knowledge is more concerned with the evaluation of extant knowledge, with less open-​ended and less open-​ minded exploitation. Since creation and evaluation are both necessary for learning, the West can and must meet the East toward a geocentric integration of both Western and Eastern philosophies and paradigms. In the rest of the chapter I first explain why we need to tap into Eastern philosophical traditions and also sketch the Eastern philosophy of wisdom. Then I elaborate on the unique features of yin-​yang balancing as the epistemology of the Eastern philosophy of wisdom, comparing in particular yin-​yang balancing (the Eastern “either/​and” system) with Aristotle’s formal logic (the “either/​or” system) and Hegel’s dialectical logic (the “both/​ or” system) in the West, as well as with the “neither/​nor” and “both/​and” systems, which are naïve in nature. Finally, after identifying the indigenous sources of yin-​yang balancing, I discuss the potential for integrating the Eastern and Western philosophies into a geocentric meta-​paradigm, as well as the implications of this meta-​paradigm for future research.

The Eastern Philosophy of Wisdom: Tao, Yin-​Yang, and Wu March (1982) summarized the core features of the Western philosophy of knowledge as follows: Our cultural ideas of intelligence and our theories of choice . . . share three conspicuous interrelated ideas:  .  .  .  the pre-​existence of purpose  .  .  .  the necessity of consistency  .  .  .  the primacy of rationality  .  .  .  . These ideas are obviously deeply imbedded in the culture. Their roots extend into ideas that have conditioned much of modern western history and interpretations of that history. Their general acceptance is probably highly correlated with the permeation of rationalism and individualism into the style of thinking within the culture. (pp. 69–​71)

Despite its significant historical contributions, the Western philosophy of knowledge has its own share of critical limitations. As Morin (2008),

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 37

one of the most prominent contemporary philosophers in the West, pointed out, the Western philosophy of knowledge in the form of logical positivism “could not avoid playing the role of an epistemological policeman forbidding us to look precisely where we must look today, toward the uncertain, the ambiguous, and the contradictory” (p. 31). Hence, “instead of seeking to reconcile intuition with analysis, we have been content to sacrifice one of the two, and as analysis must remain impeccable, we have decided against intuition” (Poincaré, 1913/​1946, p. 52). Morin (2008) further noted that Western philosophy of knowledge, as the “old light,” had resulted in “a new ignorance related to the development of science itself” and, consequently, “a new blindness about the deteriorated use of reason” due to “the principles of disjunction, reduction, and abstraction” as the “paradigm of simplification,” which “has dominated the adventure of Western thought since the seventeenth century” (pp. 2–​3). Morin (2008) calls for a new paradigm of complexity with the “disturbing traits of a mess, of the inextricable, of disorder, of ambiguity, of uncertainty” to address “the paradox of the one and the many” (p. 5). This paradigm will go beyond the either/​or logic toward a “dialogic” that appreciates paradoxes, as well as “imagination, illumination, and creativity” (pp. 33–​34). In other words, we have to go beyond the Western philosophy of knowledge rooted in the old metaphor of mind-​as-​machine (or mind-​as-​mirror) toward a new metaphor of mind-​as-​organism (or mind-​as-​lamp; Bergson, 1911/​1944), with the latter being open-​ended, flexible, spontaneous, self-​organized, complex, ambiguous, intuitive, imaginative, and insightful (Miller, 1989; Runco, 2007; Stacey, 1996; Weick, 2006). This new metaphor can be readily found in the East, or East Asia more precisely, in the ancient Chinese philosophy of wisdom. Despite its great potential, the Chinese philosophy of wisdom remains foreign to the West, largely due to the less open-​ended bias of the Western philosophy of knowledge. As Watt indicated, “so long as the conscious intellect is frantically trying to clutch the world in its net of abstractions, and to insist that life be bound and fitted to its rigid categories, the mood of Taoism will remain incomprehensible; and the intellect will wear itself out” (Watt, 1957, p. 19). However, “if we seek a philosophical treatment of the notion of creativity unsullied by the demands of either scientific or theological rationality, we must look beyond the Whiteheadian system to the thought of Taoist China” (Hall, 1978, p.  274). In particular, we must reevaluate the roles of intuition and subconscious process because of their inherent connection to creativity, in the sense that “to reach the state of no-​thought, according to Taoism, means to reach the realm of creativity” (Chang, 1970,

38 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

p.  207). Hence, we need to explore the interplay between intuition and logic, the conscious and subconscious, as well as science and art, as dualities beyond the trap of separating the opposite elements as sharp dichotomies or dualisms (see Daston, 1998, for a review on the science–​art split; also see Chapter 9 for the link between creativity and paradox). Three themes are shared by all Chinese philosophies (and shared by other East Asian countries to varying degrees) in terms of ontology, epistemology, and methodology to constitute the philosophy of wisdom. First, the ancient Chinese embraced Tao in terms of “heaven-​human integration” (天人合一 in Chinese) as the shared ontology for all Chinese traditional philosophies. Tao refers to a complex world that is both objective and subjective (in balance) rather than separated. The macro-​level context is integrated with the micro-​level object, rather than being separated (e.g., the Chinese view of “field”). By symbolizing the “way,” Tao also refers to the dynamic process of self-​becoming in the context of chaos (Hall, 1978). This Chinese ontology differs from the dominant ontology in the West, with idealism and realism as dualism, as well as context and object as dualism. First, Tao endorses complexity as not only inevitable but also desirable. Second, the ancient Chinese embraced yin-​yang in terms of a cognitive system of balancing opposite elements (阴阳相生相克 in Chinese) as the shared epistemology for Chinese philosophies. This epistemology balances the trade-​off and synergy between opposite elements as both conflicting and complementary. So this epistemology differs categorically from the rational reductionism in Western epistemology, as framed in Aristotle’s formal logic and Hegel’s dialectic (see Li, 2014a, 2016, for reviews). In particular, the system of yin-​yang balancing endorses ambiguity as not only inevitable but also desirable for learning in all complex contexts. Third, the ancient Chinese embraced wu (i.e., intuitive imagination for insight via metaphor; 悟 or 悟性 in Chinese) as the shared methodology for all philosophies in China (Li, 2012b). Intuitive imagination refers to the unique process and outcome of exploratory learning, with intuition as the process of imagination, and insight as the outcome of imagination (Li, 2012b). Underlying the process of exploratory learning, intuitive imagination contains both gradual and sudden subprocesses, as well as both conscious and subconscious subprocesses. Specifically, intuitive imagination involves metaphor as the core mechanism in the pursuit of insight (Li, 2012b, 2014b). In sum, the three themes of Tao, yin-​yang, and wu, as the

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 39

trilogy of all Chinese philosophies, share an appreciation of ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty, not only as inevitable but also as desirable. This unique trilogy of ontology, epistemology, and methodology constitutes the Eastern philosophy of wisdom that balances completeness with consistency, in contrast to the overemphasis on consistency at the expense of completeness in the Western philosophy of knowledge. Here wisdom is a higher-​order knowing in terms of insight into deep and broad issues (e.g., learned ignorance as a balance between knowing and doubting, closely related to Taoism), in contrast to lower-​order knowing in terms of information about superficial and narrow issues (Chia & Holt, 2007; Feng, 1996; Li, 2012b, 2016; Meacham, 1990; Siu, 1957; Weick & Putnam, 2006; cf. Takahashi & Overton, 2005). Also, I  would emphasize the emergence quality in which wisdom derives from, but cannot be reduced to, knowledge. Hence, wisdom often requires unlearning (Chia & Holt, 2007; Li, 2014b). While the West embraces logical analysis as the methodology of science separated from art, the East seeks a balance between science and art toward an integrative methodology of wu. If we apply the Eastern philosophy of wisdom, especially the system of yin-​yang balancing, to the notion of ambiguity, we can gain novel insights into how to reframe ambiguity from being a negative problem to a positive solution, especially after the Western “flight from ambiguity” (Levine, 1985). In particular, the Eastern philosophy of wisdom treats ambiguity as inevitable and desirable for creativity in the context of complexity and uncertainty. Instead of referring to a large quantity of unrelated and static elements, complexity refers to a radical version with a holistic and dynamic set of qualitatively diverse (often incompatible) yet interrelated elements that require multiple and integrated frames of reference, thus consistent with the duality of diversity-​in-​unity (rather than the notion of “complicated” referring to the quantitative; Byers, 2007; cf. Morin, 2008). Although both complexity and uncertainty are tied to the incompleteness of knowledge as risk and imperfect knowability, with uncertainty being above and beyond risk (Knight, 1921), I would differentiate between complexity as the cause and uncertainty as the effect (cf. Knight, 1921; Walker et al., 2003). In this context, “in pursuit of knowledge, every day something is acquired; in pursuit of wisdom, every day something is dropped” (Lao Tzu, cited in Weick, 2006, p. 1728). Further, in the Western tradition, ambiguity refers to the status of a single concept or statement with multiple apparently unrelated meanings or interpretations, thus is a major problem of inconsistency (Atherton, 1993). Referring to ambiguity as “a lack of clarity or consistency in reality, causality, or intentionality” (p.  178), March (1994) clearly points out that

40 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

“neither rational theories of choice nor rule-​following theories of identity fulfillment deal particularly well with ambiguity. The contradictions, inconsistencies, and fuzziness of reality, preferences, and identities are largely ignored” (March, 1994, p.  192). However, the Chinese tradition has embraced ambiguity as inevitable and desirable (Gao, 1994; Liang, 1921/​1997; Yu, 2009). Ambiguity can be central to explaining complex issues if it is reframed as a multi-​frame integration toward open-​ended completeness, rather than as the fuzziness within a single frame toward close-​ended inconsistency (the latter generally assumed in the West; see Eisenberg, 2007; Lester & Piore, 2004; Levine, 1985; Stark, 2009, for exceptions). This can be illustrated by a three-​dimensional (3-​D) picture. Without 3-​D lenses, we only see a fuzzy picture; with 3-​D lenses, we can see a clear 3-​D image. This view of ambiguity is consistent with March’s insight that “ambiguity may be used to augment understanding through imagination” (March, 1994, p. 179). Thus, I call this positive ambiguity. The link between complexity and ambiguity can be further illustrated by the story about the elephant and blind men. Each of the six blind men believed that what he touched was the whole of the elephant so he thought all others were wrong. However, the truth is that the elephant is complex in the sense that it consists of multiple parts that require multiple frames and also their final blending for a holistic picture of the elephant. Hence, the link between complexity and ambiguity can be best captured by the shared duality of diversity-​in-​unity for the completeness–​consistency balance (Byers, 2007; Levine, 1985; cf. Klinke & Renn, 2002; Weick, 1995). I regard radical complexity as ontological in nature and positive ambiguity as epistemological in nature, so they are related to two distinctive features of uncertainty, with one being ontological and the other being epistemological (cf. Walker et al., 2003). In other words, ambiguity and complexity delineate different dimensions of uncertainty. Finally, I  regard the problem–​solution duality as the core of learning that embraces both wisdom (e.g., learned ignorance) and knowledge (e.g., scientific discovery), with the “problem” side focusing on framing problems and designing options and the “solution” side focusing on evaluating options and making choices (Simon et al., 1987). Further, the problem–​ solution duality is related to creativity when we refer to creativity generally as “a special class of problem solving activity characterized by novelty, unconventionality, persistence and difficulty in problem formulation” (Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 1962, p. 66). A related construct is the emerging stream on design thinking (Cross, 2001, 2011; Martin, 2009; Schön, 1983). At the core of creativity, design thinking extends beyond

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 41

the traditional linear problem-​solving to problem–​solution co-​evolution (Dorst & Cross, 2001), especially in the contexts of complexity and ambiguity (Lester & Piore, 2004; Stark, 2009). In addition to their shared features of tacit content and intuitive process (Polanyi, 1958; Vaughan, 1979), design thinking and creativity are concerned with “ill-​structured” (Newell et al., 1962; Simon, 1973) or “wicked” problems (Buchanan, 1992; Rittel & Webber, 1973). This is also related to the strategic role of heuristic as a simple rule of thumb (Ray & Myers, 1986; Bingham & Eisenhardt, 2011; Bingham & Haleblian, 2012). Hence, I  see multiple parallels between the Eastern philosophy of wisdom and Western research on creative learning in general and design thinking in particular (Li, 2012b, 2014b), especially the critical roles of ambiguity (Levine, 1985) and unlearning (Chia & Holt, 2007).

The East Asian Epistemology of Yin-​Yang Balancing The Unique Challenge of Paradox It is increasingly accepted that reality is complex with diverse elements, with many aspects being real opposites (as tensions that abound in the real world), in their complex links of interdependence, interpenetration, interaction, and intertransformation (Bar-​Yam, 1997; Bohm, 1980). However, likely due to the dual-​hemispheric structure of our brain (possibly related to our bipedal body; McGilchrist, 2009; Shlain, 1998), we tend to polarize real opposites into simplified pairs of mental opposites. This involves reducing the complexity of their relationships through spatial or temporal separation (Estes, 1994; Lloyd, 1966). However, such mental opposites tend to be so simplified that they distort reality beyond recognition (Kelso & Engstrom, 2006). It is my argument that polarization will result in paradoxes or contradictions if we apply simplified mental opposites to complex real opposites. In this sense, paradox is an outcome of our mental polarization (Lewis, 2000; cf. Smith & Lewis, 2011). Paradox refers to the coexistence of mental opposites that are contradictory yet interrelated (Lewis, 2000; Poole & Van de Ven, 1989). To manage paradox, an epistemological system as a mode of thinking is needed. It is increasingly recognized that our reality today is more interconnected and changing quickly (more holistic and dynamic in nature), thus more complex and ambiguous, all of which makes our reality today more uncertain than before (Morin, 2008). Further, one of the biggest challenges presented by this increasingly uncertain reality is the need to balance inherently contradictory or

42 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

paradoxical elements, including what is united with what is diverse in spatial terms, as well as what is stable with what is flexible in temporal terms (Kelso & Engstrom, 2006). In other words, the interdependence, interaction, and interpenetration between real opposites are so strong that any sharp separation (either spatial or temporal) of mental opposites is no longer sufficient for an adequate understanding of reality today. Hence, we need an epistemological system that can fully appreciate and accommodate paradox in our understanding of both natural and social realities.

The Weaknesses of the Western Epistemological Systems There are two core epistemological systems in the West. The first is a mechanistic system with an absolute and full separation of opposite elements (in both spatial and temporal terms) so as to avoid and deny paradox. The most prevailing epistemological system in the West, and in the world, is Aristotle’s formal logic—​the either/​or system. Underlying the explicit denial and rejection of paradox, there are three logical laws in this system: (1) the law of identity, (2) the law of non-​contradiction, and (3) the law of the excluded middle (see Figure 2.1; Brenner, 2008; Li, 2008; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). The law of identity states that any concept must be absolutely identical to itself. The law of non-​contradiction claims that no concept can be both identical and different. The law of the excluded middle posits that any statement must be either absolutely true or absolutely false. The prevailing Western epistemological system is deeply rooted in these three laws of Aristotle’s formal logic. In other words, Aristotle’s formal logic is basically a mechanistic, reductionist, and analytical system that avoids and denies paradox, with an absolute and full separation of mental opposites, thus either/​or logic (Li, 2012a). However, paradox cannot be avoided and denied. According to Gödel’s theorems, ultimate completeness and ultimate consistency are mutually exclusive (Van Heijenoort, 1963). For ultimate consistency (at the expense of ultimate completeness), formal logic treats mental opposites as mutually exclusive discrete categories, rather than as a balanced unity of opposites within a continuum. Hence, either/​or logic cannot lead to true completeness given its exclusive focus on consistency (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016); thus this system is insufficient for a holistic understanding of our complex reality. The second core system in the West is a revised mechanistic system with an absolute and full integration of all compatible aspects of opposite elements (in spatial terms), as well as an absolute and full separation of all conflicting aspects of opposite elements (in spatial terms), in

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 43

a process known as sublation (扬弃 in Chinese). This system only temporarily tolerates paradox at the initial phase, but it ultimately rejects paradox at the final phase. This is Hegel’s dialectical logic, the “both/​ or” system. As an alternative to Aristotle’s formal logic, Hegel’s dialectical logic appears to accept and embrace paradox. However, the emerging view is that dialectical logic is only superficially incompatible, but fundamentally consistent, with Aristotle’s formal logic, owing to their shared goal of paradox resolution (Brenner, 2008; Hibben, 1902/​2000; Kelso & Engstrom, 2006; Smith & Lewis, 2011). In other words, while Aristotle’s either/​or system takes paradox as problematic at all times, Hegel’s both/​or system takes paradox as temporarily tolerable, and even desirable, but ultimately problematic. In this sense, Hegel only allows for the temporary existence of paradox (as a transitional phase) within a recursive process of “negation,” with the ultimate resolution of paradox (at the higher level as sublation). Sublation retains the compatible elements of paradox but removes the conflicting elements, so as to ultimately resolve the paradox at the higher level (Brenner, 2008; Hibben, 1902/​2000; Kelso & Engstrom, 2006; Smith & Lewis, 2011). Hence, Hegel’s dialectical logic is an ultimately mechanistic, reductionist, and analytical system to resolve paradox in a recursive process of negation. It is only temporarily both/​and, and is ultimately either/​or. For this reason, I call it both/​or logic. Similar to the either/​or logic, Hegel’s dialectical logic accepts only temporary completeness, but embraces ultimate consistency, at the expense of ultimate completeness. Mental opposites are temporarily balanced in a continuum but ultimately become mutually exclusive discrete categories. In sum, Hegel’s both/​or system also avoids and denies the ultimate possibility of paradox, so it is fundamentally compatible with Aristotle’s either/​or logic (see Table 2.1; cf. Basseches, 1984; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Hence, one might argue that it is truly “more confusing than helpful” to frame yin-​yang balancing as dialectical (Peng & Nisbett, 2000, p. 1067). Further, more recent theoretical attempts to accommodate paradoxes, including paraconsistent logic and fuzzy logic, are closely related to Hegel’s dialectical logic, so they suffer from the same limitations in terms of their shared failure to realize that paradoxes are inevitable and natural mental reflections of complex reality (Brenner, 2008; Kelso & Engstrom, 2006; Zhang, 2011). In short, the prevailing and alternative epistemological systems in the West have inherent limitations; they are thus ill-​equipped to appreciate and accommodate paradoxes. We need to look to the East for potentially better alternatives.

44 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Table 2.1 Similarities and Distinctions between Three Core Epistemological Systems* Three Logical Systems and Themes

Aristotle’s Formal Logic

Hegel’s Dialectical Logic (Paradox Resolvable)

Yin-​Yang Balancing (Holistic–​Dynamic–​Duality-​Rooted)

Law of Identity (for subject at the concept level)

A = A (absolutely identical)

A = A′ (absolutely different)

A ≈ A (relatively identical and relatively different)

Law of Non-​ Contradiction (for subject at the concept level)

A ≠ –​A (absolute dualism; explicit dualism; consistent but incomplete)

A → –​A (absolute dualism; absolute, but temporary contradiction as implicit dualism; only as the means to the end or goal of non-​contradiction)

A ≈ A + –​A (minor) (relative duality; relative but permanent contradiction as duality; both means and end; complete and consistent as contrary and complementary)

Law of the Excluded Middle (for predicate at the statement level)

X = A or –​A (absolute “either/​or”; consistent but incomplete)

A + –​A → A′ as X (absolute “both/​or”; contradiction must be resolved at the higher level as sublation or transcendence)

X ≈ A ←→ –​A (Relative “either/​and”; contradiction cannot be resolved and need not be resolved, as contrary and complementary at the same level and at the same time)

Illustrations

A

or

–A

A

+

–A

×

A

–A

*notes: 1. The notions of “absolute” and “relative” refer to the degree or extent of separation (or integration) of mental opposites, with full or 100% as “absolute” and partial or less than 100% as “relative.” 2. The notion of “dualism” refers to an absolute separation (spatial or temporal) of mental opposites as fully contradictory, while the notion of “duality” refers to a relative separation, as well as a relative integration, between mental opposites as contrary yet compatible. 3. The “both/​or” system refers to a temporary tolerance for, but an ultimate rejection of, paradox via sublation as the solution (thus a superficial integration of the “both/​and” and “either/​or” systems), while the “either/​and” system refers to a permanent and ultimate balance between mental opposites as a duality (thus a deep-​level balance between the revised [in relative terms] “either/​or” and “both/​and” systems). 4. This table is adapted from Li (2012a).

The Strengths of the Eastern Epistemological System Fundamentally different from the two systems in the West, the Eastern (East Asian) system is an organic system with a relative or partial integration, as well as a relative or partial separation (in both spatial and temporal terms), that appreciates and accommodates paradox. This is yin-​yang balancing as the “either/​and” system (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016). Among the three systems, the first (Aristotelian) historically has been the prevailing system that has functioned well until now in the West; the second (Hegelian) has remained marginalized in the West, despite its fundamental compatibility with the first system; the third has been virtually ignored in the West until recently, largely because it originated from East Asia and thus is assumed to be “primitive” or “naïve” according to the criteria of Western philosophy (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Wong, 2006). The system of yin-​yang balancing, as informally derived from the Yijing (the Book of Changes), is the root of all Chinese traditional philosophies shared by all schools of thought in history, including Confucianism, Taoism, and other schools (Graham, 1989; Needham, 1958; Schwartz, 1973). Further, among all Chinese philosophical ideas, the system of yin-​ yang balancing has had the largest influence on scholars in the West in recent history (Graham, 1989; Needham, 1958; Schwartz, 1973). Despite its historical origin in shamanism, the system of yin-​yang balancing is neither a form of mysticism for divination (Zhang, 1991) nor a “primitive mentality” (Lloyd, 2007; Zhang, 2011). I  share the emerging view that the Eastern system of yin-​yang balancing is at least as equally advanced as the epistemological systems in the West, if not more so (Cheng, 1977; Graham, 1986; Li, 1998, 2008, 2012a, 2014a, 2016; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Schwartz, 1973; Smith & Lewis, 2011; Tian, 2002; Wong, 2006). Further, some scholars characterize the system of yin-​yang balancing as a unique Eastern version of dialectical logic, but they admit that yin-​yang balancing is fundamentally distinct from the dialectical systems in the West (e.g., Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Wong, 2006). I would further posit unequivocally that yin-​yang balancing is not a special version of dialectical logic but a unique system of its own (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016). The system of yin-​yang balancing serves as the epistemological part of the Chinese philosophy of wisdom. The system is related to the Chinese ontology of Tao as “heaven-​human integration,” in the sense that the system holds the key to Tao as a duality of both objective realism and subjective idealism. In other words, Tao can be understood as the ultimate pattern of existence, shared by both the natural and social worlds. With

46 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

this ultimate pattern, both the natural and social worlds are subject to the same duality of diversity-​in-​unity, so that all opposite elements always coexist in an interdependent, interactive, and interpenetrative manner to achieve both natural and social harmonies. Hence, the pattern of yin-​yang balancing is at the core of Tao as the objective–​subjective duality, such that a balance between realism and idealism can be achieved as the “heaven-​ human integration.” Also, the system is related to the Chinese methodology of wu, in the sense that the system provides the key to wu as a duality of both rational science and nonrational art, to facilitate intuitive imagination. In contrast to the Western notion of expertise intuition as “analyses frozen into habit” (Simon, 1987, p.  63), and different from the Western notion of creative intuition (Goldberg, 1989; Sinclair, 2011), wu covers both the content and process of intuitive imagination, with metaphor as its core mechanism for insight for exploratory learning. Metaphor refers to a special type of inference or reasoning through the similarities and differences in certain properties between two entities that are not causally linked (Gentner & Bowdle, 2008; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). While metaphor may be the most ancient mode of learning in many cultures (Lloyld, 2007), it remains central to the Chinese today (Gao, 1994; Liang, 1921/​1997; Zhou, 2010). The Chinese methodology of wu (intuitive imagination via metaphor to “jump” from the known to the unknown) is contrary, yet complementary, to the Western methodology of rational or logical analysis (via deduction or induction), with the two constituting a duality. The unique nature of wu can be captured by its tacit content in terms of knowing more than one can tell (Polanyi, 1958) and intuitive process in terms of knowing more than one is aware (Vaughan, 1979). In a crude sense, wu applies artistic approaches to scientific issues. Hence, the pattern of yin-​yang balancing is at the core of wu as a science–​art duality, with intuition serving as the bridging interface between science and art. This feature is reflected in the construct of design thinking (Cross, 2011; Martin, 2009). As an open epistemological system (Gu, 2005), yin-​yang balancing derives from a holistic and dynamic metaphysics in the East, in contrast to the reductionist and linear metaphysics in the West, but it is consistent with the marginalized stream on organicism in the West, from Leibniz to Bohr (Graham, 1989; Needham, 1956–​2008; Schwartz, 1973). The system of yin-​yang balancing has three core tenets (Gao, 1994; Li, 1998, 2008; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). The first is the tenet of holistic content with a spatial balancing to reflect the complex interdependence and interpenetration between opposite elements (i.e., mutually inclusive, with partial overlaps in spatial terms) (Tian, 2002), thus only allowing a partial spatial

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 47

separation of mental opposite elements, rather than a full spatial separation. In other words, the holistic tenet posits that a phenomenon or a theory cannot be complete without some opposite elements. This is consistent with Gödel’s theorems that a complete theory cannot be internally consistent, while a consistent theory is inherently incomplete (van Heijenoort, 1963), but it extends beyond systems theory (Ashmos & Huber, 1987). The second core tenet is that of dynamic process with a temporal balancing to reflect the complex interaction and intertransformation between opposite elements (i.e., mutually inclusive, with partial overlaps in temporal terms) (Tian, 2002), thus only allowing a partial temporal separation of mental opposites, rather than a full temporal separation. In other words, the dynamic tenet posits that opposite elements will mutually transform into each other under specific conditions. This is compatible with the theory of structuration (Giddens, 1984), but it extends beyond the perspective of punctuated equilibrium (Gersick, 1991). The third is the tenet of duality-​rooted integration with mental opposites as opposites-​in-​unity (thus contrary yet complementary), via mutual negation and mutual affirmation in relative terms. Mutual negation in relative terms refers to a partial separation of the conflicting elements of mental opposites in different “spatial” aspects and levels, or at different temporal stages and steps. Mutual affirmation in relative terms refers to a partial integration of the complementary elements of mental opposites in both spatial and temporal terms. Duality-​rooted integration serves as the underlying anchor for the other two tenets (Li, 2008, 2012a) and also is central to the research on both “spatial” content and the temporal process of emergence in all complex systems (Brenner, 2008; Kelso & Engstrom, 2006). Specifically, the tenet of duality-​rooted integration posits that the holistic and dynamic tenets can only stand because opposite elements can coexist as a duality. Specifically, I  refer to duality as a pair of contrary (relatively contradictory) yet complementary (above and beyond interrelatedness) opposites-​in-​unity (相生相克 in Chinese) that partially affirm (相生 in Chinese, for relative consistency and equilibrium) and partially negate (相克 in Chinese, for relative completeness and punctuated shift). The duality-​rooted tenet is related to, yet goes above and beyond, the lens of paradox (cf. Lewis, 2000; Poole & Van de Ven, 1989; Smith & Lewis, 2011). Reciprocally, the duality-​rooted tenet is also made possible by the other tenets: by the interdependence and interpenetration between opposite elements as related to the holistic tenet, as well as by the interaction and intertransformation between opposite elements as related to the dynamic tenet (Li, 1998, 2008, 2012a, 2014a, 2016).

48 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

The Interrelationships between Paradox, Dualism, and Duality It is worth noting that relative term is the key to the unique strength of yin-​yang balancing as duality, in contrast to the dualism that is implied in the Western systems as the means to resolve paradox. By “relative term” I mean that two opposite elements are not framed as mutually exclusive or separable (also not as mutually inclusive or integrative) in absolute terms (both spatially and temporally). On the surface, duality seems similar to paradox, but they are fundamentally distinct because the former is a relative construct, while the latter is an absolute one. Further, dualism, as an absolute construct, is only superficially different from paradox, and they are fundamentally compatible. However, from the perspective of yin-​yang balancing, dualism and paradox can be revised from two absolute constructs into two relative constructs. The revised relative versions of dualism and paradox can be integrated as a duality in terms of an either/​and system, with the revised dualism as the either part and the revised paradox as the and part. Further, there are two subtly distinct versions of duality in the West, either as an integration of complementary opposite elements (e.g., Farjoun, 2010; Jackson, 1999) or as an integration of opposite elements that are conflicting and complementary (e.g., Giddens, 1984). The first version is consistent with Hegel’s both/​or system, while the second version is consistent with yin-​yang balancing as the either/​and system. In line with the duality of structure, Giddens (1984) explicitly pointed out that the constitutions of agents and structures are not two independently given sets of phenomena, a dualism, but represent a duality. According to the notion of the duality of structure, the structural properties of social systems are both medium and outcome of the practices they recursively organize. Structure is not “external” to individuals . . . it is in a certain sense more “internal” than exterior to their activities . . . . Structure is not to be equated with constraint but is always both constraining and enabling. (p. 25)

In this sense, duality is consistent with the revised relative notions of paradox and dualism in their relative senses. In other words, duality can be regarded as a balance between paradox and dualism reframed as two relative, rather than absolute, constructs. Based on the preceding argument, it can be posited that the central distinction between yin-​yang balancing and Hegel’s dialectical logic lies in three critical aspects. First, while Hegel’s dialectical logic treats paradox

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 49

as only temporarily necessary but as ultimately resolvable (i.e., temporarily complementary, but ultimately conflicting, thus the need for resolution via sublation), yin-​yang balancing embraces paradox fully as permanently necessary because it is not only conflicting but also complementary, both spatially and temporally (i.e., permanent yet relative paradox) (Li, 2012a; cf. Peng & Nisbett, 1999). In other words, yin-​yang balancing rejects sublation as neither feasible nor desirable because positive and negative elements are inseparable. Second, yin-​yang balancing also rejects the dialectical notion of absolute negation because negation is not only context-​specific but also relative, given the duality-​rooted nature of opposite elements as partially conflicting and partially complementary. Third, yin-​yang balancing frames the trade-​off and synergy between opposite elements as endogenous, because each opposite contains the “seed” of the other opposite, while Hegel’s dialectical logic frames such trade-​off and synergy as exogenous, with each opposite starting as a pure entity with a full identity. Hence, yin-​yang balance differs fundamentally from Hegel’s dialectical logic, and it is the only system available to fully appreciate and accommodate paradox by reframing paradox as duality (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016). Specifically, the Eastern notion of duality (rooted in the either/​and system) is distinct from the Western notion of paradox (rooted in the both/​or system) in three aspects (Li, 2008, 2012a, 2014a, 2016; cf. Chen, 2002, 2008; Lewis, 2000; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Smith & Lewis, 2011). First, the notion of duality starts with the assumption that each of the opposite elements contains the seed of the other, which is the basis for their nonseparable interdependency and partial identity, given their overlap. In contrast, the notion of paradox starts with the assumption that each opposite is an independent entity (a full identity initially) and is only integrated after the opposite elements meet later. Second, the notion of duality maintains that neither side can fully transform itself into the other side. This relative partial transformation is the basis for their recursive and duality-​ rooted interaction. In contrast, the notion of paradox maintains that each side can fully transform itself into the other, so they will maintain their well-​defined identities at the end of the transformation process. Third, the notion of duality posits that opposite elements are partially complementary and partially conflicting, so they do not need, and never achieve, an ultimate solution. Moreover, the dual effects of being partially complementary and partially conflicting (相生相克 in Chinese) require perpetual rebalancing actions.

50 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

In contrast, the notion of paradox posits that opposite elements are in a vicious cycle of conflict, thus in need of an ultimate resolution in terms of sublation or transcendence (by keeping the complementary parts but deleting the conflicting parts at the higher level in a spiral process). As a result, the Western both/​or system and the related notion of paradox fail to provide any real alternative to the prevailing either/​or system, whereas the Chinese “either/​and” system and the related notion of duality can be such an alternative. In other words, the Eastern notion of duality-​rooted systems takes the coexistence of opposite elements as an endogenous form of self-​contradiction, as well as a moderate form of contradiction, while the Western notion of paradox takes the coexistence of opposite elements as an exogenous form of imposed contradiction, as well as a strong (in the case of either/​or logic) or weak (in the case of both/​or logic) form of contradiction (Li, 2012a; Tian, 2002). In this sense, we can regard the Western and Eastern systems as two sides of a geocentric epistemology, with the Western systems being better at analyzing mechanistic issues and the Eastern system better at synthesizing organic issues (Jullien, 1998; Li, 2012b; Weick & Putnam, 2006). In sum, the Western notion of paradox is related to both Aristotle’s formal logic for the strong form of paradox (due to the absolute or full separation of opposite elements) and Hegel’s dialectical logic for the weak form of paradox (due to the absolute or full integration of the compatible aspects of opposite elements, as well as the absolute or full separation of the conflicting aspects of opposite elements). The Eastern notion of duality is associated with yin-​yang balancing as a moderate form of paradox, with partial integration and partial separation, similar to the two sides of the same coin or conjoined twins. Further, the unique value of yin-​yang balancing lies in its ability to complement and supersede Aristotle’s formal logic of either/​or as the explicit dualism, as well as Hegel’s dialectical logic of both/​or as an implicit dualism. First, yin-​yang balancing can accommodate the either/​ or logic as a source of necessary and complementary input for yin-​yang balancing. Specifically, the either/​or logic can first separate mental opposites as dualisms, which serve as the building blocks for yin-​yang balancing to integrate and leverage opposites. Second, yin-​yang balancing can transform the both/​or logic of Hegel as a simplified process of integration. As an implicit dualism, the both/​or logic seeks to resolve paradox by fully separating incompatible aspects spatially (also fully separating compatible aspects from incompatible aspects) while fully integrating

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 51

those compatible aspects spatially (e.g., the well-​known process of thesis → antithesis → synthesis as the solution of sublation, which retains compatible aspects, while deleting conflicting aspects) (Hibben, 1902/​2000). The system of yin-​yang balancing can reconstruct the both/​or logic by turning absolute or full integration and separation into relative or partial integration and separation, to systematically reflect the interdependence, interaction, and interpenetration between true opposite elements. The key to the ability of yin-​yang balancing to transform the two Western systems is that yin-​yang balancing adopts the relative stance toward separation and integration (in managing paradox), in contrast to the absolute stance adopted by the latter two Western systems (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016; cf. Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzanan, 2001). The above distinctions between the Eastern and Western cognitive systems are richly reflected in the ongoing debates over how to manage paradoxes in general (see Schad, Lewis, Raisch, & Smith, 2016; Smith & Lewis, 2011, for reviews; e.g., Smets, Jarzabkowski, Burke, & Spee, 2015), and how to balance exploration and exploitation as two modes of learning in particular (Levinthal & March, 1993; March, 1991). As one of the core paradoxes in the domain of management, the balance between exploration and exploitation is often referred to as organizational ambidexterity (see Gupta, Smith, & Shalley, 2006; Lavie, Stettner, & Tushman, 2010; Raisch & Birkinshaw, 2008, for reviews). To further operationalize the system of yin-​yang balancing, we need to go beyond the three core tenets of holistic content, dynamic process, and duality-​rooted integration at the philosophical level. At the application level, there are three operating mechanisms of yin-​yang balancing (Li, 2012b, 2014a, 2016). These mechanisms derive from two core assumptions: (1) paradox cannot be resolved, but it can be effectively managed, and (2) yin-​yang balancing cannot be applied as context-​free, but it can be applied as context-​specific with specific boundary conditions. One boundary condition is the overall function with specific opposite subtypes, such as the goal of innovation (with radical and incremental innovation as two subtypes) and the goal of competitive advantage (with low cost and high value as two subtypes). First, after the relative (partial) separation of opposite means for opposite ends (e.g., two subgoals within an overall goal), the interdependence and interpenetration of opposite elements require one of the opposite elements to play the dominant role in performing one specific function (e.g., a subgoal) because this opposite element is compatible with the specific function given their positive association (e.g., exploitation for incremental innovation, in contrast to exploration for radical innovation),

52 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

while the other opposite element will play the subordinate role in performing the same specific function because this element is incompatible with the specific function (e.g., exploration for incremental innovation in contrast to exploitation for radical innovation). It is worth noting that the dominant–​subordinate mix occurs at two different levels: one at the level of one overall goal (with a dominant–​subordinate mix of opposite subgoals), and the other at the level of each subgoal (with a dominant–​subordinate mix of opposite means). Related to the holistic tenet that opposite elements always coexist with distinctive yet integrative roles for the same function, I call the first operating mechanism asymmetrical balancing. Second, the subordinate opposite will be related to the dominant opposite in an inverted U-​shaped nonlinear pattern, with their interaction effect on the specific function:  the subordinate opposite is the least complementary and the least conflicting when it is at a low level (because the gap between opposite elements is large); it is the most conflicting, but the least complementary, when it is at a high level (because the gap between opposite elements is small); it is the most complementary, but the least conflicting, when it is at a moderate level (because the gap between opposite elements is moderate). In other words, an effective balance is a mix of opposite elements at their respective moderate levels (i.e., about 60–​70% for the dominant element and about 40–​30% for the subordinate element; Lin, Lu, Li, & Liu, 2015), which is consistent with the golden rule of balanced harmony (Chen & Miller, 2011; Li, 1998, 2012a). In other words, when opposite elements are both at a high level in the same spatial aspect and at the same temporal stage, they tend to have high conflict in their interaction as unhealthy tension, but they will be in good balance as healthy tension when one opposite element is at a high level and the other is at a moderate level. This notion is subtly different from the “too-​much-​of-​a-​good-​thing” effect (Pierce & Aguinis, 2013), because a balance between opposite elements is different from a single element in isolation. Related to the duality-​rooted tenet that opposite elements are both complementary and conflicting in relative or partial terms, I call the second operating mechanism curvilinear balancing. The third operating mechanism of yin-​yang balancing is that the interaction and intertransformation of opposite elements tend to trigger a dynamic shift in the relative statuses of opposite elements from a dominant role to a subordinate role, or vice versa. This shift is largely due to the external shift in the priority status of a specific subgoal, which will trigger a matched shift from one type of asymmetrical balance to another

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 53

(e.g., from the dominant role of exploration for radical innovation to its subordinate role for incremental innovation, or vice versa). Further, internal dynamics can also trigger such a shift. A weak subordinate element can increase from a low level to a moderate level, either pulled by a strong dominant element or pushed by its own force. However, the empowered subordinate element can go beyond the threshold or inflection point at the moderate level to a high level, thus resulting in high trade-​off but low synergy. Finally, the point of threshold is so sensitive and volatile that a swift switch in the relative status between dominant and subordinate roles is often desirable. Related to the dynamic tenet that opposite elements tend to switch between their respective roles, I call the third operating mechanism transitional balancing. In sum, these three operating mechanisms share one central theme: that opposite elements are always partially complementary and partially conflicting (相生相克 in Chinese), so they must seek their holistic and dynamic balance within the boundary of a given threshold, which is primarily delineated by the shifting priorities of opposite subgoals within an overall goal. The idea of threshold is central to yin-​yang balancing here: any change within the boundary of a threshold (as a quantitative, often sustainable, change) is largely positive with synergy, while any change beyond the boundary of a threshold (as a qualitative, often unsustainable, change) is largely negative with trade-​off (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016; see Figure 2.1 for illustrations of the three mechanisms, Jing & Van de Ven, 2014).

The Distinction between “Both/​And” and “Either/​And” If I  place the recognition or denial of conflict or trade-​ off (相克 in Chinese) between opposite elements as one dimension, and the recognition or denial of complementarity or synergy (相生 in Chinese) between opposite elements as the other dimension, five cognitive or logical systems can be specified along the two dimensions (cf. Peng & Nisbett, 1999): (1) the neither/​nor system (denying both trade-​off and synergy between true opposite elements; 既不相克也不相生 in Chinese), thus rejecting paradox; (2)  the both/​and system (recognizing synergy, but denying trade-​ off, between false opposite elements; 只相生却不相克 in Chinese), thus rejecting paradox; (3)  the either/​or system (recognizing trade-​off, but denying synergy, between true opposite elements; 只相克却不相生 in Chinese), thus rejecting paradox; (4) the both/​or system related to Hegel’s dialectical logic (temporarily recognizing, but ultimately denying, trade-​ off between temporarily true but ultimately false opposite elements;

54 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Figure 2.1  The content and process of yin-​yang balancing. 1. The mechanism of asymmetrical balancing can be reflected in each of the figures as a spatial pattern in terms of the structural relationship between the colors black and white. (The circle is the whole domain and each color represents one of two subdomains). One of the two colors is dominant in its own subdomain, while the opposite color is subordinate in the same subdomain. If the circle symbolizes a whole domain with an overall function or goal, each subdomain within the circle symbolizes one of the two specific subdomains with its own specific subfunction or subgoal (dominated by one of the two colors within each subdomain). 2. The mechanism of transitional balancing can be reflected in this set of figures as a temporal pattern of sequential shifting from one of asymmetrical balance (e.g., the color white as the dominant and black as the subordinate in the upper half of the circle as a subdomain; see the first three figures on the left) to one of asymmetrical balance, but opposite the original (e.g., black as the dominant and the white as the subordinate in the upper half as the subdomain; see the last three figures on the right). It is worth noting that the fourth figure (middle circle) represents the threshold for this transitional shift, and there is a mirror transition in the lower half of the circle. 3. The mechanism of curvilinear balancing can be reflected in this set of figures as a mix of both spatial and temporal patterns, with the middle figure (the fourth figure) as the core threshold for the shift from growing synergy (as reflected in the first three figures, where the subordinate opposite is growing from a low to a moderate level) to growing conflict (as reflected in the last three figures, where the subordinate opposite is growing from a moderate to a high level). 4. The three operating mechanisms just described share the central theme of opposites as duality in terms of being partially complementary as well as partially conflicting (i.e., 相生相克 in Chinese, as the underlying theme of yin-​yang balancing).

temporarily denying, but ultimately recognizing, synergy between temporarily true but ultimately false opposite elements; 暂时相克却最后相生 in Chinese), thus initially accepting but finally rejecting paradox via sublation; and (5) the either/​and system or yin-​yang balancing (always and fully recognizing both trade-​off and synergy between true opposite elements; 既相克又相生 in Chinese), thus accepting paradox. It is critical to note that, among all five cognitive systems, the yin-​yang system is the only one that fully embraces paradox by accommodating and appreciating both trade-​off and synergy between true opposite elements in the same place at the same time. To be more specific, the yin-​yang system treats the two opposite elements in a paradox as partial trade-​off, as well as a partial synergy, within a spectrum of holistic and dynamic balancing; so the yin-​yang system has the unique value of explaining paradox by reframing

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 55

paradox as duality as opposites-​in-​unity (Li, 2008, 2012a, 2014a, 2016). In contrast, the other four systems all fail to do so. Specifically, except the either/​and system, all of the other systems share a common bias of treating opposites as either fully conflicting or fully complementary. The either/​ and system of yin-​yang balancing has the unique ability to reframe the other four systems as relative, so as to integrate the revised systems into a meta-​system. It is critical to point out that the typical characterization of yin-​yang balancing as both/​and is misleading, for several reasons. First, the both/​ and system positions itself as an absolute opposite of the either/​or system, which is not the position of yin-​yang balancing. Yin-​yang balancing is only a relative (partial) opposite of the either/​or system, so it has the ability to integrate the either/​or and the both/​and systems into a duality (thus the either/​and system) by reframing the systems as opposites-​in-​unity. Second, similar to the either/​or system, the both/​and system is incomplete and insufficient because it takes an absolute stance by adopting one polarized end without the necessary balance of its opposite end. If it were similar to the both/​and system, yin-​yang balancing would be similarly incomplete, such that another system would be required to integrate the either/​or system with the yin-​yang system. However, yin-​yang balancing is unique because it has the ability to be a complete system, with the insight into the necessity of duality for balancing opposites into opposites-​in-​unity. Embracing the holistic and dynamic notion of balancing, yin-​yang balancing specifically adopts the duality-​rooted position by treating all opposites as partially conflicting and partially complementary. This is in contrast to the monism position of the both/​and system that treats opposites as fully complementary, without any conflict (only unity without opposition), and also in contrast to the dualism position of the either/​or system, which treats opposites as fully conflicting without any complementarity (only opposition without unity). Hence, yin-​yang balancing should be characterized as the either/​and system, with the either indicating the existence of tension, trade-​off, and conflict, and the and indicating the existence of harmony, synergy, and complementarity. This is highly consistent with Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity as the core explanation for quantum physics, especially for the wave-​particle duality (Li et al., 2012; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; also see Bohr, 1958/​1987). Moreover, the both/​and system is not only incomplete and insufficient but also more naïve and immature than the either/​or and both/​or systems. This is because the both/​and system totally fails to recognize the possible existence of any paradox, while the other two systems at least recognize paradox as a solvable or unsolvable

56 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

problem. Finally, among the five epistemological systems (i.e., neither/​ nor, both/​and, either/​or, both/​or, and either/​and), the first two (i.e., neither/​ nor and both/​and) are the most naïve because they deny the very existence of paradox. The neither/​nor system assumes the impossible coexistence of opposites owing to an absolute or full conflict between opposites without any possible resolution (similar to the discounting approach; see Peng & Nisbett, 1999). The both/​and system assumes the impossible coexistence of opposites owing to an absolute or full complementarity between opposites, thus there is no need for any balance as a solution (similar to the denial approach; see Peng & Nisbett, 1999).

The Sources and Implications of Yin-​Yang Balancing The Indigenous Sources of Yin-​Yang Balancing Even though multiple factors may give rise to the system of yin-​yang balancing, I will focus here on the two most salient factors. I posit that the indigenous philosophy and language in China, historically and at the present time, are directly responsible for the birth and growth of yin-​yang balancing, with the two factors being both proximal contexts and proximal mechanisms for the either/​and system in China. First, the system of yin-​yang balancing is at the core of all Chinese philosophies and is shared among all schools of thought in China, including Confucianism and Taoism (Graham, 1989; Needham, 1956). This shared philosophical orientation has been reflected in the cognitive style of the Chinese, both in the past and in modern times. For instance, the ancient Chinese preferred complementary compromises and relative views, while the ancient Greeks preferred exclusive debates and absolute views (Lloyd, 2007). Even in modern times, the system of yin-​yang balancing remains the dominant mode of thinking among contemporary Chinese all over the world, in contrast to formal logic in the West (Nisbett et al., 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010). I regard the shared core of all Chinese philosophies as the primary source of yin-​ yang balancing, rather than the commonly assumed historical context (e.g., agriculture) or cultural values (e.g., collectivism) (cf. Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett et  al., 2001; Peng, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Zhong, 2006; Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2010). My view is rooted in five premises. The first premise is that the most important sources must be unique to China, such that they explain the indigenous origin of yin-​yang balancing. In this respect, both agriculture

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 57

and collectivism (Triandis, 1995), as compared to indigenous philosophy, seem too generic and universal to be the indigenous sources of yin-​yang balancing. The second premise is that the most important sources must explain both the initial birth and later growth of yin-​yang balancing. In this respect, while historical context (e.g., agriculture) may explain the initial birth of yin-​yang balancing, it does not explain the later growth, and cultural values (e.g., collectivism) may explain its later growth, but not its initial birth. In contrast, given the inherent overlap between philosophy and cognition, philosophy is able to explain both the birth and growth of yin-​yang balancing. The third premise is that the most important sources should have the proper scope to explain yin-​yang balancing. In this respect, both historical context and cultural values are too broad in scope, whereas both agriculture and collectivism are too narrow in scope. In contrast, given its open-​ended quality, philosophy is well positioned to explain yin-​yang balancing. The fourth premise is that there must be direct evidence supporting the most critical sources. In this respect, there is little evidence beyond general associations with collectivism or agriculture. In contrast, we can find direct evidence for philosophy in terms of the links between yin-​yang balancing and Tao (the philosophical ontology) and wu (the philosophical methodology). The fifth premise is that the most critical sources must be most directly and proximally causal to the epistemological system, even though all factors can be reciprocally related in a recursive process (the “chicken vs. egg” issue). In this respect, the historical context is indirectly causal to the epistemological system (with philosophy as a mediator), whereas cultural values are likely to be caused by the epistemological system, rather than vice versa. As the epistemological dimension of the Chinese philosophy of wisdom, yin-​yang balancing is by default directly related to the other dimensions of Chinese philosophy. Taking these five premises as a whole, I consider Chinese philosophy to be more critical than cultural values (e.g., collectivism) or historical context (e.g., agriculture) as the primary source of yin-​yang balancing. Second, I would argue that the system of yin-​yang balancing is directly tied to the Chinese language, in contrast to the alphabetic languages in the West. On the surface, the Chinese language is replete with contradictory phrases and proverbs (Li, 2012b; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2010; Wang, 2005), thus the likely cause, and effect, of yin-​yang balancing. Below the surface, as compared to abstract constructs that are directly related to the alphabetic languages in the West (Logan, 2007), the Chinese language is rich in concrete images and metaphors but weak in precise conceptualization (Li, 2012b; Wang, 2005). Hence, many scholars

58 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

refer to the Chinese cognitive style as “correlative thinking” (e.g., Chang, 2009; Graham, 1989; Hall & Ames, 1995; Needham, 1962). While I generally concur with this characterization, I would reframe “correlative thinking” as a mix of Chinese epistemology and methodology, deriving from Yijing (Book of Changes, Kunst, 1985). Correlative thinking reflects the unique word and grammar structures of the Chinese language, which in turn deeply reflects the underlying wisdom of having such language structures. First, as a non-​alphabetic language, the Chinese written word has its own unique compound structure, with the logographic radical on the left side of the compound word and the phonetic portion on the right side (Hsiao, Shillcock, & Lee, 2007; Jia, 1992; Koyama, Hansen, & Stein, 2008). This word structure reflects the pattern of whole-​brain thinking (tapping both hemispheres of the brain), in contrast to the pattern of partial-​brain thinking (dominated by the left hemisphere, typical in the West; McGilchrist, 2009; Shlain, 1998; Taggart & Robey, 1981). Further, Chinese word structure allows a direct path from the logographic radical (the semantic part on the left side of the compound word) to the meaning of the word, without the mediator of a phonetic part, which is the path of all alphabetic languages (Wenzel, 2010). The main advantage of this direct access to meaning in the Chinese language (including pictographic and ideographic features) is that it reinforces people’s sensory participation with rich context, in contrast to the separation between abstract construct and rich context in alphabetic languages in the West (Abram, 1996). This advantage also applies to the tendency in Chinese language to use metaphors deliberately as open-​ ended and ambiguous expressions of holistic, dynamic, and duality-​rooted meanings. Such an open and flexible vagueness leaves room for rich interpretations, which encourages all parties to actively participate in the reconstruction of enriched meanings in a holistic and dynamic process (Wenzel, 2010). The use of metaphor, together with the flexible grammar of the Chinese language (Wenzel, 2010), also reflects the pattern of whole-​brain thinking. This is consistent with evidence about the brain’s asymmetries, in which the left-​brain hemisphere is more verbal, focal, and analytic, while the right-​brain hemisphere is more nonverbal, diffuse, and holistic (Evans, 2008). In other words, Chinese “correlative thinking” actually reflects the high-​context nature of the Chinese language. There is growing evidence that the Chinese tend to apply both hemispheres of their brains in cognitive tasks (Bolger, Perfetti, & Schneider, 2005; Tan, Feng, Fox, & Gao, 2001; Tang et al., 2006). This is in contrast to Westerners, whose alphabetic languages have perhaps reinforced the left hemisphere as dominant (Logan, 2004; McGilchrist, 2009; Skoyles, 1984; Shlain, 1998). Hence, I consider

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 59

the Chinese language to be the other source of yin-​yang balancing, complementing Chinese philosophy as the primary source. In this sense, yin-​yang balancing is expected to be associated with the whole-​brain cognitive tendencies of the Chinese, which in turn is related to the Chinese language in a cognition–​language–​brain causal chain. Further, my view is rooted in two premises regarding the role of language. The first premise is that language is the most significant mechanism for passing on cultural heritage from generation to generation, because language is the carrier of both culture and cognition (Abram, 1996; Gao, 1994; Liu, 1990; Pang, 1995; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng et  al., 2006; Wang, 2005; Wenzel, 2010). This explains cultural differences in epistemological systems as derived from different languages. The second premise is that language is learned, rather than genetic (Liu, Dunlap, Fiez, & Perfett, 2007; Nelson, Liu, Fiez, & Perfetti, 2009), but it is not always easy to learn, especially after the critical developmental period or best window of opportunity to learn language has passed (Ramscar & Gitcho, 2007). This time-​sensitive quality of language is similar to that of brain plasticity. Brain plasticity refers to the capability of the brain to rewire after intensive use of certain parts of the brain for particular types of activities, including the so-​called signature activities of a culture, such as language learning and the acquisition of epistemological systems (Doidge, 2007; Kochunov, 2003; Skoyles & Sagan, 2002; Witelson, 1987). In other words, both language and the brain share the same characteristic that they are neither genetically fixed nor freely transformable. This reflects another dimension in the “nature–​nurture” debate. In this regard, I  take issue with the view that culturally based cognitive differences are genetically determined and that they are simply situational, instant responses to momentarily salient priming cues (Oyserman & Lee, 2008; Oyserman, Sorensen, Sylvia, & Chen, 2009). I  posit that cultural malleability, including its cognitive element, is at best relative, rather than absolute, similar to brain plasticity (for a review of research on dialecticism and extracultural cognition, see Chapter 17 in this volume). Consistent with yin-​yang balancing, my view can shed light on the plastic paradox—​that the same neuroplastic properties that make the brain more flexible also make it more rigid (Doidge, 2007; Kochunov, 2003; Skoyles & Sagan, 2002; Witelson, 1987). Finally, to extend this discussion, I propose that there is a possible link between whole-​brain thinking as the micro-​level cognitive process (primarily related to neuroscience) and yin-​yang balancing as the macro-​level cognitive process (primarily related to philosophy), with non-​alphabetic

60 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

language being the meso-​level mediator. Further, I would posit that there may be a reciprocal causal chain between the epistemological system (the central role of the mind) and brain function (the central role of the brain), also with language as the mediator. I term this the meta-​hypothesis of the cognition–​language–​brain causal chain. There is growing evidence supporting this proposed meta-​hypothesis beyond the general recognition that the emergence of language is a critical milestone in the evolution of brain asymmetry (Hellige, 2006). For instance, one could reframe the split fovea theory as being relevant to the logographic languages (e.g., the Chinese characters) while applying the bilateral projection theory primarily to alphabetic languages (Ellis & Brysbaert, 2010; Jordan & Paterson, 2009). It is also evident that the size of the corpus callosum is related to academic performance in language learning, and brain asymmetry seems to correlate negatively with the anatomical connectivity between the two brain hemispheres. Right-​handers tend to have a smaller corpus callosum than people who are ambidextrous, but this correlation is found only for men and not for women (Kempe & Christman, 2009; Ng et al., 2005; Witelson, 1985, 1989). It is worth noting that musicians have something in common with those who are ambidextrous: the corpus callosum of musicians is generally larger than that of non-​musicians, although again, this effect only occurs for men and not for women (Chan, Ho, & Cheung, 1998; Hutchinson, Lee, Gaab, & Schlaug, 2003; Patel, 2008). Another possible explanation lies in the dualistic nature of the corpus callosum, as it facilitates and inhibits interconnectivity (Hellige, 1993, 2006). Hence, it would be of great interest to test if the Chinese have a larger corpus callosum than that of Westerners, given the possible impact of Chinese language on whole-​brain thinking, in contrast to the Western language bias favoring the brain’s left hemisphere (McGilchrist, 2009). This is similar to the nurtured effect of both mixed-​handedness and musicianship on males, in contrast to the natural whole-​brain thinking of females. Further, I propose that the effect of fluency in the Chinese language on whole-​brain thinking should be greater than that of mixed-​handedness or musicianship, because the Chinese language (both written and oral forms) should enhance the cognitive and visual capabilities of the brain much more than the motor or auditory functions associated with mixed-​handedness or musicianship (cf. Bolger et al., 2005; Hutchinson et al., 2003; Patel, 2008; Tan, Laird, Li, & Fox, 2005). More neuroscientific research should be done in this promising area (Spenser-​Rodgers et al., 2010). For a review of current research on culture, holistic thinking, and neuroscience, the reader is referred to Chapter 6 in this volume.

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 61

Given the position that philosophy “pulls” and language “pushes” the brain toward an epistemological system, it is likely that the ancient Chinese might have deliberately chosen to adopt and perpetuate their original “correlative thinking” in the form of a unique language because of their convictions regarding natural ontology (i.e., interdependent, interactive, and interpenetrative realty) and organic epistemology (i.e., holistic, dynamic, and duality-​rooted cognition) (Gao, 1994; Li, 2008). This view can be best illustrated by traditional Chinese medicine, in contrast to Western modern medicine (Needham, Lu, & Sivin, 2000; Porkert, 1978). Chinese medicine is not just about treating sickness but also about preventive care and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The preceding two propositions suggest a meta-​hypothesis concerning the cognition–​language–​brain chain, which is interdisciplinary in nature. In sum, I would argue that philosophy and language have the greatest potential to “wire” the brain into a particular cultural pattern because the two are the most critical mental activities, both distally and proximally, that can shape the “cultural” brain. Even though Chinese philosophy and language are two critical sources of yin-​yang balancing, I regard Chinese philosophy as the primary source and Chinese language as the secondary source. In other words, while Chinese philosophy is necessary and sufficient for the development of yin-​yang balancing within China, Chinese language is necessary but still insufficient. Further, Chinese language is neither necessary nor sufficient for non-​ Chinese to adopt yin-​yang balancing, as shown in the cases of Leibniz, Jung, and Bohr (Li, 2012a). However, I still hold the view that language is inherently related to cognition (Bolger et al., 2005; Tan et al., 2005), so learning Chinese would be helpful to appreciate yin-​yang balancing (cf. Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Several studies show that native English speakers activate both hemispheres of their brains when they read Chinese after learning the written language (Bolger et al., 2005; Tan et al., 2001; Tang et al., 2006). Consistent with yin-​yang balancing, I would stress that both brain plasticity and cultural malleability should be viewed in relative and not absolute terms.

The Geocentric Implications of Yin-​Yang Balancing It is worth noting that the intent of this chapter is not to discredit the philosophical traditions of the West but to specify their limitations or outline conditions for their application, which have not been adequately examined before. My intent is also not to overstate the supremacy of the philosophical traditions of the East but to highlight their unique value, which remains largely unfamiliar to the West. Despite the unique value of yin-​yang

62 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

balancing in particular, and Chinese philosophy of wisdom in general, it is necessary to integrate the Eastern paradigm into the Western paradigm toward the geocentric meta-​paradigm (Li, 2012a, 2012b). Consistent with the system of yin-​yang balancing, the East and the West constitute a duality with their distinctive strengths and weaknesses. The challenge is not so much in recognizing the unique value of yin-​yang balancing but in effectively integrating it with other systems in the West. The inherently more open-​ended and open-​minded quality of yin-​yang balancing in particular and the philosophy of wisdom in general make it more likely that geocentric integration can be achieved, especially an asymmetrical integration with more emphasis on wisdom (Chia & Holt, 2007; Jullien, 1998; Li, 2012a, 2012b; Takahashi & Overton, 2005; Weick & Putnam, 2006; also see C. Li, 2014; Zhang, 2011). Consistent with my central assumption that polarization results in paradox, especially in the context of complexity and ambiguity, I posit that the epistemological systems in the West, including Aristotle’s formal logic and Hegel’s dialectical logic, are ill-​equipped for effectively managing high complexity and high ambiguity, while yin-​yang balancing is well equipped to confront today’s new challenges (Li, 2012a, 2012b; also see Smith & Lewis, 2011; Zhang, 2011). It is worth noting that yin-​yang balancing was effective before the end of the sixteenth century, because the practical nature of yin-​yang balancing was adequate for the organic complexity and ambiguity in the pre-​modern era (which require only imprecise conceptions and measures), but it was inadequate for the mechanistic simplicity and clarity in the modern era (which require precise conceptions and measures) from the start of the seventeenth century until recently (Brenner, 2008; Kelso & Engstrom, 2006). The world today is entering into a “trans-​ modern” era, which requires both organic complexity and ambiguity at the macro level, and mechanistic simplicity and clarity at the micro level (Li, 2012b; cf. Levine, 1985). This trans-​modern era is made possible by the two drivers of globalization and technology (Dicken, 2015). Globalization is making the world increasingly interconnected (thus more complex and holistic), while technology is making the world increasingly volatile (thus more uncertain and dynamic). Hence, it is inevitable that we will confront more paradoxes than ever before in today’s more holistic and dynamic world (Abram, 1996; Evans, 2000; Handy, 1994; Martin, 2007; Scharmer & Kaufer, 2013). The path-​dependent trajectories in the evolution of epistemological systems in the world have led to a mechanical, reductionist, abstract, and formal dualism in the West, in contrast to the organic, holistic, intuitive,

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 63

and informal duality in the East. In other words, the Western systems have followed a top-​down deductive and reductive path, while the Eastern system has adopted a bottom-​up inductive and emergent path (Gao, 1994; Liang, 1921/​1997). It is expected that each of these systems has its own strengths and weaknesses, so neither alone is sufficient to manage all types of problems, just as whole-​brain thinking is not always better than partial-​ brain thinking. It seems that the best solution is to integrate the three major epistemological systems in the world into a geocentric meta-​system, just as we need both hemispheres of our brain to best meet growing challenges in the future. This view can shed new light on the unresolved Needham puzzle: why was China so advanced in science and technology in the pre-​modern era, yet lagged behind in the modern era? (Lin, 1995; Needham, 1969; Sivin, 1995). Yin-​yang balancing, possibly related to China’s unique language and whole-​brain thinking, could be the key to the puzzle in the sense that yin-​yang balancing was an appropriate epistemological system for the pre-​modern era, when experience and intuition were critical, owing to the separation between science and technology at that time (experience and intuition were sufficient for technology, and ancient China was technologically advanced but not scientifically advanced relative to the West), but inappropriate for the modern era, when experimentation and logic were paramount, owing to the required integration between science and technology at this time (logic and experimentation were necessary for the tightly coupled link between science and technology in the modern era, in contrast to their loosely coupled link in the pre-​modern era). Thus my hypothesis is that the trans-​modern era requires a high-​level balance between intuition and logic, thus the need for the West and the East to meet each other (Capra, 1975; Kelso & Engstrom, 2006; Siu, 1957; Zhang, 2011). After recognizing why the West should meet the East (Chen & Miller, 2011), the true challenge is how to integrate the Western philosophy of knowledge (science–​art separation) with the Eastern philosophy of wisdom (science–​art integration), when both knowledge and wisdom are critical in the trans-​modern era (Feng, 1996; Li, 2012b), similar to the need for both exploration and exploitation at the organizational level (March, 1991). One critical approach to the geocentric integration is to first identify the key complementary links between the East and West. Even though yin-​ yang balancing is indigenous to China, it is related to dialectical logic in the West (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Wong, 2006), and it can be integrated not only with dialectical logic but also with Aristotle’s formal logic, so as to

64 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

reframe paradox and dualism into duality (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016). Given its unique ability to address the challenges of ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty, yin-​yang balancing is arguably the most suitable system for a multi-​perspective approach. In particular, it is most useful for explaining why and how to balance opposite forces into a unified whole, not only in the East but also in the West, especially for more open-​minded thinkers in the West, as shown by Niels Bohr’s yin-​yang design (when he applied the system of yin-​yang balancing to his famous principle of complementarity for quantum physics; Li, 2012a; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; also see Bohr, 1958/​ 1987). Also, in their book Built to Last, Collins and Porras (1994) applied yin-​yang balancing to the study of long-​lasting visionary companies in the West, by replacing the “Tyranny of the OR” with the “Genius of the AND” (pp. 43–​44). It is also evident that even the yin-​yang symbol can produce a framing effect in the West. Westerners are more likely to anticipate change and adopt a more balanced view after they are exposed to or primed with the yin-​yang symbol (Alter & Kwan, 2009; see also Chapter 6 in this volume). Other Western scholars implicitly apply yin-​yang balancing. For example, in their study of over 1,000 Western firms, Dodd and Favaro (2006) concluded that those firms that adopted a more balanced approach to three pairs of opposite goals (i.e., profitability vs. growth, short term vs. long term, and whole vs. parts) performed better than those firms that were less balanced. Uzzi (1997) reached a similar conclusion in his study on the paradox of embeddedness (the balance of strong and weak ties in a network). Further, the notion of the “blue ocean strategy” (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005) is also consistent with yin-​yang balancing, in that there is a proper balance between high value and low cost but not in the either/​or choice. In particular, the blue ocean strategy highlights the essence of yin-​yang balancing by positing that the best competition is no competition, similar to the Taoist notion of wuwei (active non-​action). The blue ocean strategy can be better understood as a process of creating, as well as leveraging, a favorable contextual momentum (Jing & Van de Ven, 2014). Finally, the research on ambidexterity would benefit from adopting yin-​yang balancing to address its conceptual and measurement problems (see O’Reilly & Tushman, 2013, for a review), especially in terms of the three operating mechanisms of yin-​yang balancing (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016; cf. Nagji & Tuff, 2012). Similarly, the research on ambivalence could benefit from yin-​yang balancing by framing ambivalence as a duality and adopting the three operating mechanisms of yin-​yang balancing (cf. Bledow, Rosing, & Frese, 2013). Here the notions of seed and threshold are critical to these research streams.

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 65

It is worth noting that many of the classic theories in the domain of organizational management share the central theme of balancing opposite forces, such as March’s (1991) theory of organizational learning, with a balance between exploration and exploitation, which has prompted research on ambidexterity; Schumpeter’s (1942/​1994) theory of creative destruction about entrepreneurial function as a balance between creation and destruction; Granovetter’s (1985) theory of embeddedness that balances oversocialized mainstream sociology with undersocialized mainstream economics; Weick’s (1976) theory of loose-​coupling that balances linkage with separateness; Lawrence and Lorsch’s (1967) theory of the balance between differentiation and integration; Mintzberg’s theory of realized strategy that balances deliberate and emergent strategies (Mintzberg & Waters, 1985); Prahalad’s theory of multinational strategy that balances global integration and local responsiveness (Prahalad & Doz, 1987), and Nonaka’s (1994) theory of knowledge creation that balances tacit and explicit knowledge. Further, the research on complex systems is concerned with the link between chaos and order, especially cases at the edge of chaos (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Stacey, Griffin, & Shaw, 2000). Giddens’ (1984) theory of structuration is concerned with the structure–​agency duality and is perhaps the most consistent with yin-​yang balancing. However, what is missing in all these theories are two notions central to yin-​yang balancing:  seed and threshold, the keys to the three core tenets and three operating mechanisms of yin-​yang balancing (see Figure 2.1; Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016). In particular, threshold is not a discrete single point but a range of acceptable balancing points that fall within the domain of overlap shared by opposite forces (Li, 2012a). The domain of overlap is made possible by the “seed” of both opposite elements in each other. This point is vividly illustrated in a recent case study concerning the “wisdom of oscillation” between two opposing groups, which are held together by their moderate members as a counterbalance (Ashforth & Reingen, 2014). It is also illustrated in another recent case study on the balance between formal and informal forces in entrepreneurial firms (Lin et al., 2015, cf. Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967). It is worth noting that both notions of seed and threshold reflect the relative nature of yin-​yang balancing. Given the inherent links of yin-​yang balancing to ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty, the methodology of wu (intuitive imagination via metaphor) is instrumental for the identification of the required relativity of yin-​yang balancing (Li, 2012b). A recent review on the neuroscience of insight (Kounios & Beeman, 2014) highlights the unique value of mind-​ wandering for insight-​making, thus providing indirect evidence for wu as

66 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

the third cognitive system, above and beyond the typical dual-​processing model of automatic and controlled systems (Li, 2014b). Despite the potential of yin-​yang balancing in particular and the Eastern philosophy of wisdom in general, they still need to be modernized before they can be integrated into a geocentric meta-​system. A  new challenge is to keep an open mind when integrating yin-​yang balancing with the emerging logic systems (Kelso & Engstrom, 2006), including fuzzy logic (Zhang & Zhang, 2004)  and para-​consistent logic (da Costa & Krause, 2006). The Eastern philosophy of wisdom must undergo its “Renaissance” and “Enlightenment” by integrating traditional wisdom with modern knowledge, just as the West did historically. The East can definitely learn from the West concerning the mechanistic and abstract rationality that is required for differentiation and analysis via precise conception and measurement, while the West can learn from the East concerning the organic and rich intuitive imagination that is required for integration and synthesis via imprecise conception and measurement. The final result of this integration and balancing is a geocentric meta-​system. I refer to this as geocentric yin-​yang balancing, with formal logic as the building block and Chinese yin-​yang balancing as the overall framework needed to assemble the fragmented building blocks. Hence, yin-​yang balancing plays a special role in providing a new geocentric paradigm that accommodates both Western logic and Eastern intuition, in accordance with recent findings that the human brain, across diverse cultures, has both globally similar functions and locally unique functions (Hellige, 1993). My central thesis puts forth an interdisciplinary meta-​hypothesis in terms of a reciprocal causal chain between cognition, language, and the brain. This meta-​hypothesis can shed new light on the Needham puzzle in terms of the mediating effect of language on the link between cognition and the brain. It is my hypothesis that the Chinese language, based on both images and sounds, in contrast to the alphabet in the West, is partially responsible for yin-​yang balancing and whole-​brain thinking. It is the most fundamental “tuning” device at the meso-​level; it is able to connect genetic or biological elements (at the micro level) to social or cultural elements (at the macro level). However, this geocentric integration cannot be a symmetrical sum, with each side making an equal contribution to the final whole, similar to a case of corporate merger. This integration will most likely resemble a corporate acquisition, with yin-​yang balancing as the “acquirer” and the either/​or system as the “acquiree.” There are two major reasons for this asymmetrical acquisition. First, yin-​yang balancing has the potential to incorporate the Western system, whereas the latter cannot incorporate

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 67

the former. It is obvious that it is possible for duality (dominant in the East) to incorporate dualism (dominant in the West), but not for dualism to embrace duality. It is similar to the fact that whole-​brain thinking (dominant in the East) can embrace partial-​brain thinking (dominant in the West), rather than the other way around. This is because the right-​ brain hemisphere (stronger in the East, despite its whole-​brain thinking) appears to be aware of the key function and contribution of the left-​brain hemisphere, thus it is willing and able to embrace it, but the left-​brain hemisphere (dominant in the West) seems to be ignorant of the necessary function and contribution of the right-​brain part, thus it attempts to reject it (McGilchrist, 2009; Shlain, 1998). This is similar to the case of integrative medicine (dominant in the East), which can absorb specialized medicine (dominant in the West), rather than the reverse (Bells & Koithan, 2006). Second, this acquisition symbolizes the necessary, but much delayed, Chinese “Renaissance” and “Enlightenment,” such that China, as a latecomer, can modernize and even catch up with the early movers in the West (Lin, 1995; Mungello, 2009; Needham, 1969; Sivin, 1995). In other words, despite its potential to incorporate the Western systems, yin-​yang balancing has its limitations, thus the critical need for its integration with Western systems. In essence, this West–​East integration itself is an application of yin-​yang balancing. The brain, given its dual-​ hemispheric structure (asymmetry with interhemispheric inhibition), whole-​ brain thinking (complementarity with interhemispheric connectivity), and plastic paradox (the same neuroplastic properties that make the brain more flexible also make it more rigid), is perhaps the best metaphor for yin-​yang balancing, especially its new geocentric version, which is built on its traditional Chinese version. For instance, it is evident that the brain performs optimally whenever its two hemispheres engage in specialized processes that are both complementary and contradictory, including when visualizing both global contour (as a specialty of the right hemisphere) and local detail (as a specialty of the left hemisphere) (Hellige, 2006). This global–​local duality vividly illustrates the need of global contour to acquire local detail in order to create a complete picture. In sum, the geocentric meta-​system in the future will most likely resemble a geocentric version of yin-​yang balancing as an asymmetrical East–​West integration. Finally, this geocentric integration requires both the West and East to adopt an open mind, as illustrated by the three prominent figures in the history of science (i.e., Leibniz, Jung, and Bohr), despite the general difficulty of the West to open its left-​brain-​dominated mind to “weird” Eastern perspectives

68 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

(McGilchrist, 2009). One of the most promising research areas that could initiate this process is cross-​cultural research on the patterns of both whole-​ brain and part-​brain thinking, especially the possible link between yin-​yang balancing and whole-​brain thinking, via the mediation of Chinese language. Neuroscience can shed valuable light on this issue, especially on the culture–​brain link (in relation to the nature–​nurture debate) and the bridge between natural sciences and social studies, as seen in the emerging field of cultural neuroscience (Chiao, 2009; Kitayama & Tompson, 2010; Zhou & Cacioppo, 2010). A practical field with the greatest potential to facilitate this geocentric integration is medicine, where the cross-​fertilization between Eastern and Western medical traditions may lead to a geocentric medicine that can shed new light on the centuries-​old debates over mind–​brain duality and whole–​part duality (Bells & Koithan, 2006; Needham et al., 2000; Porkert, 1978). These are some examples of the potentially endless applications of geocentric yin-​yang balancing, beyond the confines of Chinese culture. I also want to highlight the value of language learning for developing a geocentric yin-​yang balancing. A related practical implication is the unique value of learning Chinese language as a non-​alphabetic language to facilitate whole-​brain thinking (Liu et al., 2007; Nelson et al., 2009).

Conclusion In the context of comparing the Eastern philosophy of wisdom with the Western philosophy of knowledge, this chapter has explored the unique nature and function of yin-​yang balancing as the Eastern epistemological system, in contrast to the Western epistemological systems of Aristotle’s either/​or logic and Hegel’s both/​or logic. Consistent with the perspective of Peng and Nisbett (1999), I have argued that yin-​yang balancing is distinct from the dialectical logic in the West (e.g., Hegel’s version, cf. Basseches, 1984). However, unlike Peng and Nisbett (1999), I have posited that yin-​ yang balancing is not a version of dialectical logic but a unique cognitive system of its own (cf. Peng & Nisbett, 2000) and more sophisticated (rather than naïve) than dialectical logic for paradox management. Yin-​ yang balancing is the only epistemological system that can truly accommodate and appreciate paradox (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016; Smith & Lewis, 2011), and it has the unique potential to absorb all Western systems into a geocentric (East-​meets-​West) meta-​system (Li, 2012a, 2014a, 2016). It is worth noting that yin-​yang balancing is central to this geocentric integration, which would be asymmetrical, transitional, and curvilinear in a

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 69

holistic, dynamic, and duality-​rooted pattern. The keys to yin-​yang balancing are the notion of seed (the two seeds in both opposite elements constituting their overlap, similar to the moderate members who hold the key to unifying opposite forces and defining the balance between opposite forces; Ashforth & Reingen, 2014) and the notion of threshold (the range of balancing points between the minimum and maximum thresholds, similar to the asymmetrical ranges between 30–​40% and 60–​70%; Lin et al., 2015). Both seed and threshold are rooted in the theme of relativity. As the underlying core of the Eastern philosophy of wisdom, yin-​yang balancing bears geocentric implications. This system can be learned by Westerners, as shown in the case of Lego, a Danish toymaker that adopts eleven paradoxical principles (Evans, 2000), similar to the practices in China (Zhang, Waldman, Han, & Li, 2015). In general, the lower-​order value of yin-​yang balancing is its ability to explain holistic, dynamic, and duality-​rooted issues, while the higher-​order value is its ability to absorb the either/​or logic (also both/​or logic) and allow the either/​or logic (also both/​or logic) to manage more fragmented, static, and consistent issues. No doubt, yin-​yang balancing will never be perfect, and our current knowledge about the system remains immature. Our future challenge is to enhance it and integrate it with other systems into a geocentric meta-​ system. This is perhaps the biggest contribution from the East to the West, as a role model for the East and West to meet as equal partners (with each having distinctive strengths and weaknesses, thus the need for an asymmetrical balance between the two partners, even if equal in overall terms) in the context of true globalization.

Acknowledgment This research was supported by a grant (NSFC-​ 71732007) from the Natural Science Foundation of China.

References Abram, D. (1996). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more than human world. New York: Vintage Books. Alter, A. L., & Kwan, V. S. Y. (2009). Cultural sharing in a global village: Evidence for extracultural cognition in European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 742–​760. Ashforth, B. E., & Reingen P. H. (2014). Functions of dysfunction: Managing the dynamics of an organizational duality in a natural food cooperative. Administrative Science Quarterly, 59, 474–​516.

70 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Ashmos, D., & Huber, G. (1987). The systems paradigm in organization theory: Correcting the record and suggesting the future, Academy of Management Review, 12, 607–​621. Atherton, C. (1993). The Stoics on ambiguity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Bar-​Yam, Y. (1997). Dynamics of complex systems. Reading, MA: Perseus Books. Basseches, M. (1984). Dialectical thinking and adult development. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Bells, I. R., & Koithan, M. (2006). Models for the study of whole systems. Integrative Cancer Therapies, 5, 293–​307. Bergson, H. (1911/​1944). Creative evolution. New York: Modern Library. Bingham, C. B., & Eisenhardt, K. M. (2011). Rational heuristics:  The ‘simple rule’ that strategists learn from process experience. Strategic Management Journal, 32, 1437–​1464. Bledow, R., Rosing, K., & Frese, M. (2013). A dynamic perspective on affect and creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 432–​450. Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the implicate order. London: Routledge. Bohr, N. (1958/​ 1987). The principal writings of Niels Bohr. Woodbridge, CT:  Ox Bow Press. Bolger, D. J., Perfetti, C. A., & Schneider, W. (2005). Cross-​cultural effect on the brain revisited: Universal structures plus writing system variation. Human Brain Mapping, 25, 92–​104. Brenner, J. E. (2008). Logic in reality. Dordrecht: Springer. Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8, 5–​21. Byers, W. (2007). How mathematicians think: Using ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox to create mathematics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Capra, F. (1975). The Tao of physics: An exploration of the parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism. Berkeley, CA: Shambhala. Chan, A. S., Ho, Y., & Cheung, M. C. (1998). Music training improves verbal memory. Nature, 396, 128. Chang, C-​Y. (1970). Creativity and Taoism:  A study of Chinese philosophy, art and poetry. New York: Hagerston. Chang, W. (2009). Reflections on time and related ideas in the Yijing. Philosophy East & West, 59, 216–​229 Chen, M-​J. (2002). Transcending paradox: The Chinese “middle way” perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 19, 179–​199. Chen, M-​ J. (2008). Reconceptualizing the competition-​ cooperation relationship:  A transparadox perspective. Journal of Management Inquire, 17, 288–​304. Chen, M-​J., & Miller, D. (2011). The relational perspective as a business mindset: Managerial implications for East and West. Academy of Management Perspective, 25, 6–​18. Cheng, C-​Y. (1977). Toward constructing a dialectics of harmonization: Harmony and conflict in Chinese philosophy. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 4, 209–​245. Chia, R., & Holt, R. (2007). Wisdom as learned ignorance: Integrating East–​West perspectives. In E. H. Kessler & J. B. Bailey (Eds.), Handbook of organizational and managerial wisdom (pp. 505–​527). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chiao, J. Y. (Ed.). (2009). Cultural neuroscience: Cultural influences on brain function. New York: Elsevier. Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1994). Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies. New York: Harper.

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 71

Cross, N. (2001). Designerly ways of knowing: Design discipline versus design science. Design Issues, 17, 49–​55. Cross, N. (2011). Design thinking:  Understanding how designers think and work. New York: Berg. da Costa, N. C. A., & Krause, D. (2006). The logic of complementarity. In J. van Benthem, G. Heinzmann, M. Rebuschi, & H. Visser (Eds.), The age of alternative logics: Assessing philosophy of logic and mathematics today (pp. 103–​120). New York: Springer. Daston, A. C. (1998). Fear and loathing of the imagination in science. Daedalus, 127, 73–​95. Dicken, P. (2015). Global shift: Mapping the changing contours of the world economy (7th ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Dodd, D., & Favaro, K. (2006). Managing the right tension. Harvard Business Review, December, 62–​74. Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science. New York: Viking. Dorst, K., & Cross, N. (2001). Creativity in the design process: co-​evolution of problem–​ solution. Design Studies, 22, 425–​437. Eisenberg, E. (2007). Strategic ambiguities: Essays on communication, organization, and identity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ellis, A. W., & Brysbaert, M. (2010). Split fovea theory and the role of two cerebral hemispheres in reading: A review of the evidence. Neuropsychology, 48, 353–​365. Estes, W. K. (1994). Classification and cognition. New York: Oxford University Press. Evans, J. S. (2008). Dual-​processing accounts of reasoning, judgment, and social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 255–​278. Evans, P. (2000). The dualistic leader:  Thriving on paradox. In S. Chowdhury (ed.), Management 21C: Someday we’ll all lead this way (pp. 66–​82). London: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Farjoun, M. (2010). Beyond dualism:  Stability and change as a duality. Academy of Management Review, 35, 202–​225. Feng, Q. (1996). A trilogy on wisdom (3 Volumes, in Chinese). Shanghai, China: East China Normal University Press. Gao, C. (1994). The traditional Chinese mode of cognition (in Chinese). Jinan, China: Shandong University Press. Gentner, D., & Bowdle, B. 2008. Metaphor as structure-​mapping. In R. Gibbs (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 109–​128). New York: Cambridge University Press. Gersick, C. (1991). Revolutionary change theories: A multilevel exploration of the punctuated equilibrium paradigm. Academy of Management Review, 16, 10–​36. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Goldberg, P. (1989). The intuitive experience. In W. H. Agor (ed.), Intuition in organizations: Leading and managing productively (pp. 121–​134), Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Graham, A. C. (1986). Yin-​yang and the nature of correlative thinking. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press. Graham A. C. (1989). Disputers of Tao:  Philosophical arguments in ancient China. Chicago, IL: Open Court.

72 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 481–​510. Gu, M. D. (2005). The Zhouyi (Book of Changes) as an open classic: A semiotic analysis of its system of representation. Philosophy East and West, 55, 257–​282. Gupta, A. K., Smith, K. G., & Shalley, C. E. (2006). The interplay between exploration and exploitation. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 693–​706. Hall, D. L. (1978). Process and anarchy—​A Taoist vision of creativity. Philosophy East and West, 28, 271–​285. Hall, D., & Ames, R. (1995). Anticipating China:  Thinking through the narratives of Chinese and Western culture. Los Angeles, CA: SUNY Press. Handy, C. (1994). The Age of Paradox.Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Hellige, J. B. (1993). Hemispheric asymmetry: What’s right and what’s left. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hellige, J. B. (2006). Evolution of brain lateralization in humans. Cognition, Brain, Behavior, 10, 211–​234. Hibben, J. G. (1902/​2000). Hegel’s logic: An essay in interpretation. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Batoche Books. Hsiao, J.H-​W., Shillcock, R., & Lee, C-​Y. (2007). Neural correlates of foveal splitting in reading:  Evidence from an ERP study of Chinese character recognition. Neuropsychologia, 45, 1280–​1292. Hutchinson, S., Lee, L. H., Gaab, N., & Schlaug, G. (2003). Cerebellar volume of musicians. Cerebral Cortex, 13, 943–​949. Jackson, W. A. (1999). Dualism, duality and the complexity of economic institutions. International Journal of Social Economics, 26, 545–​558. Jia, Y. (1992). Cognitive processes involved in the recognition of Chinese characters. Diogenes, 157, 67–​87. Jing, R-​T., & Van de Ven, A. H. (2014). A yin-​yang model of organizational change: The case of CBG. Management and Organization Review, 10, 29–​54. Jordan T. R., & Paterson, K. B. (2009). Re-​evaluating split-​fovea processing in word recognition: A critical assessment of recent research. Neuropsychology, 47, 2341–​2353. Jullien, F. (1998). Un Sage est sans idée: ou l’autre de la philosophie (Chinese translation: 圣人无意：哲学的他者). Paris: Seuil. Kelso, J. A.  S., & Engstrom, D. A. (2006). The Complementarity nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kempe, B., & Christman, S.D. (2009). Inconsistent handedness is linked to more successful foreign language vocabulary learning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 480–​485. Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. A. (2005). Blue ocean strategy:  How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press. Kitayama, M., & Tompson, S. (2010). Envisioning the future of cultural neuroscience. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 13, 92–​101. Klinke, A., & Renn, O. (2002). A new approach to risk evaluation and management: Risk-​based, precaution-​based, and discourse-​based strategies. Risk Analysis, 22, 1071–​1094. Knight, F. H. (1921). Risk, uncertainty and profit. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 73

Kochunov, P. (2003). Localized differences in brain morphology between English-​ speaking Caucasian and Chinese-​speaking Asian populations: New evidence of anatomical plasticity. NeuroReport, 14, 961–​964. Kounios, J., & Beeman, M. (2014). The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 13.1–​13.23. Koyama, M., Hansen, P. C., & Stein, J. F. (2008). Logographic Kanji versus phonographic Kana in literacy acquisition:  How important are visual and phonological skills? Annals of New York Academy of Science, 1145, 41–​55. Kunst, R. A. (1985). The original “Yijing”: A text, phonetic transcription, and indexes (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation). University of California, Berkeley, CA. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press. Lavie, D., Stettner, U., & Tushman, M. L. (2010). Exploration and exploitation within and across organizations. Academy of Management Annals, 4, 109–​155. Lawrence, P.R., & Lorsch, J.W. (1967). Differentiation and integration in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12, 1–​47. Lester, R. K., & Piore, M. J. (2004). Innovation:  The missing dimension. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levine, D. N. (1985). The flight from ambiguity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Levinthal, D. A., & March, J. G. (1993). The myopia of learning. Strategic Management Journal, 14, 95–​112. Lewis, M. (2000). Exploring paradox: Toward a more comprehensive guide. Academy of Management Review, 25, 760–​776. Li, C. (2014). The Confucian philosophy of harmony. London: Routledge. Li, P. P. (1998). Toward a geocentric framework of organizational form:  A holistic, dynamic and paradoxical approach. Organization Studies, 19, 829–​861. Li, P. P. (2008). Toward a geocentric framework of trust: An application to organizational trust. Management and Organization Review, 4, 413–​439. Li, P. P. (2012a). Toward an integrative framework of indigenous research: The geocentric implications of yin-​yang balancing. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 29, 849–​872. Li, P. P. (2012b). Exploring the unique roles of trust and play in private creativity: From the complexity-​ambiguity-​metaphor to the trust-​play-​creativity link. Journal of Trust Research, 2, 71–​97. Li, P. P. (2014a). The unique value of yin-​yang balancing: A critical response. Management and Organizational Review, 10, 321–​332. Li, P. P. (2014b). Toward the geocentric framework of intuition: The yin-​yang balancing between the Eastern and Western perspectives on intuition. In M. Sinclair (Ed.), Handbook of research methods on intuition (pp. 28–​41). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishers. Li, P. P. (2016). Global implications of the indigenous epistemological system from the East. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 23(1), 42–​77. Liang, S-​M. (1921/​1997). The cultures and philosophies between the East and the West (in Chinese). Beijing: The Commerce Press. Lin, D-​M., Lu, J-​Y., Li, P. P., & Liu, X-​H. (2015). Balancing formality and informality in business exchanges as a duality: A comparative case study of returnee and local entrepreneurs in China. Management and Organization Review, 11(2), 315–​342.

74 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Lin, J. Y. (1995). The Needham Puzzle: Why the industrial revolution did not originate in China. Economic development and cultural change, 43, 269–​292. Liu, C-​L. (1990). The system thinking in China (in Chinese). Beijing: Social Sciences Academy Press. Liu, Y., Dunlap, S., Fiez J., & Perfett, C. (2007). Evidence for neural accommodation to a writing system following learning. Human Brain Mapping, 28, 1223–​1234. Lloyd, G. E. R. 1966. Polarity and analogy: Two types of argumentation in early Greek thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. (2007). Cognitive variations: Reflections on the unity and diversity of the human mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Logan, R. K. (2004). The alphabet effect (2nd ed.). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Logan, R. K. (2007). The extended mind: The emergence of language, the human mind and culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. March, J. G. (1982). The technology of foolishness. In J. G. March & J. P. Olsen (Eds.), Ambiguity and choice in organizations (pp. 69–​81). Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget. March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2, 71–​87. March, J. G. (1994). A primer on decision making: How decisions happen. New York: Free Press. Martin, R. (2007). The opposable mind: How successful leaders win through integrative thinking. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Martin, R. (2009). The design of business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Meacham, J. A. (1990). The loss of wisdom. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom, its nature, origins, and development (pp. 181–​212). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McGilchrist, I. (2009). The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the Western world. New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press. Miller, D. L. (1989). The philosophy of creativity. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Mintzberg, H., & Waters, J. A. (1985). Of strategies: Deliberate and emergent. Strategic Management Journal, 6, 257–​272. Morin, E. (2008). On complexity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Mungello, D. E. (2009). The great encounter of China and the West, 1500–​1800 (2nd edition). New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Nagji, B., & Tuff, G. (2012). Managing your innovation portfolio. Harvard Business Review, May, 67–​74. Needham, J. (1956–​2008, Vols. 1-​7). Science and civilization in China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Needham, J. (1969). The grand titration:  Science and society in East and West. London: Allen & Unwin. Needham, J., Lu, G., & Sivin, N. (Eds.) (2000). Science and civilisation in China (Medicine Vol. 6, Pt. 6). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, J. R., Liu, Y., Fiez J., & Perfetti, C.A. (2009). Assimilation and accommodation patterns in ventral occipitotemporal cortex in learning a second writing system. Human Brain Mapping, 30, 810–​820. Newell, A., Shaw, J.C., & Simon, H.A. (1962). The process of creative thinking. In H. E. Gruber, G. Terrell, & M. Wertheimer (Eds.), Contemporary approaches to creative thinking (3rd ed., pp. 63–​119). New York: Atherton Press.

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 75

Ng, W. H. A., Chan, Y. L., Au, K. S., Yeung, K. W., Kwan, T. F., & To, C. Y. (2005). Morphometry of the corpus callosum in Chinese children: Relationship with gender and academic performance. Pediatric Radiology, 35, 565–​571. Nisbett, R. (2003). The geography of thought:  How Asians and Westerns think differently  . . .  and why. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Nisbett, R., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzanan, A. 2001. Culture and system of thoughts: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291–​310. Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science, 5, 14–​37. O’Reilly, C. A., & Tushman, M. L. (2013). Organizational ambidexterity: Past, present, and future. Academy of Management Perspective, 27, 324–​338. Oyserman, D., & Lee, S. W. S. (2008). Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 311–​342. Oyserman, D., Sorensen, N., Sylvia, R. R., & Chen, X. (2009). Connecting and separating mind-​sets:  Culture as situated cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 217–​235. Pang, P. (1995). Three-​in-​one: The study of the Chinese traditional thinking (in Chinese). Shenzhen, China: Haitian Press. Patel, A. D. (2008). Music, language, and the brain. New York: Oxford University Press. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54, 741–​754. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. (2000). Dialectical responses to questions about dialectics thinking. American Psychologist, 55, 1067–​1068. Peng, K., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Zhong, N. (2006). Naive dialecticism and the Tao of Chinese thought. In U. Kim, K. S. Yang, & G. Huang (Eds.), Handbook of indigenous and cultural psychology (pp. 247–​262). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Pierce, J. R., & Aguinis, H. (2013). The too-​much-​of-​a-​good-​thing effect in management. Journal of Management, 39, 313–​338. Poincaré, H. (1913/​1946). The foundations of science: Science and hypothesis, the value of science, science and method. Lancaster, PA: Science Press. Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge:  Towards a post-​ critical philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Poole, M. S., & Van de Ven, A. H. (1989). Using paradox to build management and organization theories. Academy of Management Review, 14, 562–​578. Porkert, M. (1978). Theoretical foundations of Chinese medicine: Systems of correspondence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Prahalad, C. K., & Doz, Y. L. (1987). The multinational mission:  Balancing local demands and global vision. New York: Free Press. Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1984). Order out of chaos: Man’s new dialogue with nature. New York: Bantam Books. Raisch, S., & Birkinshaw, J. (2008). Organizational ambidexterity:  Antecedents, outcomes, and moderators. Journal of Management, 34, 375–​409. Ramscar, M., & Gitcho, N. 2007. Developmental change and the nature of learning in childhood. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 274–​279. Ray, M., & Myers, R. (1986). Creativity in business. New York: Doubleday. Rittel, H. W.  J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Science, 4, 155–​169.

76 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Runco, M. A. (2007). Creativity theories and themes: Research, development, and practice. Burlington, MA: Elsevier. Schad, J., Lewis, M. W., Raisch, S., & Smith, W. K. (2016). Paradox research in management science: Looking back to move forward. Academy of Management Annals, 10, 5–​64. Scharmer, O., & Kaufer, K. (2013). Leading from the emerging future: From ego-​system to eco-​system economies. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-​Koehler Publishing. Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books. Schumpeter, J. A. (1942/​1994). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. London: Routledge. Schwartz, B. I. (1973). On the absence of reductionism in Chinese thought. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 1, 27–​44. Shlain, L. (1998). The alphabet versus the goddess:  The conflict between word and image. New York: Penguin. Simon, H. A. (1973). The structure of ill-​structured problems. Artificial Intelligence, 4, 181–​201. Simon, H. A. (1987). Making management decisions: the role of intuition and emotion. Academy of Management Executive, 1, 57–​64. Simon, H. A., Dantzig, G. B., Hogarth, R., Plott, C. R., Raiffa, H., Schelling, T. C., . . .  Winter, S. (1987). Decision making and problem solving. Interfaces, 17, 11–​31. Sinclair, M. (2011). Handbook of intuition research. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Siu, R. G. H. (1957). The Tao of science: An essay on Western knowledge and Eastern wisdom. Boston, MA: MIT Press. Sivin, N. (1995). Science in ancient China:  Researches and reflections. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate. Skoyles, J. R. (1984). Alphabet and the Western mind. Nature, 309, 409–​410. Skoyles, J. R., & Sagan, D. (2002). Up from dragons: The evolution of human intelligence. New York: McGraw Hill. Smets, M., Jarzabkowski, P., Burke, G. T., & Spee, P. (2015). Reinsurance trading in Lloyd’s of London:  Balancing conflicting-​yet-​complementary logics in practice. Academy of Management Journal, 58, 932–​970. Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36, 381–​403. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction: A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 296–​312. Stacey, R. D. (1996). Complexity and creativity in organizations. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-​Koehler. Stacey, R. D., Griffin, D., & Shaw, P. (2000). Complexity and management. London: Routledge. Stark, D. (2009). The sense of dissonance: Accounts of worth in economic life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Suddaby, R., Hardy, C., & Huy, Q. H. (2011). Where are the new theories of organization: Introduction to the Special Topic Forum. Academy of Management Review, 36, 236–​246. Taggart, W., & Robey, D. (1981). Minds and managers: On the dual nature of human information processing and management. Academy of Management Review, 6, 187–​195. Takahashi, M., & Overton, W. F. (2005). Cultural foundations of wisdom:  An integrated developmental approach. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Jordan (Eds.), A

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 77

handbook of wisdom: Psychological perspectives (pp. 32–​60), New York: Cambridge University Press. Tan, L. H., Feng, C-​M., Fox, P. T., & Gao, J-​H. (2001). An fMRI study with written Chinese. NeuroReport, 22, 83–​88. Tan, L. H., Laird, A. R., Li, K., & Fox, P. T. (2005). Neuroanatomical correlates of phonological processing of Chinese characters and alphabet words:  A meta-​analysis. Human Brain Development, 25, 83–​91. Tang, Y., Zhang, W., Chen, K., Feng, S., Ji, Y., Shen J., Reiman, E. M., Liu, Y. (2006). Arithmetic processing in the brain shaped by cultures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 10775–​10780. Tian, C. (2002). Tongbian in the Chinese reading of dialectical materialism. Philosophy East and West, 52, 126–​144. Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Uzzi, B. (1997). Social structure and competition in interfirm networks: The paradox of embeddedness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 35–​67. Van Heijenoort, J. (1963). Gödel’s theorem. In P. Edwards (Ed.), Encyclopedia of philosophy (Vol. 3, pp. 348–​357). New York: Macmillan. Vaughan, F. E. (1979). Awakening intuition: Greater realization through your intuitive powers. New York: Doubleday. Walker, W. E., Harremoes, P., Rotmans, J., van der Sluijs, J. P., van Asselt, M. B.  A., Janssen, P., & Krayer von Krauss, M. P. (2003). Defining uncertainty. A  conceptual basis for uncertainty management in model based decision support. Integrated Assessment, 4, 5–​17. Wang, S-​R. (2005). Return to the thinking of original creativity:  The Chinese wisdom from the lens of “image-​related thinking” (in Chinese: 回归原创之思：” 象思维”视野下的中国智慧). Nanjing, Jiangsu, China: Jiangsu People’s Press. Watt, A. W. (1957). The way of Zen. New York: Vintage Books. Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 1–​19. Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K. E. (2006). Faith, evidence, and action: Better guesses in an unknowable world. Organization Studies, 27, 1723–​1736. Weick, K. E., & Putnam, T. (2006). Organizing for mindfulness:  Eastern wisdom and Western knowledge. Journal of Management Inquiry, 15, 1–​13. Wenzel, C. H. (2010). Isolation and involvement:  Wilhelm von Humboldt, Francois Jullien, and more. Philosophy East & West, 60, 458–​475. Witelson, S. F. (1985). The brain connection: The corpus callosum is larger in left handers. Science, 229, 665–​668. Witelson, S. F. (1987). Neurobiological aspects of language. Child Development, 58, 653–​688. Witelson S. F. (1989). Hand and sex differences in the isthmus and genu of the human corpus callosum. Brain, 112, 799–​835. Wong, W-​C. (2006). Understanding dialectical thinking from a cultural-​historical perspective. Philosophical Psychology, 19, 239–​260. Yu, C. (2009). On the integration of the Chinese and Western epistemologies (in Chinese). Beijing: People’s Press.

78 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Zhang, L-​W. (1991). I Ching and Confucianism-​Taoism-​Moism (in Chinese). Taipei, Taiwan: Dongda Press. Zhang, W-​R. (2011). Yin-​yang bipolar relativity: A unifying theory of nature, agents and causality with applications in quantum computing, cognitive informatics and life sciences. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Zhang, W-​R., & Zhang, L. (2004). Yin-​yang bipolar logic and bipolar fuzzy logic. Information Science, 165, 265–​287. Zhang, Y., Waldman, D., Han, Y. L., & Li, X. B. (2015). Paradoxical leader behavior in people management:  Antecedents and consequences. Academy of Management Journal 58(2), 538–​566. Zhou, H., & Cacioppo, J. (2010). Culture and the brain:  Opportunities and obstacles. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 13, 59–​71. Zhou, S. (Ed.) (2010). The research on the Chinese traditional mode of cognition (in Chinese). Shanghai, China: Shanghai Century Press.

The Epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing 

| 79



­C HAPTER 3

Culture and Lay Theories of Change Ning Zhang, Li-​Jun Ji, and Tieyuan Guo

We can speak and think only of what exists. And what exists is uncreated and imperishable for it is whole and unchanging and complete. It was not or nor shall be different since it is now, all at once, one and continuous . . .  —Parmenides, c. 515/​540 bc

The born can’t escape birth, the changing can’t escape change; therefore birth and change are the norm. Things for which birth and change are the norm are at all times being born and changing. —​The Book of Lieh-​Tzu, Heaven’s Gifts (pp. 17–​18)

People hold lay theories (or implicit beliefs) in order to help decode the mysteries of the human mind and behavior and to make sense of the complex social world in which they live. Research during the past two decades has documented a variety of lay theories, including those about happiness (Furnham & Cheng, 2000; Pflug, 2009), personality (Plaks, Levy, & Dweck, 2009), motivation (Heath, 1999), and interpersonal (Knee, Patrick, Vietor, & Neighbors, 2004) and intergroup (Levy, Chiu, & Hong, 2006) relationships. These lay theories, along with their ancillary beliefs (epistemologies), constitute implicit meaning systems that have significant implications in guiding, both directly and indirectly, people’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviors (Hong, Levy, & Chiu, 2001; Norenzayan, Choi, & Nisbett, 2002; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). As implied by the quotations at the beginning of this chapter, people from different cultures have different understandings of change. In this chapter, we will focus on these differences (Ji, 2005, 2008; Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001). First, we define lay theories of change. Next, we review

supporting evidence for cultural differences in lay theories of change. Finally, we outline some recent studies documenting the cultural and developmental foundations of these cultural differences in lay theories of change and propose directions for future research. Lay theories of change refer to people’s implicit beliefs about how phenomena develop (or change) over time (Ji, 2005; Ji et  al., 2001). Specifically, East Asians, and Chinese in particular, tend to hold a more cyclical view of change than do European Americans, such that trends of events are expected to change and the direction and rate of change are also expected to fluctuate over time (Ji, 2005, 2008; Ji et al., 2001). In contrast, European Americans are more likely to endorse a linear view of change, such that objects or events are expected to remain in a relatively stable state or progress in a linear fashion (Ji, 2005, 2008; Ji et al., 2001). These different lay theories of change guide people’s predictions and understanding of people, objects, and events. Researchers have developed measures of lay theories of change, such as the Change subscale in the Dialectical Self Scale (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2008), and the Prediction of Change subscale in the Analysis-​Holism Scale (Choi, Koo, & Choi, 2007). It is important to note that lay theories of change focus on the unfolding of the events, without requiring any active involvement of the theorist (or believer). Thus, a person may believe that events are changing all the time, but may not necessarily welcome change or believe that he or she personally can change events; and vice versa, a person may believe that he or she can change the world, but may not necessarily believe that the world is changing all the time. It is this characteristic that distinguishes lay theories of change from the entity versus incremental implicit theories of personality proposed by Dweck and her colleagues (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997; Dweck, Hong, & Chiu, 1993)  and the belief in a fixed world (Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1995), which emphasizes people’s beliefs that personality or the world can or cannot be changed (for a review of cultural differences in control orientations, see Chapter 10 in this volume). Cultural difference in lay theories of change is one of the key components of analytic versus holistic thinking. Based on a systematic review of the empirical research on cultural differences in cognition (mainly between East Asians and European Americans), Nisbett and colleagues proposed that an overarching theme of cultural differences is analytic versus holistic thinking styles (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). Specifically, European Americans are more likely to think analytically; they tend to orient their attention to the focal object, categorize objects based on formal logic and rules, make dispositional attributions and linear

82 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

change predictions, and display a low tolerance for contradictions. In contrast, East Asians are more likely to think holistically; they tend to orient their attention to both the object and the background, categorize objects based on relationships, make situational attributions and cyclical change predictions, display a high level of tolerance for contradiction, and endorse naïve dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999).

Supporting Evidence for Cultural Differences in Lay Theories of Change Cultural differences in lay theories of change are manifested across various domains, including our personal development, subjective well-​being, financial judgments, and interpersonal relationships, to name a few. In this section, we review research documenting cultural differences in lay theories of change in prediction, judgment, and decision-​making across multiple domains.

Predictions of Personal Development over Time People with different lay beliefs of change make different predictions concerning the development of events over time. Those with a cyclical view of change are more likely to anticipate change and accept that it is normal to experience ups and downs in their lives, whereas those accustomed to making linear change predictions are less likely to foresee the possibility of one extreme condition changing to another. For example, in one study using hypothetical scenarios, Ji and colleagues (2001) asked Chinese and European American university students to estimate the likelihood that a young man who grew up in a poor family would become rich sometime later in his life. Chinese were more likely than Americans to believe that the young man would become rich in the future. Similarly, in another study (Ji & Zhang, 2004), university students read descriptions of a person (who was 10, 20, or 30 years old) with certain traits (e.g., funny), behaviors (e.g. telling jokes), or abilities (e.g., making others laugh). Participants were asked to predict the likelihood that the target person would display the same traits, behaviors, or abilities in 10, 20, or 30 years. Although both Canadians and Chinese predicted that children would be more likely to change than would adults, and that people would be more likely to change with the passage of time, Chinese predicted a stronger likelihood of change and made more reversal predictions than did Canadians. Likewise, in a developmental study conducted by Lockhart

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 83

and colleagues (Lockhart, Nakashima, Inagaki, & Keil, 2008), 5-​to 6-​year-​olds, 8-​to 10-​year-​olds, and college students in Japan and the United States were presented with stories describing a character’s psychological and physical traits at 5 and 10  years old. Researchers then asked participants to make predictions about the story characters’ traits at 21 years old and 80 years old. Japanese adults were more likely to predict that traits would change during development than were Americans. By the same token, Japanese children were more inclined to believe that negative traits would change in a positive direction during development, compared to their American counterparts (Lockhart et al., 2008). These results provide convergent evidence that East Asians tend to believe that one’s destiny and traits are malleable across the lifespan, whereas Americans are more inclined to believe that one’s destiny and traits are relatively stable.

Predictions about Subjective Well-​Being In a similar way, people from East Asian cultures and those from North American cultures have different expectations and predictions about the temporal trend of their subjective well-​being across the lifespan. For example, when asked to select a trend that would most accurately describe their level of happiness across their lifetime, American participants were more likely to endorse a linear trend—​they expected their lifetime happiness to remain stable over time or to change in one direction (e.g., becoming happier and happier) across their lifespan, whereas Chinese participants were more likely to endorse nonlinear trends—​they expected life to change from happiness to unhappiness, and from unhappiness to happiness, over time (Ji et al., 2001).

Predictions about and Responses to Life Events Another manifestation of cultural differences in lay theories of change is people’s predictions about and responses to life events. East Asians tend to believe that one’s experience of positive and negative events will balance out across time, whereas North Americans are more prone to expect that one will predominantly experience either positive or negative events. For instance, compared to European American students, Chinese university students were more likely to predict that a student who had been a chess champion for 3 years at school would lose in the next competition (Ji et al., 2001). Similarly, in another study, Chinese were more likely to anticipate positive outcomes following negative events, and negative outcomes

84 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

following positive events, whereas European Canadians were more inclined to expect a positive event to result in more positive events, and a negative event to result in more negative events (Ji & Zhang, under review). These different life expectations may help us better understand optimism across cultures. Past research has shown that, compared to North Americans, Asians are less optimistic (Chang, 1996; Zane, Sue, Hu, & Kwon, 1991)  and show less unrealistic optimism (Heine & Lehman, 1995). Instead of being generalizable across situations, cultural differences in optimism may be context-​dependent (Ji, Zhang, Usborne, & Guan, 2004). Based on a cyclical view of change, we would expect East Asians to be more optimistic when in negative situations and less optimistic when in positive situations than North Americans. It is important to distinguish expectations about the likelihood of positive or negative events occurring to oneself from levels of optimism when one is currently in a negative or positive situation. Whereas the former indexes one’s optimism regarding potential positive or negative life events, the latter reflects how being in a negative or positive situation influences levels of optimism. For example, Chang, Asakawa, and Sanna (2001) investigated cross-​cultural expectations about the likelihood of positive or negative life events. These authors found that, compared to Japanese participants, European Americans expected that positive events were more likely to occur to oneself than to others, whereas Japanese participants expected that negative events were more likely to occur to oneself than to others (Chang et al., 2001). Although these findings point to interesting cross-​cultural differences, they do not shed light on how East Asians’ and North Americans’ optimism may be influenced by an existing negative or positive context. Although one can investigate the influence of negative and positive situations on optimism using experimental manipulations and hypothetical events, leveraging real-​life events may provide the most insight into context-​ dependent cultural differences in optimism. The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 presented researchers with an opportunity to study optimism and optimism bias (Chua & Joy, 1999; DeJoy, 1989; Hatfield & Joy, 2001)  during a naturally occurring negative life event. In a survey study conducted in Beijing and Toronto during the SARS outbreak, Ji and colleagues (2004) found that mainland Chinese were more optimistic than were European Canadians in estimating the probability of their avoiding SARS infection. In addition, Chinese participants in Beijing reported more positive changes brought about by SARS (e.g., decreased pressure to study, more time for exercise and study, new appreciation for family and friendship, and so on), suggesting

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 85

greater optimism in the context of a negative event, relative to European Canadians in Toronto.

Predictions of Interpersonal Relationships Cultural differences in lay theories of change are also manifested in people’s predictions concerning the trajectories of interpersonal relationships. Compared with North Americans, Chinese are more likely to predict that a relationship between two people may change from bad to good, or from good to bad. In a study using hypothetical scenarios, Ji and colleagues (2001) found that, compared to European American college students, Chinese university students were more likely to predict that two senior undergraduates who had been dating for 2  years would break up after graduation. They also were more inclined to predict that two children who fought frequently in kindergarten would become lovers some day in the future (Ji et al., 2001). In other words, when predicting the status of future interpersonal relationships, Chinese are more pessimistic than European Americans when the current relationship is going smoothly, but more optimistic when the relationship is failing.

Reasoning about Regression toward the Mean The concept of regression toward the mean is used in statistics to describe the phenomenon that a variable with an extreme score at one time point or at one measurement will naturally become closer to the average score in subsequent measurements (e.g., “winning streaks” will end and people’s performance will regress toward their personal average; Clarke, Clarke, & Brown, 1960). Research conducted in Britain and North America found that people had difficulty understanding this concept and were generally insensitive to the regression toward the mean effect when making predictions (Clarke et al., 1960; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). This finding may be explained by the fact that Westerners tend to believe that events will continue to progress in a linear fashion and, thus, an extreme state is not expected to regress back to the average state (Ji et al., 2001; Nisbett, Krantz, Jepson, & Kunda, 1983). Since Chinese hold a cyclical view of change, however, they should be more likely to make predictions corresponding with regression toward the mean, such that things in an extreme state will eventually regress back to the average state. Indeed, recent cross-​cultural research supports this hypothesis (Spina, Ji, Ross, Li, & Zhang, 2010). In a series of prediction tasks concerning

86 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

athletic competitions, health conditions, and weather forecasting, Spina, Ji, Ross, and colleagues (2010) found that Chinese participants’ predictions were more congruent with the regression-​toward-​the-​mean effect than were those of their European Canadian counterparts. For instance, in comparison with European Canadians, Chinese were more likely to predict that athletes who did extremely well (or poorly) in one competition would have a less extreme performance in a subsequent competition. In a similar vein, Chinese were more likely than European Canadians to predict that extreme health test results (e.g., an extremely high or low cholesterol level) would regress back to average in a following measurement. Chinese also were more likely than European Canadians to predict that a city experiencing an extremely high or low number of sunny days in the previous year would experience a less extreme number of sunny days in the following year. Furthermore, when explaining a regression-​toward-​ the-​mean phenomenon, such as a majority of ballet dancers’ performance after joining the ballet company not being as good as their performance at the audition during recruiting, Chinese preferred the regression-​congruent explanation (e.g., “The brilliant performances at the audition are not typical of those actors’ general abilities. They probably just made some dance moves at the audition that were much better than usual for them.”) more than did European Canadians (Spina, Ji, Ross, et al., 2010).

Financial Judgment and Decision-​Making Culturally specific lay theories of change also affect financial judgment and decision-​making processes. In a series of studies investigating people’s decisions to buy or sell stocks, Ji, Zhang, and Guo (2008) found that Canadians were more willing to sell a stock when its price was falling and more willing to buy when its price was rising, whereas the reverse was true for Chinese participants. This effect was found among both novices (university students with no experience in making stock market decisions) and experienced stock investors. In a follow-​up study, the authors found that Canadians were more likely to make decisions based on the recent price trends of a stock (presumably due to the belief that the same trends would continue in the future), whereas Chinese were more likely to make decisions based on both recent and earlier price trends. This research parallels previous findings that Chinese investors tend to sell stocks that have appreciated in value and keep those that have depreciated (Chen, Kim, Nofsinger, & Rui, 2007). Given that East Asians expect more change, they may adapt more readily to change in judgement and decision-​making. One recent cross-​cultural

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 87

study on reference point adaptation in stock trading decision-​ making revealed notable cultural differences between East Asians (e.g., Chinese, Koreans) and Americans (Arkes, Hirshleifer, Jiang, & Lim, 2010). The reference point is one’s current wealth status, aspiration levels, or norms in a specific decision-​making context (Heath, Larrick, & Wu, 1999; Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). Reference point adaption entails the processes by which the decision maker moves the reference point “in a manner consistent with the prior outcome, shifting upward following a gain and downward after a loss” (Arkes et al., 2010). East Asians more readily updated their reference points and updated them to a greater extent following gains and losses than did Americans. For example, when asked to indicate the stock price change of today that would make them as happy (or sad) as when the price had increased (or decreased) previously, East Asians (both Chinese and Koreans) responded with an amount closer to the previous price change (i.e., reference point) than did European Americans. These findings show that East Asians adapted to the reference point more than did Euro-​Americans. The authors argued that this occurred because East Asians are more susceptible to the influence of prior outcomes and to prior reference points in decision-​ making. In addition, East Asians may more readily adapt their financial reference points as a result of their cyclical theory of change where shifts in direction are expected. In contrast, North Americans, who tend to hold a linear theory of change may resist straying from their projected path and thus do not adapt their reference points as much as East Asians.

Lay Theories of Change and the Expected Relationship between Events Lay theories of change (i.e., beliefs about how events develop over time) and beliefs about how events are related to each other are closely intertwined. Given that East Asians and European North Americans hold different lay theories of change, it is reasonable to expect that they also may differ in their implicit assumptions concerning how events are related. Specifically, as European North Americans hold a linear view of change, they also may believe that things are related to each other in a linear way, such as corresponding in magnitude, valence, and direction between cause and effect. For example, European North Americans may be more likely than East Asians to believe that a large cause leads to a large effect and a small cause leads to a small effect. In contrast, East Asians, with a more cyclical view of change, may be less likely to believe that events

88 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

correspond to each other proportionally or linearly. In the next sections, we review two lines of research that examine these possible cultural differences: correspondence in magnitude between cause and effect, and correspondence between appearance and reality.

Correspondence in Magnitude between Cause and Effect When making causal explanations, people are evaluating the relationship between events. Westerners are thought to assume a correspondence in magnitude between cause and effect—​the magnitude of a causal event is proportional to the magnitude of its effect (McCauley & Jacques, 1979; McClure, Lalljee, & Jaspars, 1991; Shultz & Ravinsky, 1977). For example, McClure and colleagues (1991) found that when Westerners were asked to explain extreme events versus moderate events (e.g., severe social delinquency or outstanding academic achievement), they tended to increase the magnitude of one single cause rather than increasing the number of causes, displaying a tendency to match the magnitude of cause with effect. Based on the cyclical view of change and dialectical thinking style among Chinese, we believe this tendency (in McClure et al.’s study) may be weaker among Chinese persons. This is exactly what was found in a study by Spina and colleagues (2010). They conducted a series of studies to explore how culture affects people’s expectations of the correspondence in magnitude between causes and their effects. For instance, in one of the studies, they gave Chinese and European Canadian participants scenarios describing the effects of a disease outbreak that varied in magnitude (e.g., a disease outbreak in a company that led to 11 deaths and 10 people being severely ill vs. a disease outbreak that led to 7 people being hospitalized), followed by causes that differed in magnitude (e.g., a highly infectious strain of bacteria vs. a standard strain of bacteria). Participants were asked to estimate how likely the effects were produced by the causes. The results indicated that although both Chinese and European Canadians expected the cause–​effect correspondence in magnitude (e.g., that weak causes would produce weak effects), this effect was stronger among European Canadians than among Chinese. In another study, participants were asked to judge the relationship between the extent of a disagreement between two parties (minor vs. major) and the length of the negotiation that ensued (brief vs. long). The investigators (Spina, Ji, Guo, Zhang, Li, & Fabrigar, 2010) found that European Canadians were more likely than Chinese to expect a brief negotiation to follow a minor disagreement and a long negotiation to follow a major disagreement. Similar results were found with

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 89

other scenarios that were presented in text or in pictures. These results provide converging evidence that European Canadians expect a correspondence between the magnitude of a cause and an effect to a greater degree than Chinese. Stated alternatively, Chinese, who hold dialectical lay beliefs about change, are less likely to expect a linear correspondence between the magnitude of causes and their effects.

Correspondence between Appearance and Reality Although common wisdom reminds people not to judge a book by its cover, it is still a common phenomenon that many people make judgments and decisions based on the appearance of an object, person, or event (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Shevlin Walker, Davies, Banyard, & Lewis, 2003). But do people from different cultures believe to the same degree (or in the same way) that appearances represent (or linearly correspond to) reality? Lee and colleagues (2012) conducted a series of studies to investigate cultural differences in people’s judgments of the correspondence between appearance and reality in competitive settings. The results showed that European Canadians were more likely to perceive a company or competitor with a competitive public image as more threatening to their opponents than those with an indistinctive public image. Conversely, Chinese perceived more threat in the latter than in the former. This difference was also observed when participants were asked to choose the strategies they would prefer to adopt when presenting themselves in competitive settings. In particular, European Canadians were more inclined to portray a competitive public image, whereas Chinese displayed a stronger preference for keeping a low profile in competition. The cultural differences in the perceived relationship between appearance and reality was fully mediated by people’s beliefs concerning whether appearances are misleading representations of reality. This implies that it is the belief in the correspondence between appearance and reality that guides people’s judgments in social perception and behaviors regarding self-​presentation. Findings that Chinese are less likely than North Americans to expect a correspondence between appearance and reality are consistent with cultural differences regarding the self. Whereas the North American self tends to be independent and relatively unchanging across situations (Heine, 2001), the East Asian self is interdependent and is influenced by relational demands across situations (Heine, 2001; Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001; Markus & Kitayma, 1991). Because of a need to maintain a consistent, independent self (English & Chen, 2007, 2011; Heine, 2001;

90 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Swann & Read, 1981; Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2003), North Americans’ private and public selves have a high correspondence, which likely contributes to the expectation that appearance (i.e., the public self) is indicative of reality (i.e., the private self). In contrast, East Asians’ fluid, relationally influenced concept of self likely contributes to the expectation that appearance and reality can be dissonant. The notion that the self is changing and flexible aligns with a cyclical theory of change, whereas the idea that the self is constant and unchanging is more consistent with a linear theory of change. Thus far, we have reviewed the empirical evidence that cultural differences in lay theories of change are manifested in a variety of domains (e.g., personal development, developmental trends of subjective well-​being and interpersonal relations, responses to life events), reasoning about regression toward the mean, financial judgment and decision-​making, and expected relationship between events, including correspondence in magnitude between cause and effect and appearance and reality. The list is surely not exhaustive; future researchers are encouraged to explore the manifestation and consequences of lay theories of change in other domains. Although substantial cultural differences in lay theories of change between East Asians and North Americans are reliably observed, curious readers may wonder what leads to such cultural differences in the first place. This is what we turn our attention to in the next section.

Cultural and Developmental Underpinnings of Lay Theories of Change As cultural psychology becomes more mature as a field, social and cultural psychologists are working toward uncovering the underlying mechanisms for cultural differences in psychological processes (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998; Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Shweder, 1990; Triandis, 1989). There is increasing consensus concerning the mutually constitutional relationship between culture and psychological processes: on the one hand, culture shapes psychological processes through distal ecological, economic, historical, and institutional factors, as well as proximal cultural products, practices, and social interactions. On the other hand, the psychological processes that people acquire enhance the maintenance, production, and reproduction of the cultural products, practices, customs, and institutions that afford them (Fiske et  al., 1998; Kitayama, Conway, Pietromonaco, Park, & Plaut, 2010; Lehman, Chiu, & Schaller, 2004). In

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 91

the next sections, we summarize research on the role of socialization in cultivating different views of lay theories of change, including the influences of education and training, as well as the influence of temporal focus.

Socialization One of the most powerful and enduring cultural practices that shape each individual’s psychological processes is socialization. Through socialization, children exposed to different cultures acquire differing norms of behavior, divergent thinking styles, and appropriate ways to define and express themselves (see Fiske et  al., 1998; Heine, 2010, for review). Psychologists may explore the cultural affordance of basic psychological processes by comparing children of similar age from different cultures. This allows researchers to investigate when cultural differences in psychological processes emerge in development, and whether and how these cultural differences change as children grow older. For example, in one study aimed at illuminating the developmental trajectory of lay theories of change, Ji (2008) presented Chinese and Canadian children aged 7, 9, and 11 with a series of scenarios in words (e.g., “Angela was very unhappy/​ feeling so-​so/​very happy at the age of 6. Guess how she would feel at the age of 7?”) and pictures (e.g., different states of happiness were presented visually using a set of pictures of unhappy and happy faces; see Figure 3.1). Children were asked to make several predictions about the future

Angela (pointing to the girl) was very happy (pointing at the smiling face on the far right) at the age of 6. Guess how she would feel at the age of 7?

Figure 3.1  An example of study materials used in Ji (2008).

92 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

performance of a child in a game, a future relationship between two classmates, the future happiness of a person, the future income of a person, and the future performance of a group in a class. The results demonstrated that, at age 7, both Chinese and Canadian children made similar predictions. At age 9, however, Chinese children made slightly more change predictions than did Canadian children, and at age 11, Chinese children made significantly more change predictions than their Canadian counterparts. In other words, the cultural differences in change predictions did not emerge until the age of 9, and then they increased gradually as the children got older. As with previous research documenting the role of culture in shaping basic psychological processes (Fiske et al., 1998; Kitayama et al., 2010; Lehman et al., 2004), this example provides direct evidence that lay theories of change are acquired in childhood, presumably due to socialization processes.

Education and Training In addition to socialization processes during the early stages of life, the education and training that people receive while growing up can also influence the way they reason in general and make predictions in particular. In a series of studies, Nisbett and colleagues found that formal education and training can modify a person’s way of thinking (Nisbett, Fong, Lehman, & Cheng, 1987). For example, receiving training in statistics can lead students to apply statistical rules to everyday problems (Nisbett et al., 1983). Koo and Choi (2005) examined how formal education and training may shape students’ lay theories of change (for a review, see Chapter 4 in this volume). Borrowing the method used in Ji et al.’s (2001) study, the researchers presented Korean college students with a series of graphs indicating trends in several hypothetical events. The students predicted how the events would develop in the future. Some of the Korean students were from an introductory psychology class and others majored in Oriental medicine. Compared with students in other majors, students who studied Oriental medicine were more likely to expect a cyclical pattern when making change predictions (i.e., predicting that the given trend would reverse in the future). These results suggest that training in traditional cultural practices such as oriental medicine can promote cyclical or nonlinear beliefs in change. Prudent readers would argue that there is one alternative explanation for this result: those who choose to study Oriental medicine might be more likely to hold a cyclical view of change before entering college; therefore, the difference between the two groups could be due to

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 93

self-​selection rather than education. Koo and Choi (2005) reported in a follow-​up study that second-​year students of Oriental medicine showed more holistic causal beliefs than pre–​Oriental medicine students, suggesting a training effect of Oriental medicine. In sum, the research presented here suggests that lay theories of change, and other culturally based meaning systems, emerge in childhood and are facilitated by socialization processes, education, and training. (For a comprehensive review of research on culture and development across the lifespan, see Chapter 5 in this volume).

Environmental Affordance and Multicultural Experience The physical environment (e.g., cities) around us can influence our attention, cognition, and reasoning. For example, researchers have shown that compared to the physical environment in the United States, the physical environment in Japan is more ambiguous and context-​rich and contains more elements (i.e., a higher number of perceptually distinct aspects in the image, such as portions of signs, vehicles, and buildings; Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006). Scenes from a Japanese city had a larger number of objects than those from a comparable U.S. city. Work by Masuda and others indicates that East Asians, relative to North Americans, prefer context-​rich Facebook profile photos (Huang & Park, 2013) and Web designs (Wang, Masuda, Ito, & Rashid, 2012) and create context-​rick works of art (Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, & Nisbett, 2008) (see Chapter 8 in this volume). More interestingly, both Americans and Japanese attended more to contextual information (i.e., detected contextual changes in a change-​ blindness task; Masuda & Nisbett, 2006) when they were first exposed to pictures of Japanese scenes than when they were exposed to pictures of American scenes. This provides direct evidence for environmental influence in sensitivity to context and change detection and suggests that culturally based meaning systems can be activated through transient exposure to the physical environment of a culture. Since environment influences attention, it may also influence the predictions made by the lay person. Alter and Kwan (2009) reported that exposure to East Asian culturally laden locations and symbols could temporarily alter the change predictions of European Americans (for a review, see Chapter 17 in this volume). In one study, researchers approached two groups of European Americans:  one group on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a mainstream American environment, and the other group in Chinatown in New York City, an environment replete with Chinese cultural

94 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

symbols and elements. Participants were asked to make weather predictions for an unnamed city. They were presented with the weather information in the previous two days (sunny or rainy on both days) and asked to predict the weather for the third day. The results revealed that, compared to Euro-​Americans on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Euro-​Americans from Chinatown expected more change in the weather. Likewise, in a similar study, Euro-​Americans were asked to make judgments upon exiting either a typical American supermarket or an Asian supermarket. Those exiting the Asian supermarket displayed a decision-​making style more similar to East Asians, relative to those exiting the American physical environment. In addition, the authors documented that these effects were stronger for European Americans who were more familiar with Chinese cultural primes and who had spent longer periods of time overseas during the previous 2  years. These results imply that culturally laden environments and multicultural experiences can transiently influence the change predictions of European Americans. One might also argue, however, that people choose their environment—​where they shop and where they live—​ on the basis of their preferences.

Temporal Focus The ways we think, feel, and behave are not only shaped by the broader cultural context in which we live but also by culturally determined psychological processes. In other words, a given culture typically fosters a constellation of culturally congruent psychological processes that are closely connected and exert influence on each other directly or indirectly (Gelfand et  al., 2011). Recently, researchers have begun to explore the psychological antecedents of lay theories of change. For instance, Ji and colleagues (Ji, Guo, Zhang, & Messervey, 2009) demonstrated that, when asked to rate the relevance of various pieces of behavioral information about potential suspects in a theft case, Chinese rated remote past and recent past information as more relevant than the European Canadians did. This suggests that Chinese attend to past information more than European Canadians do in solving the case. In summary, compared to European Canadians, Chinese take a wider range of temporal information (e.g., both remote past and recent past information) into consideration in explaining social events. Cultural differences between East Asians and European Americans in temporal focus have also been observed in the “future” aspect of temporal perception. In a series of studies investigating cultural differences in

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 95

perceptions of the consequences of events, Maddux and Yuki (2006) documented the “ripple effect”—​East Asians are more aware of the indirect and distal consequences of events. For example, the researchers presented to participants a picture of a person making a shot in a pool game and asked them to judge how much the shot would affect the person who took the next shot, third shot, and sixth shot and the overall outcome of the game. European Americans thought the critical shot would have a greater impact on the next shot than did Asian Americans. In contrast, Asian Americans thought the critical shot would have a greater impact on the sixth shot and the overall outcome of the game than did European Americans. Similar cultural differences in perception of consequences were found for other types of events, including an area being converted into a national park, a chief executive officer firing employees, and a car accident (Maddux & Yuki, 2006). The authors concluded that the results provided evidence that East Asians’ sensitivity to context may extend to the temporal aspect of judgment and prediction. Temporal focus may systematically influence the way people view continuity and reversals in events. For any given pattern (e.g., real estate prices), there are generally more ups and downs over a long period of time than over a short period of time. Thus, if one attends to a narrow range of temporal information (such as information pertaining to only today or this week), one may be more likely to see stability and continuity. In contrast, if one attends to a broader range of temporal information (such as information pertaining to the past few years or one’s whole life), one has more opportunities to observe changes or reversals in trends. Some preliminary research has shown that when induced to focus on a broader time frame, both Chinese and European Canadians make more trend-​reversal predictions than when induced to focus on a narrower time frame, providing evidence that temporarily induced temporal focus could influence people’s understanding and prediction of change (Guo & Ji, 2009). Taken together, the findings outlined here suggest that, as an extension of cultural differences in sensitivity to context, cultural differences in temporal focus (proximal vs. distal) could be one antecedent of the cultural variation in lay theories of change. East Asians tend to consider a broader temporal range of information when making judgments or decisions than do North Americans. This broader temporal focus may reveal more variable long-​term patterns that are not perceptible in the short term, thus contributing to East Asians’ view that cyclical changes in life are to be expected.

96 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Future Directions Next we outline several lines of research concerning the consequences of lay theories of change: problematic gambling behavior, risk prediction and preventative behavior, and intergroup relationships over time.

Problematic Gambling Behavior Previous investigations have shown that Chinese and other Asian immigrants are more likely to be addicted to gambling than are North Americans (Loo, Raylu, & Oei, 2008; Oei, Lin, Raylu, 2008; Wong & Tse, 2003). This can probably be explained, at least in part, by cultural differences in the perception of change and, more specifically, the East Asian cyclical lay theory of change. After losing several rounds in a gambling event, East Asians are more inclined to believe that they can win back their money in the following round, leading to a stronger persistence in gambling. In other words, what is known as the “gambler’s fallacy” (Cowan, 1969; Lindman & Edwards, 1961) is a natural outcome of the East Asian theory of change, whereas among North Americans this ideation is less common. Even among inveterate East Asian and Western gamblers, where the behavior may be similar cross-​culturally, there is probably a different etiology. Lay theories of change may be one of the causes that lead to problematic gambling among East Asian immigrants in North America. Indeed, research has shown that Chinese participants are more subject to the gambler’s fallacy—​the belief that one is due for a win after a run of losses (Ji et al., 2015).

Risk Prediction and Preventative Behavior As outlined earlier, previous research has demonstrated that people with different lay theories of change make different predictions across a variety of domains, such as personal development, subjective well-​being, life events, interpersonal relationships, financial decision-​ making, and the relationships between events (Ji, 2008; Ji et al., 2001; Spina et al., 2010). We assume that these different predictions will guide people’s future behavior. For instance, when things are currently going well, Chinese may be more inclined to take a prevention approach to be prepared for future setbacks, because they tend to predict that the situation may get worse in the future. However, North Americans may be more likely to take a promotion approach to do better when the current situation is good, as they

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 97

tend to believe that the current trend will continue in the future. When the current situation is bad, the reverse might be true. Research by Kurman and Hui (2011) showed that Hong Kong Chinese displayed double regulatory foci—​high on both promotion and prevention focus as measured by the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (Higgins et al., 2001) and the Regulatory Focus Strategies Scale (Ouschan, Boldero, Kashima, Wakimoto, & Kashima, 2007). With the ability to consider multiple action options after failure as a performance index, they found that, compared to the control condition, Hong Kong Chinese performed better in both promotion-​and prevention-​ framed conditions, whereas promotion-​oriented Israeli Jews performed better only in the promotion-​ framed condition (Kurman, Hui, & Dan, 2012). However, no research to date has explored how trends of past performance (i.e., continuous success vs. failure) influence people’s adoption of subsequent performance strategies (i.e., prevention focused vs. promotion focused) in the long term and whether it differs cross-​culturally. Based on cultural differences in lay theories of change, we predict that Westerners would take the strategy that is congruent with previous performance trends (e.g., promotion after continuous success and prevention after continuous failure), whereas East Asians would be more likely to take a reverse strategy, as indicated by the previous performance trends (e.g., prevention after continuous success and promotion after continuous failure). Future research that explores these possibilities will deepen our understanding of the role of lay theories of change in motivating different performance strategies cross-​culturally.

Intergroup Relationships Cultural differences in lay theories of change also may have implications for political and diplomatic strategies for dealing with international relationships. For instance, policy makers and diplomats from East Asian cultural backgrounds may be more likely to adopt a prevention approach in dealing with issues concerning intergroup relationships when the current situation is good, whereas their North American counterparts may be more likely to take a promotion approach in the same situation. However, when there are conflicts between groups (i.e., the situation is currently bad), the cultural groups may take opposite approaches, such that East Asians may be more likely to adopt a promotion approach, whereas North Americans may be more likely to take a prevention approach. This cultural incongruence in strategies used to deal with intergroup or international relations could lead to either misunderstandings or a deterioration of the

98 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

current relationship between groups or countries. To our knowledge, no research has explored these possibilities so far. Future research exploring these questions could have implications for intergroup relationships and international politics.

Conclusions Lay theories form the cornerstone of our understanding of human thought and behavior and the social world we live in (Plaks et al., 2009). Lay theories of change appear to have a pervasive effect on human behavior (Ji, 2005; Ji et  al, 2001, 2008). In this chapter, we reviewed a growing body of research that captures cultural differences in lay theories of change in a variety of domains. We further provided some evidence suggesting that lay theories of change may be related to beliefs about the correspondence between events and causes and effects. Finally, we surveyed the role of socialization, exposure to cultural environments and symbols, education and training, and temporal focus in the development of cultural differences in lay theories of change. More research is warranted to further investigate these culture-​specific beliefs, including, but not limited to, the psychological consequences of cultural differences in lay theories of change, developmental patterns of lay theories of change across the lifespan, and the strategic use of lay theories of change in navigating the complex social world.

References Alter, A. L., & Kwan, V. S. Y. (2009). Cultural sharing in a global village: Evidence for extracultural cognition in European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(4), 742–​760. doi:10.1037/​a0014036 Arkes, H. R., Hirshleifer, D., Jiang, D., & Lim, S. S. (2010). A cross-​cultural study of reference point adaptation: Evidence from China, Korea, and the US. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 112(2), 99–​ 111. doi:10.1016/​ j.obhdp.2010.02.002 Chang, E. C. (1996). Evidence for the cultural specificity of pessimism in Asians versus Caucasians: A test of the general negativity hypothesis. Personality and Individual Differences, 21, 819–​822. Chang, E. C., Asakawa, K., & Sanna, L. J. (2001). Cultural variations in optimistic and pessimistic bias:  Do Easterners really expect the worst and Westerners really expect the best when predicting future life events? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 476–​491. Chen, G., Kim, K. A., Nofsinger, J. R., & Rui, O. M. (2007). Trading performance, disposition effect, overconfidence, representativeness bias, and experience of

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 99

emerging market investors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20(4), 425–​451. doi:10.1002/​bdm.561 Chiu, C., Hong, Y., & Dweck, C. S. (1997). Lay dispositionism and implicit theories of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(1), 19–​30. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.73.1.19 Choi, I., Koo, M., & Choi, J. A. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(5), 691–​705. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167206298568 Chua, F. J., & Job, R. F. S. (1999). Event-​specific versus unitary causal accounts of optimism bias. Journal of Behavioural Medicine, 22, 457−490. Clarke, A. D. B., Clarke, A. M., & Brown, R. I. (1960). Regression to the mean: A confused concept. British Journal of Psychology, 51, 105–​117. doi:10.1111/​j.2044-​ 8295.1960.tb00731.x Cowan, J. L. (1969). The gambler’s fallacy. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, 30(2), 238–​251. DeJoy, D. M. 1989. The optimism bias and traffic accident risk perception. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 21, 333–​340. Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 207–​213. Dweck, C. S., Chiu, C. Y., & Hong, Y. Y. (1995). Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions:  A word from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry, 6(4), 267–​285. doi:10.1207/​s15327965pli0604_​1 Dweck, C. S., Hong, Y. Y., & Chiu, C. Y. (1993). Implicit theories individual differences in the likelihood and meaning of dispositional inference. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19(5), 644–​656. doi:10.1177/​0146167293195015 English, T., & Chen, S. (2007). Culture and self-​concept stability:  Consistency across and within contexts among Asian Americans and European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(3), 478–​490. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.93.3.478 English, T., & Chen, S. (2011). Self-​concept consistency and culture:  The differential impact of two forms of consistency. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(6), 838–​849. doi:10.1177/​0146167211400621 Fiske, A. P., Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). The cultural matrix of social psychology. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Linzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 915–​981). Boston: McGraw-​Hill. Furnham, A., & Cheng, H. (2000). Lay theories of happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1(2), 227–​246. doi:10.1023/​A:1010027611587 Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., . . . Yamaguchi, S. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-​nation study. Science, 332(6033), 1100–​1104. doi:10.1126/​science.1197754 Guo, T. Y., & Ji, L. J. (2009). What do I expect in the future? Ask me about the past: Cultural differences in temporal information focus and trend predictions (Unpublished manuscript). Queen’s University. Hatfield, J., & Job, R. F. S. (2001). Optimism bias about environmental degradation: the role of the range of impact of precautions. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21, 17–​30. Heath, C. (1999). On the social psychology of agency relationships:  Lay theories of motivation overemphasize extrinsic incentives. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78(1), 25–​62. doi:10.1006/​obhd.1999.2826

100 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Heath, C., Larrick, R. P., & Wu, G. (1999). Goals as reference points. Cognitive Psychology, 38, 79–​109. Heine, S. J. (2001). Self as cultural product: An examination of East Asian and North American selves. Journal of Personality, 69(9), 881–​906. Heine, S. J. (2010). Cultural psychology. In D. T. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology (5th ed., pp. 1423–​1464). New York: Wiley. Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1995). Cultural variation in unrealistic optimism: Does the West feel more invulnerable than the East? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 595–​607. Higgins, E. T., Friedman, R. S., Harlow, R. E., Idson, L. C., Ayduk, O. N., & Taylor, A. (2001). Achievement orientations from subjective histories of success: Promotion pride versus prevention pride. European Journal of Social Psychology, 31(1), 3–​23. doi:10.1002/​ejsp.27 Hong, Y., Levy, S. R., & Chiu, C. (2001). The contribution of the lay theories approach to the study of groups. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(2), 98–​106. doi:10.1207/​S15327957PSPR0502_​1 Huang, C., & Park, D. (2013). Cultural influences on Facebook photographs. International Journal of Psychology, 48(3), 334–​343. Ji, L. J. (2005). Culture and lay theories of change. In R. M. Sorrentino, D. Cohen, J. M. Olson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Ontario symposium on personality and social psychology (pp. 117–​135). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ji, L. J. (2008). The leopard cannot change his spots, or can he? Culture and the development of lay theories of change. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(5), 613–​622. doi:10.1177/​0146167207313935 Ji, L. J., Guo, T., Zhang, Z., & Messervey, D. (2009). Looking into the past: Cultural differences in perception and representation of past information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(4), 761–​769. doi:10.1037/​a0014498 Ji, L.J., McGeorge, K., Li, Y., Lee, A., & Zhang, Z. (2015). Culture and gambling fallacies. Springerplus, 4(1), 510. http://​www.springerplus.com/​content/​4/​1/​510. doi:10.1186/​s40064-​015-​1290-​2 Ji, L. J., Nisbett, R. E., & Su, Y. (2001). Culture, change, and prediction. Psychological Science, 12(6), 450–​456. doi:10.1111/​1467-​9280.00384 Ji, L. J., & Zhang, Z. (2004). Cultural differences in predicting developments of traits, behaviors and abilities (Unpublished manuscript). Queen’s University. Ji, L. J., & Zhang, Z. (under review). Cultural differences in event outcome predictions and context-​dependent optimism. Ji, L. J., Zhang, Z., & Guo, T. (2008). To buy or to sell: Cultural differences in stock market decisions based on price trends. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 21(4), 399–​413. doi:10.1002/​bdm.595 Ji, L. J., Zhang, Z., Usborne, E., & Guan, Y. (2004). Optimism across cultures:  In response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 7(1), 25–​34. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​839X.2004.00132.x Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory:  An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263–​291. Kanagawa, C., Cross, S. E., & Markus, H. R. (2001). “Who am I?”: The cultural psychology of the conceptual self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 90–​103.

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 101

Kitayama, S., Conway, L. G., Pietromonaco, P. R., Park, H., & Plaut, V. C. (2010). Ethos of independence across regions in the united states: The production-​adoption model of cultural change. American Psychologist, 65(6), 559–​574. doi:10.1037/​a0020277 Knee, C. R., Patrick, H., Vietor, N. A., & Neighbors, C. (2004). Implicit theories of relationships: Moderators of the link between conflict and commitment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(5), 617–​628. doi:10.1177/​0146167203262853 Koo, M., & Choi, I. (2005). Becoming a holistic thinker: Training effect of oriental medicine on reasoning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(9), 1264–​1272. doi:10.1177/​0146167205274692 Kurman, J., & Hui, C. (2011). Promotion, prevention or both: Regulatory focus and culture revisited. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 5(3). http://​dx.doi.org/​ 10.9707/​2307-​0919.1109 Kurman, J., Hui, C. M., & Dan, O. (2012). Changing the world through changing the self:  Understanding a new control strategy through self-​reported coping plans in two cultures. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43(1), 15–​22. doi:10.1177/​ 0022022110388565 Lee, A., Ji, L. J., & Li, Y. (2012). Culture, public appearances, and social perception in competitions (Unpublished manuscript). Queen’s University. Lehman, D. R., Chiu, C., & Schaller, M. (2004). Psychology and culture. Annual Review of Psychology, 55(1), 689–​714. doi:10.1146/​annurev.psych.55.090902.141927 Levy, S. R., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (2006). Lay theories and intergroup relations. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 9(1), 5–​24. doi:10.1177/​1368430206059855 Lieh Tzu. (1990). Heaven’s gifts. In The Book of Lieh-​Tzu (A. C. Graham, trans.) (pp. 17–​18). New York: Columbia University Press. Lindman, H., & Edwards, W. (1961). Supplementary report: Unlearning the gambler’s fallacy. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(6), 630. Lockhart, K. L., Nakashima, N., Inagaki, K., & Keil, F. C. (2008). From ugly duckling to swan?:  Japanese and American beliefs about the stability and origins of traits. Cognitive Development, 23(1), 155–​179. doi:10.1016/​j.cogdev.2007.08.001 Loo J. M. Y., Raylu N., & Oei T. P, S. (2008). Gambling among the Chinese: a comprehensive review. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 1152–​1166. Maddux, W. W., & Yuki, M. (2006). The “ripple effect”: Cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 669–​683. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–​253. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (2010). Cultures and selves: A cycle of mutual constitution. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 420–​430. doi:10.1177/​1745691610375557 Masuda, T., Gonzalez, R., Kwan, L., & Nisbett, R. E. (2008). Culture and aesthetic preference: Comparing the attention to context of east asians and americans. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(9), 1260–​1275. doi:10.1177/​0146167208320555 Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2006). Culture and change blindness. Cognitive Science, 30(2), 381–​399. doi:10.1207/​s15516709cog0000_​63 McCauley, C., & Jacques, S. (1979). The popularity of conspiracy theories of presidential assassination: A Bayesian analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(5), 637–​644. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.37.5.637

102 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

McClure, J., Lalljee, M., & Jaspars, J. (1991). Explanations of extreme and moderate events. Journal of Research in Personality, 25(2), 146–​ 166. doi:10.1016/​ 0092-​6566(91)90011-​E Miyamoto, Y., Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2006). Culture and the physical environment: Holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances. Psychological Science, 17(2), 113–​119. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2006.01673.x Nisbett, R., Fong, G., Lehman, D., & Cheng, P. (1987). Teaching reasoning. Science, 238(4827), 625–​631. doi:10.1126/​science.3672116 Nisbett, R. E., Krantz, D. H., Jepson, C., & Kunda, Z. (1983). The use of statistical heuristics in everyday inductive reasoning. Psychological Review, 90(4), 339–​363. doi:10.1037/​0033–​295X.90.4.339 Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought:  Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291–​310. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.108.2.291 Norenzayan, A., Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (2002). Cultural similarities and differences in social inference: Evidence from behavioral predictions and lay theories of behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(1), 109–​ 120. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167202281010 Oei, T. P., Lin, J., & Raylu, N. (2008). The relationship between gambling cognitions, psychological states and gambling: a cross-​cultural study of Chinese and Caucasians in Australia. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 39(2), 147–​161. Ouschan, L., Boldero, J. M., Kashima, Y., Wakimoto, R., & Kashima, E. S. (2007). Regulatory focus strategies scale: A measure of individual differences in the endorsement of regulatory strategies. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 10(4), 243–​257. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​839X.2007.00233.x Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54(9), 741–​754. Pflug, J. (2009). Folk theories of happiness: A cross-​cultural comparison of conceptions of happiness in Germany and South Africa. Social Indicators Research, 92(3), 551–​ 563. doi:10.1007/​s11205-​008-​9306-​8 Plaks, J. E., Levy, S. R., & Dweck, C. S. (2009). Lay theories of personality: Cornerstones of meaning in social cognition. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 3(6), 1069–​1081. doi:10.1111/​j.1751-​9004.2009.00222.x Shevlin, M., Walker, S., Davies, M. N. O., Banyard, P., & Lewis, C. A., (2003). Can you judge a book by its cover? Evidence of selfstranger agreement on personality at zero acquaintance. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1373–​1383. Shultz, T. R., & Ravinsky, F. B. (1977). Similarity as a principle of causal inference. Child Development, 48(4), 1552–​1558. doi:10.2307/​1128518 Shweder, R. A. (1990). Cultural psychology: What is it? In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, and G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development (pp. 130–​204). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Spencer-​Rodgers J, Srivastava S, Boucher HC, English T, Paletz SB, Hou Y, et al. (2008). The Dialectical Self Scale. University of California; Berkeley. Unpublished manuscript. Spina, R. R., Ji, L., Ross, M., Li, Y., & Zhang, Z. (2010). Why best cannot last: Cultural differences in predicting regression toward the mean. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 13(3), 153–​162. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​839X.2010.01310.x

Culture and Lay Theories of Change 

| 103

Spina, R. R., Ji, J. L., Tieyuan Guo, Zhiyong Zhang, Ye Li, & Fabrigar, L. (2010). Cultural differences in the representativeness heuristic: Expecting a correspondence in magnitude between cause and effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(5), 583–​597. doi:10.1177/​0146167210368278 Swann Jr., W. B., & Read, S. J. (1981). Self-​verification processes: How we sustain our self-​conceptions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 17(4), 351–​372. doi://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1016/​0022-​1031(81)90043-​3 Swann Jr., W. B., Rentfrow, P. J., & Guinn, J. S. (2003). Self-​verification: The search for coherence. In M. R. Leary J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 367–​383). New York: Guilford Press. Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psychological Review, 96, 506–​520. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–​1131. doi:10.1126/​science.185.4157.1124 Wang, H., Masuda, T., Ito, K., & Rashid, M. (2012). How much information? east asian and north american cultural products and information search performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(12), 1539–​ 1551. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167212455828 Wong, J., & Tse, S. (2003). The face of Chinese migrants’ gambling: A New Zealand perspective. Electronic Journal of Gambling Issues: eGambling. Retrieved from http://​ www.camh.net/​egambling/​issue9/​opinion/​wong/​3. Zane, N. W., Sue, S., Hu, L., & Kwon, J. (1991). Asian-​American assertion: A social learning analysis of cultural differences. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 38, 63–​70.

104 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition



­C HAPTER 4

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition Constructs and Measurement Minkyung Koo, Jong An Choi, and Incheol Choi

A growing literature in social psychology shows well-​documented differences between Western and East Asian cultures (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998; Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995; Wyer, Chiu, & Hong, 2009). In particular, a substantial amount of research has been done on the cognitive differences between these two groups and shows that they have distinctive patterns of perception and cognition: analytic thinking versus holistic thinking. Analytic thinking is more prevalent in Western cultures (primarily European-​influenced cultures, e.g., Anglo-​Americans, Australians, and Northern Europeans), whereas holistic thinking is more common in East Asian cultures (e.g., Korea, China, and Japan). We define analytic/​holistic thinking as two modes of thought that reflect cultural variations in perceptual and cognitive processes (Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). Analytic thinking is characterized by a tendency to focus primarily on objects and their attributes. Analytic thinkers tend to distinguish focal objects or people from their contexts, ascribe causality to objects or actors, explain objects and social events on the basis of formal logic, predict future events in a linear manner, eschew contradiction (and favor synthesis), and categorize objects taxonomically. In contrast, holistic thinking is characterized as paying attention to relations among objects and their contexts. Holistic thinkers tend to attend to a whole field, attribute causality to contexts, rely on experience-​based knowledge to explain objects and events, predict cyclic changes of events, and categorize objects on the basis of their thematic relations (Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett et al., 2001). For a comprehensive

discussion regarding the conceptualization of “holistic thinking” (Nisbett et al., 2001; Norenzayan, Choi, & Peng, 2007) versus “dialectical thinking” (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010), see Chapter 1 in this volume. In our view, holistic thinking is a broader concept than dialectical thinking, the latter only highlighting two of the core components of holistic thinking, particularly acceptance of contradiction and perception of change. Western and East Asian cultures differ not only in thinking styles but also in terms of individualism or collectivism (Triandis, 1989) and independence or interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Individualism refers to a cultural system of norms and values that emphasizes individual freedom and goals, whereas collectivism emphasizes a group’s harmony and goals. Specifically, Westerners tend to be individualists who value autonomy, freedom, and personal fulfillment. In contrast, East Asians tend to be collectivists who emphasize harmony with ingroup members, respect for authority, and social responsibility (for a review, see Triandis, 1995). Independent self and interdependent self are culturally dominant models of the self. Westerners view the self as an independent agent and as separate from others (independent self), whereas East Asians tend to view the self as interconnected with significant others (interdependent self) (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Cultural differences in social orientation (individualism vs. collectivism) and self-​construal (independence vs. interdependence) are correlated with differences in cognitive style (analytic vs. holistic thinking) to a certain degree (Kühnen, Hannover, & Schubert, 2001; Oyserman & Lee, 2008; Varnum, Grossmann, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2010). A large body of research has shown that cultural differences in social orientation correspond to differences in cognitive styles:  Westerners are more individualistic, independent, and analytic, while East Asians are more collectivistic, interdependent, and holistic. However, although individualism–​collectivism, independence–​interdependence, and analytic–​holistic thinking vary substantially across cultures and within any given culture, this does not mean that these constructs are identical. These constructs aim to tap distinct aspects of cultural differences. Specifically, individualism–​collectivism and independence–​ interdependence are constructs highlighting cultural variations in ontological aspects, such as norms, values, and self-​ construals. By contrast, analytic versus holistic thinking is a construct underscoring epistemological differences across cultures. A recent study found a small correlation between independence/​interdependence orientation and analytic/​holistic thinking style (Na et al., 2010). This finding

106 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

provides empirical support for the notion that these constructs are related, but distinct. An impressive number of studies in social and consumer psychology provide converging empirical evidence for both within-​culture and cross-​ cultural differences in the cognitive styles. Major findings can be organized on the basis of cognitive domains, such as locus of attention, casual perception, perception of change, tolerance of contradiction, and categorization. We consider each domain in turn.

Locus of Attention In terms of attention, the analytic style is field-​independent, indicating that attention is mainly oriented toward an object itself, whereas the holistic style is field-​dependent, indicating that attention is focused on the relationship between objects and/​or the field in which they are embedded (Hedden et al., 2000; Ji, Peng, & Nisbett, 2000; Witkin, Dyk, Faterson, Goodenough, & Karp, 1974). These differences in attention have been examined in the context of several perceptual tasks, such as the rod-​frame task (Ji et  al., 2000), the Stroop task (Ishii, Reyes, & Kitayama, 2003; Kitayama & Ishii, 2002), and the perceptual memory task (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). Compared to analytic thinkers, those with a holistic mode of attention are more likely to form a memory of a focal object coupled with, but not independent from, its background information (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). Hence, holistic thinkers tend to exhibit better spatial judgment when background information needs to be processed than when it needs to be ignored (Krishna, Zhou, & Zhang, 2008).

Causal Perception The causal judgments of holistic thinkers depend more heavily on contextual information than do those of analytic thinkers. For example, the brand preferences of the Japanese, relative to those of Americans, are affected more by a brand’s country of origin (Gürhan-​Canli & Maheswaran, 2000). Also, members of East Asian cultures are influenced more by how objects are presented when perceiving and evaluating them than are those of Western cultures (Jain, Desai, & Mao, 2007; Zhu & Meyers-​Levy, 2009). Cultural variation in attentional orientation leads to differences in the way people understand and explain social events. Analytic thinkers take into consideration less information and explain events in terms of direct

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 107

causal links, whereas holistic thinkers consider a broader set of causal explanations, including factors with only indirect relevance to an event (Choi, Dalal, Kim-​Prieto, & Park, 2003). Choi and his colleagues (2003) empirically examined this cultural difference. They provided American and Korean participants with a scenario in which a graduate student had murdered a professor, as well as pieces of information that could either be relevant (e.g., the graduate student’s mental health) or irrelevant to the incident (e.g., the professor’s height and weight or preference for IBM/​ Mac), and asked participants to mark what was irrelevant to the event. The results showed that Koreans were likely to eliminate fewer pieces of information from further consideration than Americans, indicating that holistic thinkers tend to consider more information to explain events than do analytic thinkers. Because holistic thinkers are more likely to perceive interrelations among different aspects of an object or an event than analytic thinkers (Choi et al., 2003; Nisbett et al., 2001), cultural differences also emerge when people judge the quality of a product based on its price. Lalwani and Shavitt (2013) have found that people with Western cultural tendencies (e.g., Caucasians or those with an independent self-​construal) were more likely than those with Eastern cultural tendencies (e.g., Asians or those with an interdependent self-​construal) to infer the quality of a product from its price. Moreover, holistic reasoning mediated this effect, presumably because holistic thinkers are more likely to perceive interrelations between different elements of a product, including price and quality, than are analytic thinkers.

Perception of Change From the analytic perspective, objects exist independently (e.g., Munro, 1985; Nakamura, 1964/​1985; Needham, 1962), and thus the essence of objects is stable over time. This assumption leads to a linear perception of change in which no drastic deviation is expected in the pattern of stability or change of a phenomenon (Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). By contrast, a holistic view of the world assumes that objects are interrelated with each other, and therefore it is very unlikely that a phenomenon will remain constant over time. This perspective results in the holistic perception of change as cyclical and the accompanying expectation of instability in which people tend to expect fluctuating and/​or opposite trends for future events. These cultural

108 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

differences in the perception of change have been demonstrated in predicting various future events, including stock market trends. For example, Ji, Zhang, and Guo (2008) found that, compared to Chinese, Canadians are more likely to be affected by recent stock price trends and to make judgments based on those trends by increasing investment in a stock when the recent price is increasing, while reducing investment in the stock when the price is decreasing (for a comprehensive review, see Chapter 3, this volume).

Tolerance of Contradiction Holistic thinkers tend to engage in reasoning involving contradictions that tolerate opposites, whereas analytic thinkers tend to engage in reasoning involving contradiction that chooses one of two opposing propositions (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). Specifically, when contradiction arises, holistic thinkers pursue a compromise because they assume that opposite propositions can both be true, and one can potentially transform, even into its polar opposite. In contrast, analytic thinkers, who rely on a formal logic approach, resolve contradictions by eliminating one of the two conflicting propositions. Aaker and Sengupta (2000), for example, found that when confronted with incongruities, Americans resolved them by choosing one piece of information over another, whereas Asians took into account all of the pieces of information, however inconsistent. In line with this, East Asians and Westerners also perceive opposing emotions in different ways (for a comprehensive review, see Chapter 18 in this volume). Because the Chinese tend to believe that they can experience both pleasant and unpleasant emotions simultaneously, the frequency of positive and negative emotions is positively correlated, whereas Americans show an inverse correlation between the two (Bagozzi, Wong, & Yi, 1999), a result which has been attributed to cultural differences in dialectical thinking (Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2002; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, & Wang, 2010). Similarly, Asian Americans tend to perceive conflicting emotions in persuasive appeals more positively than do European Americans (Williams & Aaker, 2002).

Categorization Since analytic thinkers are more likely to pay attention to focal objects and their attributes whereas holistic thinkers are more likely to focus on the

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 109

field, analytic thinkers are more inclined to formulate rules that govern the internal properties of objects and tend to categorize objects by applying those rules. In contrast, holistic thinkers organize objects on the basis of their relationship to other objects or to the field and thus tend to categorize objects according to their overall similarities (Norenzayan, Smith, Kim, & Nisbett, 2002). Norenzayan and his colleagues (2002) provided empirical evidence supporting cultural differences in categorization. They provided Koreans and Americans with a set of drawings (e.g., flowers) consisting of a target object and two groups of four objects and asked them to judge which group the target object was most similar to. One of the two groups, referred to as a “family resemblance group,” included objects that looked similar to the target object (e.g., a flower with a short stem) without sharing a defining feature (e.g., a short stem) with the target object. The other group, referred to as a “rule group,” included objects that did not resemble each other or the target object, but shared a specific feature with the target object. The researchers found that Koreans were more likely to judge the target object to belong to the objects in the family resemblance group, whereas Americans were more likely to judge the target object to belong to those in the rule group. This finding indicates that analytic thinkers and holistic thinkers engage in different processes in categorization. Cultural differences in the way people categorize objects (rule-​and trait-​ based versus similarity-​and relationship-​ based) have also been demonstrated in the way people organize and store brand information in memory. For example, when participants were asked to choose brands to coherently group with a focal brand (e.g., Nike), Singaporeans were more likely to choose brands (e.g., Wilson) that were relationally linked to the focal brand (relationship-​based categorization), whereas Americans were more likely to choose brands (e.g., Asics) that were attributionally linked to the focal brand (trait-​based categorization) (Ng & Houston, 2006).

Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS) Various methods and techniques have been developed to measure cultural differences in cognitive styles, including cognitive tasks (e.g., Norenzayan et al., 2002), scenarios (e.g., Ji et al., 2001; Morris & Peng, 1994), physiological measures (e.g., Boduroglu, Shah, & Nisbett, 2009; Chua, Boland, & Nisbett, 2005), cultural product analyses (e.g., Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, & Nisbett, 2008; Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006; Morling &

110 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Lamoreaux, 2008; Wang, Masuda, Ito, & Rashid, 2012), and psychometric scales (Choi, Koo, & Choi, 2007). Among these methods, the 24-​ item Analysis-​ Holism Scale (AHS) (Choi et al., 2007) was constructed to tap four subconstructs of analytic and holistic thinking, namely locus of attention, causal perception, prediction of change, and tolerance of contradiction.1 The AHS allows researchers, whether interested in global cognitive styles or a specific subconstruct, to use the scale to measure differences in the two cognitive styles among various individuals or groups and, further, to measure the antecedents and consequences of the cognitive styles. Choi et al. (2007) tested the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale, examining its correlation with other scales. They found that the AHS was positively correlated with other scales that were designed to measure related cognitive styles, such as the Attribution Complexity Scale (Fletcher, Danilovics, Fernandez, Peterson, & Reeder, 1986), the Global Style subscale of the Sternberg-​Wager Self-​Assessment Inventory (Sternberg & Wagner, 1991), and the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-​II (Rahim, 1983). However, no significant correlations were found between the AHS and scales that tap other cultural differences, such as the Individualism-​ Collectivism Scale (Triandis, 1996) and the Self-​Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994), which suggests that the AHS measures a construct that is distinct from individualism–​ collectivism (Triandis, 1996)  and independent–​ interdependent self-​construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Choi et al. (2007) further provided evidence of criterion or known-​groups validity and, more specifically, that the AHS could differentiate groups of people who are theoretically assumed and/​ or empirically demonstrated to engage predominantly in one of the cognitive styles, analytic or holistic thinking. The authors found that the AHS scores differed significantly between two different cultural groups, Americans and Koreans (analytic and holistic, respectively), and between students from different disciplines within one culture (i.e., Korean students of Oriental medicine vs. other majors). Although Choi et al. (2007) confirmed the AHS to have a four-​factor model using an American sample (Study 3), its validity was only tested with Korean samples in the remaining studies. Lechuga, Santos, Garza-​ Caballero, and Villarreal (2011) provided additional evidence of the construct validity of the AHS, using a Mexican sample. They confirmed the four-​factor structure of the AHS as Choi et  al. (2007) had suggested. Furthermore, Lechuga et al. provided additional support for known-​group validity by showing that Mexicans (holistic culture) scored higher on the AHS than did Americans (analytic culture).

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 111

Additional evidence for known-​groups validity has been provided by several studies that compared the AHS scores of East Asians and Westerners. For example, Lin and her colleagues (2014) showed that Malaysians scored higher on the AHS than Australians or Americans. Also, Song, Swaminathan, and Anderson (2015) found that Chinese participants scored higher on the AHS than did Americans. Finally, Wang, Yeo, Nobarby, and Hsiech (2015) found that Indians scored higher on the AHS than did Americans. Lastly, Choi et al. (2007) tested the predictive validity of the AHS using two cognitive tasks: the categorization task (Norenzayan et al., 2002) and the judgment of causal relevance task (Choi et  al., 2003), demonstrating that Korean participants who scored higher on the AHS displayed a more holistic pattern of cognitive processing on each of the two tasks. Compared to Korean participants with low scores on the AHS scale (analytic thinkers), those with high scores (holistic thinkers) were more likely to use family resemblance (vs. abstract rules) as a strategy in the categorization task and to consider a greater amount of information in the causal judgment task. In sum, intracultural differences observed on the AHS were analogous to differences found between East Asian and Western cultures. In the following sections, we review other published and unpublished data that provide additional evidence of the validity of the AHS.

Further Evidence of AHS Validity Data collected by our research team (Koo, Choi, & Choi, 2013) provide additional evidence of the validity of the AHS in two main domains, namely perception of change and locus of attention. It is important to examine whether the AHS predicts a systematic difference in these two domains, not only because perception of change and locus of control comprise two major subcomponents of the AHS but also because attention and perception are the preliminary steps in cognitive processing, which influence higher levels of cognition. For this purpose, we used the prediction of change task (Ji et al., 2001) and the framed-​line task (Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003), which prior research has shown to be diagnostic of analytic and holistic tendencies in the perception of change and in the locus of attention domains, respectively.

The AHS and the Prediction of Future Events East Asians have a cyclical expectation of change, whereas Westerners have a linear expectation of change (Ji et al., 2001; Nisbett et al., 2001;

112 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). East Asians expect a trend to have ups and downs that alternate in a cyclical fashion. Therefore, when something is moving downward, it is expected to eventually move upward, and vice versa. This cyclical view results from the East Asian holistic assumption about the complexity of the world (Ji, 2008; Ji et al., 2000; Nisbett et al., 2001). According to this philosophical viewpoint, the world is a highly complicated place with numerous interconnected causal factors, and thus change is the rule and stability the exception. In the holistic mode of thinking, nothing in the universe is fixed or stagnant, and things are constantly in flux; after one extreme is reached, a situation can be transformed to the other extreme. By contrast, the world is regarded as an orderly place by Westerners and not much change is expected (Fisher, 1964), or “if change is occurring, there is no reason to assume that it will do anything but continue in the same direction” (Nisbett, 2003, p. 103). Ji and colleagues (2001) conducted a series of studies documenting these cultural differences with respect to the expectation of change. Participants were presented with a series of graphs, each showing a trend charted over time, such as the growth rate in the world economy or the death rate for cancer. The trends were either growing or declining, and the rate of change was either accelerating or decelerating. Participants were asked to predict the future pattern of each trend. Americans made more predictions consistent with the current trends presented to them than did the Chinese, whereas Chinese participants were more likely to think that when an event was moving in a particular direction, it would deviate from the current trend and even reverse direction in the future. Building on the work of Ji et al. (2001), we provided Korean participants with a total of 12 graphs, each showing the trend of a phenomenon charted over three points in time (e.g., the global economic growth rate at three different time points, time 1, time 2, and time 3) (Koo et al., 2013). Participants were then asked to predict how each phenomenon would change by marking dots at each of the next two time points (i.e., time 4 and time 5). In terms of the rate and direction of change, the graphs could be categorized into the following four types: accelerating increase, decelerating increase, accelerating decrease, and decelerating decrease (see Figure 4.1). We divided participants into analytic versus holistic groups on the basis of a median split of the AHS scores. The key focus of analysis was to examine whether participants in the holistic group would expect greater changes in the future than would those in the analytic group. We found that this was the case with respect to accelerating decrease and decelerating

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 113

increase graphs. As Figure 4.1c illustrates, we observed a significant interaction between cognitive style (analytic and holistic groups) and time (time [t]‌4 and 5)  for accelerating decrease, F (1, 59)  =  5.32, p < .05. All participants predicted that the pattern of accelerating decline would continue until time 4.  However, analytic participants expected that the events would continue to decline through time 5, whereas holistic participants predicted that the decreasing trend would slow down that year. The latter pattern is indicative of holistic thinking because the prediction at time 5 deviated from the decreasing trend suggested by the previous time points. Likewise, a similar pattern was found with respect to decelerating increase, F (1, 59) = 3.68, p = .06, although the interaction was only marginally significant. In the case of decelerating increase (see Figure 4.1b), all participants expected that the growth pattern would continue to decelerate by time 4. However, a cultural difference became apparent from time 4

Prediction of future events

(a) Accelerating increase

t1

t2

t3

t4

t5

t3

t4

t5

Prediction of future events

(b) Decelerating increase

t1

t2 Analytic people

Holistic people

Figure 4.1  Predictions of future events by analytic and holistic thinkers. t, time.

114 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Prediction of future events

(c) Accelerating decrease

t1

t2

t3

t4

t5

t3

t4

t5

Prediction of future events

(d) Decelerating decrease

t1

t2 Analytic people

Holistic people

Figure 4.1  (continued)

to time 5. The prediction of holistic participants departed from that of analytic participants at time 5. Put differently, after time 4, whereas analytic thinkers expected a continued pattern of growth, holistic thinkers expected that the growth trend would slow down. Holistic participants did not expect significantly greater changes in the future than did analytic participants with respect to accelerating increase, F (1, 59) = .24, ns, or decelerating decrease, F (1, 59) = .08, ns. The predicted pattern was obtained for only two out of the four types of changes; this could be because all of the participants were Koreans and, consequently, relatively holistic people. Given the cultural similarity and restriction of range in our Korean sample, we would expect less variability in participants’ AHS scores and judgments. In sum, our study showed that AHS scores were significantly associated with the perception of change. Specifically, participants with lower

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 115

scores on the AHS (analytic thinkers) predicted that the trend suggested by the graph would continue, whereas those with higher scores on the AHS (holistic thinkers) predicted that the trend would deviate in the future. This contrast between analytic and holistic groups parallels the well-​established cultural difference between Westerners and East Asians. Our findings not only provide empirical evidence for the predictive validity of the AHS, they also complement Ji et al.’s (2001) original work by suggesting that cultural differences in perception of change can be attributed to differences in cognitive styles, rather than to other factors such as economic or historical differences. In other words, our study provided more direct evidence for the link between cognitive styles and the perception of change by replicating findings from cross-​cultural studies at the level of individual differences in cognitive styles. Recently, Hong and Choi (2015) examined how one’s perceptions of change (cyclical vs. linear), measured by the AHS, influences interpersonal decisions. They demonstrated that a cyclical perception of change, a central feature of holistic thinking (vs. analytic thinking), is associated with longer romantic relationships among Korean college students, owing to the belief that “this too shall pass.” They found that cyclical (vs. linear) perceivers were more tolerant of relational transgressions and were more willing to remain with their romantic partners (Study 1). Cyclical perceivers were also less likely to break up than were linear perceivers, as they had a greater willingness to wait before dissolving relationships (Study 2). More importantly, in a 1-​year longitudinal study, cyclical perceivers were more likely to remain in their relationships 1 year later than were linear perceivers (Study 3).

The AHS and the Locas of Attention As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, one of the most fundamental differences between East Asians and Westerners is that East Asians are more field-​dependent; they are more attuned to contextual information and the entire field than they are to the focal object (Nisbett et al., 2001). In contrast, Westerners are relatively more field-​independent and are more attuned to the focal object than to the context. To examine the predictive validity of the AHS in the domain of locus of attention, we employed the framed-​lined task, adopted from Kitayama and colleagues (2003). We presented Korean participants with a square frame, within which was printed a vertical line. They were then shown another square frame of the same or different size and asked to draw a line in the

116 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

new square frame that was identical to the line presented in the original frame. There were two types of judgments made:  to determine whether the line was the same, either in terms of its absolute length (absolute task condition) or in terms of its proportion to the surrounding frame (relative task condition) (Figure 4.2). Successful performance in the absolute task required participants to ignore both the first square frame (when encoding the length of the line in memory) and the second frame (when reproducing the line). Participants had to ignore the context and attend to the focal object. However, the opposite was true for successful performance in the relative task; participants had to pay attention to the height of the surrounding square frames as well as to the height of the line within each frame (i.e., they had to attend to the context). Kitayama et al. (2003) found that the Japanese were better than Americans at performing the relative task, whereas Americans were better than the Japanese at the absolute task, because the Japanese are more field-​ dependent than Americans. To obtain a continuous measure of successful performance on each task, we measured the errors each participant made on the tasks. For the absolute task, we measured the length of the lines drawn and calculated the difference between the length of these lines and the length of the lines

Square = 100 mm tall Line = 20 mm/one fifth of height of the square Relative Task

Absolute Task

One fifth of height of the square

20 mm

Figure 4.2  An example of the framed-​line task.

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 117

presented in the original frame. Error in the relative task was measured by calculating the difference in the proportion of the line drawn in the first frame and the proportion of the line drawn in the second frame. We predicted that people who scored higher on the AHS (holistic thinkers) would perform better on the relative task, whereas those who scored lower on the AHS (analytic thinkers) would perform better on the absolute task. We found that the interaction between cognitive style (analytic vs. holistic) and type of task (absolute vs. relative) on the mean errors committed by participants was significant, F (1, 90) = 4.37, p < .05. As shown in Figure 4.3, on the relative task, holistic participants were more accurate in estimating the proportions of lines to the frames and made significantly smaller errors than did analytic participants, t (90) = 2.03, p < .05. In other words, holistic participants outperformed analytic participants on the relative task. However, in the absolute task, the errors of holistic and analytic participants did not differ, t (90) < 1, ns. Although speculative, the superior performance of holistic thinkers on the analytic task could be due to the educational status of the Korean participants. The participants in this study 1.6

1.4

Mean absolute error (mm)

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0

Absolute task

Relative task Analytic

Holistic

Figure 4.3  Framed-​line task results for analytic and holistic thinkers.

118 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

were students at one of the top universities in the nation, and they may have become better trained in analytic thinking than the general Korean population. Taken together, the results of these two studies show that scores on the AHS predict individual differences in the expectation of change (regarding the prediction of future events) and locus of attention (perceiving an object in relation to its context). Compared to those who scored lower on the AHS (analytic thinkers), those who scored higher on the AHS (holistic thinkers) showed a cyclical (vs. linear) perception of change and a more field-​dependent (vs. field-​independent) attentional style. It is also noteworthy that the AHS predicts behavior in both social and nonsocial domains, as described earlier. All of the tasks that Choi et al. (2007) used to test the validity of the AHS involved social elements. However, the framed-​lined task is designed to examine the basic cognitive ability to ignore or incorporate context (Kitayama et  al., 2003), as it only consists of lines and squares, without information pertaining to social factors.

Other Published Studies Using the AHS Since the AHS was developed, many studies in social psychology and related fields have adopted the AHS to assess between-​culture and within-​ culture differences in cognitive styles. In these studies, researchers have used the AHS not only to examine cultural differences in cognitive styles but also to investigate the underlying psychological processes that account for other types of cultural variation. In the following section, we review recently published papers in which the AHS has been used in various contexts, including as a predictor, outcome, mediator, or moderator of other variables of researchers’ interest. These studies not only provide additional evidence of its validity in different cultural samples but also demonstrate how the AHS can be utilized for various research purposes and thus can be a useful tool to enhance theoretical contributions to the field of cross-​ cultural psychology. Table 4.1 shows representative published studies in which the AHS was used for various purposes.

Correlates of the AHS Several studies have used the AHS to examine relationships between thinking styles (analytic vs. holistic) and other theoretically and conceptually relevant constructs. For example, Konrath, Bushman, and Grove (2009) assessed the relationship between analytic thinking and narcissism using

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 119

Table 4.1 Studies in Which the Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS) Was Used Study

N

Sample

Predictor

Outcome Variable (Correlated Construct)

Choi, Koo, & Choi (2007)   Study 2

328

Korean

AHS

  Study 3

191

Cultural background

  Study 4

330

Korean (104) vs. American Korean

Attribution Complexity Scale (Fletcher et al., 1986) Global Style Scale (Sternberg & Wagner, 1991) ROCI-​II (Rahim, 1983, Compromising subscale) INDCOL (Triandis, 1996) SCS (Singelis, 1994) AHS

  Study 5

92

Korean

College majors (Oriental medicine vs. others) AHS

  Study 6

119

Korean

AHS

Monga & John (2008)   Study 2 (pretest)

33

American

Thinking style priming (Monga & John, 2008)

AHS

Similarity judgment (Norenzayan, Smith, Kim, & Nisbett, 2002) Judgment of causal relevance (Choi, Dalal, Kim-​Prieto, & Park, 2003)

AHS (Attention)

Moderator

Mediator

Konrath, Bushman, & Grove (2009)   Study 1a

140

American

AHS

  Study 1b

92

American

AHS

Kim et al. (2010)

289

Korean (149) vs. American

Cultural background

AHS (Attention)

Geneotype (5-​HTR1A)

Monga & John (2010)   Study 1a

99

American

Brand extension evaluation

AHS

  Study 1b

79

American

Parent brand concept (prestige vs. functional) Parent brand concept (prestige vs. functional)

Brand extension evaluation

AHS

Boucher & O’Dowd (2011)

61

Bilingual Chinese Responses in (31) vs. American Chinese/​English

AHS (Causality)

Lechuga, Santos, Garza-​Caballero, & Villarreal (2011)   Study 1   Study 2

1,041 615

Mexican Mexican (518) vs. American

Gender Cultural background

AHS AHS

Ma-​Kellams & Blascovich (2012)   Study 4

60

East Asian (28) vs. American

Mortality salience

Funniness of jokes generated by participants

40-​item NPI (Raskin & Terry, 1988) 16-​item NPI (Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006)

Cultural background

AHS (continued)

Table 4.1  (continued) Study

N

Sample

Predictor

Outcome Variable (Correlated Construct)

Moderator

61 94

Korean Korean

AHS AHS

Prediction of future change (Ji et al., 2001) Framed-​line task (Kitayama et al., 2003)

169

German (106) vs. Vietnamese

Cultural background

AHS

Orth & Crouch (2014)   Study 3

120

Unreported

Context complexity

Processing fluency/​Brand attractiveness

AHS (Attention)

Ren, Lu, & Tuerdi (2014)   Study 2

260

Han-​Chinese Cultural background (130) vs. Uyghur-C ​ hinese

AHS

City (Beijing vs. Urumqi)

Slabu et al. (2014)

622

American (207) vs. Chinese (178) vs. Indian (127) vs. Singaporian (110)

Cultural background

Trait authenticity

AHS

Wayment, Bauer, & Sylaska (2015)   Study 2

209

American

Quiet Ego Scale (Wayment et al., 2015)

AHS (Causality & Contradiction)

Koo, Choi, & Choi (2013)

Oeberst, von der Beck, & Nestler (2014)

Mediator

Chinchanachokchai & Noel (2015)   Study 1

120

American

  Study 2

122

American

Duff & Sar (2015)   Study 1

56

American

  Study 2

186

American

Duttle & Inukai (2015)  Study2

88

Song, Swaminathan, & Anderson (2015) 298   Study 1 Wang et al. (2015)

55

Thinking style priming (Monga & John, 2008) Self-​construal priming (Kühnen, Hannover, & Schubert, 2001)

AHS

Task type (single task vs. multi-​tasks) Mood (negative vs. positive)

Brand–​ad scene matching

Japanese (44) vs. German

Decision complexity

Complexity aversion

Chinese (165) vs. American

Cultural background

AHS (12 items)

Service qualities

Satisfaction toward service

Cultural background

AHS (8 items used)

American (32) vs. Indian

AHS

AHS

AHS

AHS

AHS (12 items)

AHS = Analytic-​Holistic Scale (24-​items); AHS (Attention) = Locus of Attention subscale of AHS; AHS (Causality) = Causal Perception subscale of AHS; AHS (Contradiction) = Tolerance of Contradiction subscale of AHS; INDCOL = Individualism–​Collectivism Scale; SCS = Self-​Construal Scale; ROCI-​II = Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory–​II; 16-​item NPI = 16-​ item Narcissistic Personality Inventory; 40-​item NPI = 40-​item Narcissistic Personality Inventory.

the AHS. They found that narcissism is positively associated with analytic thinking, narcissism being characterized as the combination of high self-​ focus and low other-​focus (i.e., social atomization), suggesting that narcissists pay more attention to focal objects and readily decontextualize them. Also, Wayment, Bauer, and Sylaska (2015) used the AHS to examine the relationship between holistic thinking and quiet ego. Quiet ego is a form of self-​identity with a balanced and less defensive view of the self (and others) and the ability to see various perspectives, which is consistent with holistic thinking. They developed the Quiet Ego Scale and found it to be positively correlated with the AHS. Kim et  al. (2010) used the AHS to examine how cultural differences in cognitive styles are moderated by one’s genotype. Genotypes in the serotonin system are thought to influence people’s degree of cognitive flexibility (Schmitt, Wingen, Ramaekers, Evers, & Riedel, 2006). People with a certain genotype variant (G/​G allele of 5-​HTR1A) are less cognitively flexible and less likely to switch between different cognitive modes than are individuals with other genotype variants (C/​C or C/​G allele). Kim and colleagues used a subscale of the AHS (locus of attention) to measure thinking styles and found that Americans scored lower on this subscale (indicating analytic thinking) than did Koreans. More importantly, they found an interaction effect between culture (Korean vs. American) and genotype (G/​G vs. C/​C or C/​G allele) on the AHS subscale scores. Specifically, the magnitude of differences on the AHS subscale scores was greater between American and Korean participants with the G/​G allele (who were cognitively less flexible), compared to those with the C/​C or C/​ G allele (who were cognitively more flexible). These findings suggest that both heredity and culture influence people’s cognitive styles.

The AHS as a Mediating Variable Other researchers have used the AHS to examine the underlying mechanisms of various psychological phenomena, such as cultural differences in attitudes toward life and death. For example, Ma-​Kellams and Blascovich (2012) used the AHS to examine whether thinking styles mediate the effect of mortality salience on life enjoyment across cultures, particularly between European Americans and East Asian cultures. They found that, compared to European Americans, East Asians were more likely to think about their lives and seek to enjoy life when mortality was made salient, as East Asians have greater tolerance of contradiction, including attitudes toward life and death, than European Americans do, and thus East Asians

124 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

are more likely to focus on life in the face of death. Using an experimental manipulation of mortality salience and the AHS, Ma-​Kellams and Blascovich provided direct evidence that holistic thinking was the underlying mechanism accounting for this cultural difference. Slabu, Lenton, Sedikides, and Bruder (2014) also used the AHS to examine whether analytic versus holistic thinking styles mediate the effect of culture on trait authenticity (i.e., “a sense of being one’s true self”). They found that the average level of trait authenticity was higher in a Western culture (European Americans) than in Eastern cultures (China, India, and Singapore) and that this cultural difference was partially mediated by scores on the AHS. This finding suggests that European Americans experience greater trait authenticity, in part because they reason in an analytic manner. In sum, there are multiple constructs that may account for observed cultural differences in judgment, and the AHS is a useful tool for pinpointing the underlying processes that explain various cultural differences.

The AHS as a Moderating Variable Several researchers have used the AHS to compare analytic with holistic thinking styles as a moderator of other main effects of interest in their studies. Much of this research has been conducted in the domain of consumer psychology, rather than cultural psychology. For example, Duff and Sar (2015) used the AHS to investigate whether thinking styles moderate the negative effect of multitasking on memory of advertisements. As holistic thinkers (vs. analytic thinkers) tend to have a broader scope of attention, they are more likely than analytic thinkers to recognize ads they have viewed previously, even while being exposed to other types of stimuli (i.e., slashes and backslashes). Duff and Sar found that participants with higher AHS scores (holistic thinkers) were better than those with lower AHS scores (analytic thinkers) at matching a brand name with a scene from its advertisement (they had previously viewed) while performing multiple tasks. Orth and Crouch (2014) used the locus of attention subscale of the AHS to test whether individual differences in perceptual styles (field-​ dependence vs. field-​independence) moderate the effect of contextual complexity on the visual processing of objects. They showed that, as the complexity of a context increased, processing fluency decreased, which in turn was related to the decreased perceived attractiveness of a package in context. Moreover, the negative effect of contextual complexity on

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 125

processing fluency was particularly greater for those who scored higher on the AHS (field-​dependent) than for those who scored lower on the AHS (field-​independent). Monga and John (2010) further employed the AHS to examine thinking styles (analytic vs. holistic) as a moderator in the evaluation of companies with brand extensions. Companies with prestigious brands (e.g., Mercedes-​ Benz) are more likely to launch brand extensions in distant product categories (e.g., a wallet by Mercedes-​Benz), which have few features in common with existing products, than are functional brands (e.g., Toyota) (Park, Milberg, & Lawson, 1991). Monga and John showed that participants who scored higher on the AHS (holistic thinkers) were more favorable toward distant brand extensions than those who scored lower on the AHS (analytic thinkers), particularly for functional (vs. prestigious) brands. As holistic thinkers tend to focus more on connections between objects than analytic thinkers do, they are likely better at generating ways to extend products from a parent brand and thus respond more favorably to distant brand extensions, even those of functional brands (e.g., a wallet by Toyota). Lastly, Chang (2014) used the AHS as a moderator to investigate the evaluation of brand extensions, particularly the similarity between brand extensions and parent brands on consumer attitudes. Consumers tend to evaluate brand extensions more favorably when the extensions and their parent brands are in the same (vs. different) product category (category similarity) or the extensions and their parent brands have common (vs. different) benefits (benefit similarity) (Boush & Loken, 1991; Dacin & Smith, 1994; Keller & Aaker, 1992). Chang found that participants who scored higher on the AHS (holistic thinkers) evaluated category-​similar extension more positively than benefit-​similar extension, whereas those who scored lower on the AHS (analytic thinkers) had more favorable attitudes toward benefit-​ similar extension than category-​ similar extension. Presumably, this is because analytic thinkers tend to focus on an object’s attributes (i.e., product benefits), whereas holistic thinkers tend to pay attention to relationships between an object and its context (i.e., product category). In sum, these four studies demonstrate that the AHS can be used to measure the moderating effect of cognitive styles on various psychological phenomena, as well as the utility of the AHS in consumer research.

Manipulations of Analytic and Holistic Thinking Although the AHS was originally developed to measure relatively stable individual differences, scores on the AHS have also been used as an

126 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

outcome variable and as a manipulation check in several studies, demonstrating that it is also sensitive to contextual effects. For example, Boucher and O’Dowd (2011) used the AHS as a dependent variable to examine how the types of language used in experimental settings affect thinking style. They argued that the Chinese language activates holistic thinking, whereas the English language activates analytic thinking among Chinese/​English bilinguals. They found that bilingual Chinese showed greater holistic thinking (as shown on the AHS) when they completed the scale in Chinese than when completing it in English. Several other studies have used the AHS as a manipulation check after priming analytic or holistic thinking styles. For example, Monga and John (2008) used the locus of attention subscale of the AHS to check whether target cognitive styles (analytic vs. holistic) were successfully activated. They primed participants with analytic thinking by having them focus their attention on hidden objects in a picture and holistic thinking by having them focus on the background of the same scene. They found that participants who focused on the background scored higher on the locus of attention subscale of the AHS than those who focused on hidden objects. Similarly, two other studies (Chinchanachokchai & Noel, 2015; Lalwani & Shavitt, 2013)  used the same priming task developed by Monga and John (2008) and the AHS as a manipulation check. Both studies found that participants who were primed to think holistically scored higher on the 24-​item AHS than those primed to think analytically.

Conclusion Thinking style (i.e., analytic vs. holistic thinking) is one of the major dimensions in which significant cultural differences emerge, particularly between Western and East Asian cultures (Heine, 2010; Nisbett, 2003; Triandis, 2007). It is an important construct that can be examined at the individual level as well as the cultural level, and the AHS has been used as a convenient and practical tool that allows researchers to capture these differences. Although variations in thinking styles can be measured using other cognitive assessments, the AHS has been particularly useful when the availability of samples from different cultures is limited, as it can be used to examine analytic versus holistic thinking within a single cultural group. It is a convenient tool for investigating other research questions beyond intercultural differences, such as subgroups (e.g., Korean students in Oriental medicine vs. other majors), individual differences and their correlated

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 127

constructs, and developmental or socialization antecedents and consequences of analytic/​holistic thinking within one culture. Furthermore, the AHS has allowed researchers to pinpoint more precisely which subconstruct of analytic/​holistic thinking (e.g., locus of attention) is relevant to other variables and constructs being examined. Since its development, the AHS has played the same role in research on analytic/​holistic thinking style as the Individualism-​Collectivism Scale (Hui, 1988) has with respect to individualism/​collectivism. The latter scale has permitted numerous studies on within-​culture and between-​culture differences, as well as studies that reveal various antecedents and consequences of individualistic or collectivistic orientations. In this chapter, we reviewed multiple studies that have employed the AHS in measuring individual and cultural differences in thinking styles to further explain its relation with other important constructs. The studies we reviewed indicate that the AHS has already broadened the scope of research and made theoretical contributions in cultural, social, and organizational psychology by serving as a moderator, mediator, or a manipulation check, as well as a predictor and an outcome of various psychological phenomena across and within cultures. Although a number of studies have demonstrated that the AHS is a well-​validated self-​report measure to assess individual differences in cognitive styles, research using only self-​report measures is not an ideal way to explore the interplay of culture, cognition, and social behaviors. There are several reasons that researchers should not exclusively rely on the self-​ report scale in cultural studies. First, it is well known that individuals are not always able to accurately report their feelings and thoughts or identify the reasons for their decisions and behaviors (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Also, response biases can be especially problematic in cross-​cultural studies because people from different cultures have different response styles (Johnson, Kulesa, Cho, & Shavitt, 2005; Lalwani, Shavitt, & Johnson, 2006). For example, East Asians are more prone than Westerners to agree with any statement that they are provided with, whatever the statement says (Cheung & Rensvold, 2000; Marin, Gamba, & Marin, 1992). Finally, experimental tasks are more likely to detect subtle cultural differences than self-​report measures are (Cohen, 2007). Nevertheless, the AHS is a practical and convenient tool for researchers, especially for those who seek to measure analytic/​holistic thinking in a large number of countries around the globe, who cannot sample more than one culture to study culture and cognition, and who would like to examine the relationships between thinking styles and other relevant constructs and their underlying mechanisms in laboratory experiments.

128 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Note 1. Categorization was not included as one of the subconstructs because it was interrelated and overlapped with locus of attention.

References Aaker, J. L., & Sengupta, J. (2000). Additivity versus attenuation: The role of culture in the resolution of information incongruity. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 9(2), 67–​82. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1207/​S15327663JCP0902_​2 Ames, D. R., Rose, P., & Anderson, C. P. (2006). The NPI-​16 as a short measure of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality, 40(4), 440-​450. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​ j.jrp.2005.03.002 Bagozzi, R. P., Wong, N., & Yi, Y. (1999). The role of culture and gender in the relationship between positive and negative affect. Cognition & Emotion, 13(6), 641–​672. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1080/​026999399379023 Boduroglu, A., Shah, P., & Nisbett, R. E. (2009). Cultural differences in allocation of attention in visual information processing. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 40(3), 349–​360. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0022022108331005 Boucher, H. C., & O’Dowd, M. C. (2011), Language and the bicultural dialectical self. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17(2), 211–​216. http://​dx.doi. org/​10.1037/​a0023686 Boush, D. M., & Loken, B. (1991). A process-​tracing study of brand extension evaluation. Journal of Marketing Research, 28(1), 16–​28. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.2307/​3172723 Chang, S. S. (2014). Does style of thinking make differences in consumer judgments on brand extensions? Contemporary Management Research, 10(2), 165–​178. http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.7903/​cmr-​12002 Cheung, G. W., & Rensvold, R. B. (2000). Assessing extreme and acquiescence response sets in cross-​cultural research using structural equations modeling. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 31(2), 187–​212. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0022022100031002003 Chinchanachokchai, S., & Noel, H. (2015). The devil is in the details:  When holistic thinkers react negatively to incongruent information. Contemporary Management Research, 11(1), 25–​34. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.7903/​cmr-​13853 Choi, I., Dalal, R., Kim-​Prieto, C., & Park, H. (2003). Culture and judgment of causal relevance. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 84(1), 46–​59. http://​dx.doi. org/​10.1037/​0022-​3514.84.1.46 Choi, I., Koo, M., & Choi, J. A. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(5), 691–​705. http://​dx.doi. org/​10.1177/​0146167206298568 Chua, H. F., Boland, J. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (2005). Cultural variation in eye movements during scene perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(35), 12629–​12633. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1073/​ pnas.0506162102 Cohen, D. (2007). Methods in cultural psychology. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 196–​236). New York: Guilford Press.

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 129

Dacin, P. A., & Smith, D. C. (1994). The effect of brand portfolio characteristics on consumer evaluations of brand extensions. Journal of Marketing Research, 31(2), 229–​242. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.2307/​3152196 Duff, B. R. L., & Sar, S. (2015). Seeing the big picture: Multitasking and perceptual processing influences on ad recognition. Journal of Advertising, 44(3), 173–​184. http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1080/​00913367.2014.967426 Duttle, K., & Inukai, K. (2015). Complexity aversion: Influences of cognitive abilities, culture and system of thought. Economics Bulletin, 35(2), 846–​855. Fisher, K. A. (1964). The assumptions in scientific therapy. Psychoanalytic Review, 51(2), 253. Fiske, A. P., Kitayama, S., Markus. H. R., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). The cultural matrix of social psychology. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 915–​981). Boston: McGraw-​Hill. Fletcher, G. J.  O., Danilovics, P., Fernandez, G., Peterson, D., & Reeder, G. D. (1986). Attributional complexity:  An individual differences measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(4), 875–​884. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.51.4.875 Gürhan-​Canli, Z., & Maheswaran, D. (2000). Cultural variations in country of origin effects. Journal of Marketing Research, 37(3), 309–​317. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1509/​ jmkr.37.3.309.18778 Hedden, T., Ji, L., Jing, Q., Jiao, S., Yao, C., Nisbett, R. E., & Park, D. C. (2000, April). Culture and age differences in recognition memory for social dimensions. Paper presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA. Heine, S. J. (2010). Cultural psychology. In D. T. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., pp. 1423–​1464). New York: Wiley. Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-​regard? Psychological Review, 106(4), 766–​794. http://​dx.doi. org/​10.1037/​0033-​295X.106.4.766 Hong, E., & Choi, I. (2015). Oh darling, this too shall pass: Holistic thinking keeps you in romantic relationships longer (Unpublished manuscript). Seoul National University. Hui, C. H. (1988). Measurement of individualism-​collectivism. Journal of Research in Personality, 22(1), 17–​36. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1016/​0092-​6566(88)90022-​0 Ishii, K., Reyes, J. A., & Kitayama, S. (2003). Spontaneous attention to word content versus emotional tone differences among three cultures. Psychological Science, 14(1), 39–​46. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1111/​1467-​9280.01416 Jain, S. P., Desai, K. K., & Mao, H. (2007). The influence of chronic and situational self-​construal on categorization. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(1), 66–​76. http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1086/​513047 Ji, L. J. (2008). The leopard cannot change his spots, or can he: Culture and the development of lay theories of change. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(5), 613–​622. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0146167207313935 Ji, L. J., Nisbett, R. E., & Su, Y. (2001). Culture, change, and prediction. Psychological Science, 12(6), 450–​456. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1111/​1467-​9280.00384 Ji, L. J., Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(5), 943–​ 955. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​0022-​3514.78.5.943

130 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Ji, L. J., Zhang, Z., & Guo, T. (2008). To buy or to sell: Cultural differences in stock market decisions based on price trends. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 21(4), 399–​413. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1002/​bdm.595 Johnson, T., Kulesa, P., Cho, Y. I., & Shavitt, S. (2005). The relation between culture and response styles evidence from 19 countries. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 36(2), 264–​277. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0022022104272905 Keller, K. L., & Aaker, D. A. (1992). The effects of sequential introduction of brand extensions. Journal of Marketing Research, 29(1), 35–​50. . http://​dx.doi.org/​10.2307/​ 3172491 Kim, H., Sherman, D. K., Taylor, S. E., Sasaki, J. Y., Chu, T. Q., Ryu, C., et al. (2010), Culture, serotonin receptor polymorphism and locus of attention. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2), 212–​218. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1093/​scan/​nsp040 Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., & Larsen, J. T. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural look at new look. Psychological Science, 14(3), 201–​206. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1111/​1467-​9280.02432 Kitayama, S., & Ishii, K. (2002). Word and voice: Spontaneous attention to emotional utterances in two languages. Cognition & Emotion, 16(1), 29–​59. http://​dx.doi.org/​ 10.1080/​0269993943000121 Konrath, S., Bushman, B. J., & Grove, T. (2009). Seeing my world in a million little pieces:  Narcissism, self-​ construal, and cognitive–​ perceptual style. Journal of Personality, 77(4), 1197–​1228. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1467-​6494.2009.00579.x Koo, M., Choi, J. A., & Choi, I. (2013). Additional evidence of the validity of the Analysis-​ Holism Scale (Unpublished manuscript). Krishna, A., Zhou, R., & Zhang, S. (2008). The effect of self-​construal on spatial judgments. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(2), 337–​348. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1086/​588686 Kühnen, U., Hannover, B., & Schubert, B. (2001). The semantic–​procedural interface model of the self: The role of self-​knowledge for context-​dependent versus context-​ independent modes of thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(3), 397–​409. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​0022-​3514.80.3.397 Lalwani, A. K., & Shavitt, S. (2013). You get what you pay for?: Self-​construal influences on price-​quality judgments. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(2), 255–​267. http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1086/​670034 Lalwani, A. K., Shavitt, S., & Johnson, T. (2006). What is the relation between cultural orientation and socially desirable responding? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(1), 165–​178. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​0022-​3514.90.1.165 Lechuga, J., Santos, B. M., Garza-​Caballero, A. A., & Villarreal, R. (2011), Holistic reasoning on the other side of the world: Validation of the Analysis-​Holism Scale in Mexicans. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17(3), 325–​330. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​a0023881 Lin, M. H., Schwartz, C., Lyons, J., Eschleman, K., Chen, F., & Culbertson, J. (2014). Exploring a dynamic model of trust management (No. AFRL-​RH-​WP-​TR-​2014-​ 0093). Air Force Research Laboratory. Retrieved from http://​www.dtic.mil/​cgi-​bin/​ GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA609553 Ma-​Kellams, C., & Blascovich, J. (2012), Enjoying life in the face of death: East–​West differences in responses to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(5), 773–​786. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​a0029366

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 131

Marin, G., Gamba, R. J., & Marin, B. V. (1992). Extreme response style and acquiescence among Hispanics: The role of acculturation and education. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 23(4), 498–​509. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0022022192234006 Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–​253. http://​dx.doi.org/​ 10.1037/​0033-​295X.98.2.224 Masuda, T., Gonzalez, R., Kwan, L., & Nisbett, R. E. (2008). Culture and aesthetic preference:  Comparing the attention to context of East Asians and Americans. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(9), 1260–​1275. http://​dx.doi.org/​ 10.1177/​0146167208320555 Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 922–​934. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​0022-​3514.81.5.922 Miyamoto, Y., Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2006). Culture and the physical environment: Holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances. Psychological Science, 17(2), 113–​119. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2006.01673.x Monga, A. B., & John, D. R. (2008). When does negative brand publicity hurt? The moderating influence of analytic versus holistic thinking. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 18(4), 320–​332. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1016/​j.jcps.2008.09.009 Monga, A. B., & John, D. R. (2010). What makes brands elastic? The influence of brand concept and styles of thinking on brand extension evaluation. Journal of Marketing, 74(3), 80–​92. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1509/​jmkg.74.3.80 Morling, B., & Lamoreaux, M. (2008). Measuring culture outside the head:  A meta-​ analysis of individualism-​collectivism in cultural products. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 12(3), 199–​221. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​1088868308318260 Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 949–​971. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​0022-​3514.67.6.949 Munro, D. J. (1985). Introduction. In D. Munro (Ed.), Individualism and holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist values (pp. 1–​34). Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan. Na, J., Grossmann, I., Varnum, M. E., Kitayama, S., Gonzalez, R., & Nisbett, R. E. (2010). Cultural differences are not always reducible to individual differences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(14), 6192–​ 6197. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1073/​pnas.1001911107 Nakamura, H. (1985). Ways of thinking of eastern peoples. Honolulu:  University of Hawaii Press. (Original work published 1964). Needham, J. (1962). Science and civilisation in China. Vol. 4: Physics and physical technology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ng, S., & Houston, M. J. (2006). Exemplars or beliefs? The impact of self-​view on the nature and relative influence of brand associations. Journal of Consumer Research, 32(4), 519–​529. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1086/​500482 Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently  . . .  and why. New York: Free Press. Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–​310. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​0033-​295X.108.2.291

132 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84(3), 231–​259. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​ 0033-​295x.84.3.231 Norenzayan, A., Choi, I., & Peng, K. (2007). Perception and cognition. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 569–​594). New York: Guilford Publications. Norenzayan, A., Smith, E. E., Kim, B. J., & Nisbett, R. E. (2002). Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning. Cognitive Science, 26(5), 653–​684. http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1207/​s15516709cog2605_​4 Oeberst, A., von der Beck, I., & Nestler, S. (2014). Reading about explanations enhances perceptions of inevitability and foreseeability: A cross-​cultural study with Wikipedia articles. Cognitive Processing, 15(3), 343–​349. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1007/​ s10339-​014-​0603-​7 Orth, U. R., & Crouch, R. C. (2014). Is beauty in the aisles of the retailers? Packaging processing in visually complex contexts. Journal of Retailing, 90(4), 524–​537. http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1016/​j.jretai.2014.05.004 Oyserman, D., & Lee, S. W. (2008). Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 311–​342. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​0033-​2909.134.2.311 Park, C. W., Milberg, S., & Lawson, R. (1991). Evaluation of brand extensions: The role of product feature similarity and brand concept consistency. Journal of Consumer Research, 18(2), 185–​193. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1086/​209251 Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54(9), 741–​754. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​ 0003-​066X.54.9.741 Rahim, A. (1983). A measure of styles of handling interpersonal conflict. Academy of Management Journal, 26(2), 368–​376. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.2307/​255985 Raskin, R., & Terry, H. (1988). A principal-​components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(5), 890. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.54.5.890 Ren, X. P., Lu, K. W., & Tuerdi, M. (2014). Uyghur-​Chinese and Han-​Chinese differences on social orientation. Culture and Brain, 2(2), 141–​160. http://​dx.doi.org/​ 10.1007/​s40167-​014-​0020-​x Schimmack, U., Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2002). Cultural influences on the relation between pleasant emotions and unpleasant emotions: Asian dialectic philosophies or individualism-​collectivism? Cognition and Emotion, 16(6), 705–​719. http://​dx.doi. org/​10.1080/​02699930143000590 Schmitt, J. A. J., Wingen, M., Ramaekers, J. G., Evers, E. A. T., & Riedel, W. J. (2006). Serotonin and human cognitive performance. Current Pharmaceutical Design, 12(20), 2473–​2486. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.2174/​138161206777698909 Singelis, T. M. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-​ construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(5), 580–​591. http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0146167294205014 Slabu, L., Lenton, A. P., Sedikides, C., & Bruder, M. (2014). Trait and state authenticity across cultures. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 45(9), 1347–​1373. http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0022022114543520

Analytic versus Holistic Cognition 

| 133

Song, L., Swaminathan, S., & Anderson, R. E. (2015). Differences in customers’ online service satisfaction across cultures: The role of thinking style. Journal of Marketing Channels, 22(1), 52–​61. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1080/​1046669x.2015.978700 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2010). Dialecticism and the co-​occurrence of positive and negative emotions across cultures. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 41(1), 109–​115. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0022022109349508 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction: A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(3), 296–​312. http://​dx.doi.org/​ 10.1177/​1088868310362982 Sternberg, R. J., & Wagner, R. K. (1991). MSG thinking styles inventory manual (Unpublished manuscript). Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psychological Review, 96(3), 506–​520. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.96.3.506 Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism & collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Triandis, H. C. (1996). The psychological measurement of cultural syndromes. American Psychologist, 51(4), 407–​415. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1037/​0003-​066x.51.4.407 Triandis, H. C. (2007). Methods in cultural psychology. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 40–​58). New York: Guilford Publications. Varnum, M. E., Grossmann, I., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2010). The origin of cultural differences in cognition the social orientation hypothesis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 9–​13. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1177/​0963721409359301 Wang, H., Masuda, T., Ito, K., & Rashid, M. (2012). How much information? East Asian and North American cultural products and information search performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 1539–​1551. http://​dx.doi.org/​ 10.1177/​0146167212455828 Wang, H., Yeo, T., Nobarany, S., Hsieh, G. (2015, April). Problems with cross-​cultural comparison of user-​generated ratings on mechanical Turk. Paper presented at the Second International Symposium of Chinese CHI. Seoul, South Korea. Wayment, H. A., Bauer, J. J., & Sylaska, K. (2015). The Quiet Ego Scale: Measuring the compassionate self-​identity. Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(4), 999–​1033 http://​ dx.doi.org/​10.1007/​s10902-​014-​9546-​z Williams, P., & Aaker, J. L. (2002). Can mixed emotions peacefully coexist? Journal of Consumer Research, 28(4), 636–​649. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.2139/​ssrn.945468 Witkin, H. A., Dyk, R. B., Faterson, H. F., Goodenough, D. R., & Karp, S. A. (1974). Psychological differentiation. Potomac, MD: Erlbaum. Wyer, R. S., Chiu, C. Y., & Hong, Y. Y. (2009). Understanding culture: Theory, research and application. New York: Psychology Press. Zhu, R., & Meyers-​Levy, J. (2009). The influence of self-​view on context effects: How display fixtures can affect product evaluations. Journal of Marketing Research, 46(1), 37–​45. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1509/​jmkr.46.1.37

134 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

­C HAPTER 5 Dialecticism across the Lifespan Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Ontogenetic and Cultural Factors Influencing Dialectical Thinking and Emotional Experience Igor Grossmann

Human development researchers were among the first to introduce dialecticism to psychology (e.g., Riegel, 1973), based on a long tradition of thought in Hellenistic and Western European philosophy. It is thus fitting to discuss the concept of dialecticism from a human developmental perspective. How does this conceptualization compare to the more recent discussion of dialecticism in cultural psychology? What are the similarities and differences in these conceptualizations? In this chapter, I start to address these questions. First, I will outline several definitions of dialecticism in philosophy, human development, and cross-​cultural psychology. Next, I  compare philosophical ideas to the contemporary treatment of dialecticism in developmental and cultural psychology. I also draw comparisons between the developmental and cross-​cultural traditions, pointing out similarities and differences between them. Subsequently, I discuss the emerging developmental models of dialecticism across the lifespan and review the accompanying empirical evidence, situating them in a cross-​ cultural context. I conclude by outlining future directions of research on dialectical thought, with attention to psychological and sociocultural processes engendering dialecticism across the lifespan.

Dialecticism in Philosophy Since Riegel’s introduction of dialecticism to mainstream psychology in the early 1970s, various streams of research—​from cognitive development,

to emotion and emotion regulation, to cultural psychology—​have proposed a number of conceptual definitions of the construct. These conceptualizations have been grounded in researchers’ heterogeneous theoretical orientations (e.g., neo-​Piagetian perspective on human development, cross-​ cultural objectivism, or constructivism and systems theory). What are the similarities and differences in views of dialecticism advocated by these different theoretical traditions? To draw parallels between human developmental and cross-​cultural traditions, it is instrumental to first reflect on the philosophical underpinnings of dialecticism. The next section provides an initial step in this direction. The goal here is not to provide an exhaustive treatment of the concepts of dialecticism in philosophy but rather to provide some background for situating psychological models of dialecticism in their sociocultural context. Thus, the section is highly selective and focuses only on a few reductionist definitions. As not to obscure the already complex representation of the concept, I will mainly borrow from specialists who have discussed this topic in the past.

Dialecticism in the West Hellenistic Roots of the Concept

The word dialectic has a very long history in Western philosophy and historically referred to somewhat different concepts than it does now. Historians trace it back to the period of Hellenistic philosophy and, in particular, to the work of Aristotle, who in turn referred to Zeno of Alea (Hammer & McLaren, 1991). The etymology of the word stems from the Greek dialektikos—​dia meaning “through” or “between,” and lektikos, which is derived from the verb lego, meaning “I say” or “I choose.” As a whole, the word dialektikos pertains to discourse or discussion. In the ancient Greek practice, it involved a presentation of a thesis by one person, followed by questions from another person, whose aim was to make the first speaker contradict himself and, in doing so, see the error in his argument. Today, this method is often described as Socratic, after the famous ancient Greek philosopher who supposedly used this method as a teaching tool. Socrates (and Aristotle after him) applied this method to gain deeper insight into the truth by identifying the best argument as the one with the fewest contradictions between ideas. Central to this method is the development of an idea through movement from “one state (ignorance, uncertainty, error) to a qualitatively different state (knowledge, certainty, truth) by means of a process (conversation, debate, dialogue) that is characterized by opposition (contradiction, refutation, negation) and governed

136 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

by an internal necessity (logic, deduction)” (Tolman, 1983; pp. 320–​321). It is evident that this dialectical method is fairly explicit in its application to debate and reasoning. Further, dialectic in this fashion follows the law of non-​contradiction (i.e., such statements as “A is B” and “A is not B” are mutually exclusive and cannot exist at the same time). Dialectic in this tradition mainly aids the individual to discern bad arguments (identified as those that violate the law of non-​contradiction) from good ones (those arguments that do not violate the law of non-​contradiction). As some have argued (Tolman, 1983), Hellenistic philosophers also applied the ideas of dialectic to the explanation of natural events, which can be referred to as an implicit form of dialectic. In particular, Heraclitus conceptualized the world as a unity in diversity, as being in a continuous developmental flux involving a strife between opposites, and as governed by an internal necessity which he termed “logos.” The natural world had for Heraclitus the same dialectical properties as the reasoning process had for the ancient dialecticians. (Tolman, 1983, p. 321)

For Heraclitus, the idea of logos does not involve an explicit opposition of contradiction, thus denying the law of non-​contradiction. Rather, opposites are considered natural components of a unitary process of change, in contrast to Socratic and Aristotelian approaches to resolve the contradiction explicitly, through the means of traditional logic (Gier, 1983). Dialecticism in Western European Philosophy

The popular view of ancient Greek philosophy in psychology is largely Aristotelian (e.g., Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng, Spencer-​Rogers, & Nian, 2006), with little discussion of the dialectical thought discussed by Heraclitus. The modern view of dialectic in philosophy also differs from these ancient Greek roots and is influenced by more recent interpretations of the concept of dialectic in the works of Spinoza, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. Fichte (1794/​1997) in particular popularized the formula “thesis–​antithesis–​synthesis,” which has its roots in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and was first mentioned by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus. In this formula, thesis gives rise to a reaction, antithesis, which negates or contradicts the thesis, and the tension is resolved by means of synthesis. Note that this formula has been often erroneously attributed to Hegel (Kaufmann, 1965; Mueller, 1958), who used somewhat similar terms in his influential work. Hegel’s ideas influenced all major political

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 137

and philosophical movements in the twentieth century. I will briefly touch on them next. Hegel interprets Heraclitus’ ideas about the process of the world being in a continuous developmental flux as a central feature of nature itself. For Hegel, concepts and ideas can only be understood in historical terms. When abstracted, they become meaningless. For example, without context, such terms as pure being (Sein) and nothingness (Nichts) are nothing more than indistinguishable abstractions. However, both terms make sense when viewed in a historical context of a process from life to death (e.g., coming into being and returning into nothingness). This example demonstrated the model of Hegelian logic, which is often (mis-​)characterized through the formula of thesis–​antithesis–​synthesis. Rather, Hegel starts with an abstract (e.g., “pure being”), which is inherently incomplete, and completed by the negative thereof (e.g., “nothing”). This negative is necessary to reach the concrete phase of thought (e.g., life cycle or “becoming”). The difference between the formula of thesis–​antithesis–​synthesis and abstract–​negative–​concrete is that the latter presupposes “negative” as implicitly related to the “abstract” on the way to the “concrete”—​the contradiction is internal and immanent, and it is reconciled (“aufgehoben”) through the realization of the process of change. In contrast, antithesis is an explicit and external form of contradiction, without an explanation of where it comes from or why it is needed in the first place (Kaufmann, 1965). Readers familiar with the notion of dialectical materialism, which are attributed to Marx and Engels (White, 1996), can see both the overlaps and the contradictions of the Hegelian principles just described. On the one hand, Marx and Engels adopted the historical approach to understanding social and intrapsychic phenomena, including the processes of motion and change advocated by Hegel. On the other hand, Marx and Engels moved the notion of dialecticism from implicit and internal to explicit and external, with the latter understood in materialistic terms. In some ways, they turned Hegelian idealism on its head, suggesting that the concrete (e.g., material existence) is driving the abstract and not vice versa. Note that this assertion is as much a theoretical one as it is a methodological approach to the study of social phenomena (Tolman, 1983). Later on, this assertion was again reinterpreted by Lenin and subsequent Soviet thinkers to explain the group dynamics and the development of relationships between different groups (e.g., the wealthy and the working class). The discourse on the dialectic of opposing forces moved from an emphasis on intrapsychic attributes to an emphasis on the attributes of the social world. For instance, class struggle is one of the classic forms of (dialectical) contradiction

138 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

discussed by theorists in the Marxist-​Leninist tradition. The motivation of these theorists to emphasize the societal (vs. intrapsychic) contradictions is likely due to historical reasons, with clearly evident class differentiation and disparities in the industrialized Western Europe of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thus, although both Marx and Lenin discussed dialectics as a “science of the general laws of motion both of the external world and of human thought” (Lenin, 1980), the focus was mainly on the material (i.e. external) world, illuminating relational interdependence of different social groups and how these relationships may unfold over time.

Dialecticism in the East The core themes of Western philosophical ideas concerning dialectical thought, such as those involving (a) the awareness of contradictions and change in the relation between different entities, (b) the holistic (vs. essentialist) approach to understanding reality, and (c)  the social-​contextual orientation toward processes are evident in many philosophical themes from the East. This is not surprising, given that some Asian civilizations (particularly those in China and India) have an intellectual heritage that is much older than that in the West. Next, I will briefly outline a few principles from classic Indian philosophy, Buddhism, and Chinese Taoism. Classic Indian Philosophy

Both the notions of dialectic polemics and the tension between two opposing forces leading to synthesis can be found in Hindu philosophy. According to the Hindu worldview, existence is a result of the active cause (“purusha”) and the passive nature (“prakriti”), which in some ways resembles the Hegelian concepts of abstract-​negative on the way to concrete. The dialectical principle of acceptance of contradictions is also evident in the Bhagavad-​Gita scriptures, a sacred text of the Hindus, as suggested by Zaehner (1973): Arjuna, like most Europeans, thinks in either/​or categories: he has not yet realized that Krishna’s categories and those of the religion he inherits and further develops are not either/​or but both-​and. Opposites do not exclude each other but complement each other. (p. 200)

Another important Indian philosophical tradition is Jainism, which influenced such historical figures as Gandhi, and is emphasized in the doctrine of Anekantavada. It suggests that an object has an infinite number of

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 139

modes of existence, thus reality can be perceived from various perspectives, none of which would present the complete truth (Dundas, 2004). The classic illustration of this principle is the parable of the blind men and the elephant. In the story, blind men all touch parts of an elephant and claim to know the truth. Yet, even though each is correct in some ways, their explanation is only partial, owing to their limited perspective. As with Heraclitus and (to some extent) Hegel, this tradition can be conceptualized as discussing the implicit form of dialectic, because this tradition does not emphasize that contradiction has to be explicitly resolved, rather it accepts that contradiction as inherent to human existence. Dialectical Thought in Buddhism

Buddhist dialectical debates in India during the time of the Gupta Empire present a clear example of explicit dialecticism, during which opponents engaged in public debate-​games, with serious consequences for the losing party (Anacker, 2005). The method of such dialectical debate shares a great deal in common with the traditional Platonic-​Aristotelian treatment of dialecticism as a method of truth-​seeking. In fact, many influential Buddhist philosophers, such as Nagarjuna, Dignaga, Trisong Detsen, and Je Tsongkhapa, refined Buddhist thought through such formalized dialectical debate about the truth. Note, however, that there are many facets to Buddhist thought. Generalizing Buddhism, which involves not only a philosophical tradition but also a set of religious practices, to a certain time period during which some philosophers were concerned with the formalized version of dialectic may be comparable to generalizing from early medieval Catholicism to Christianity at large. For instance, such Buddhist practices as mindfulness meditation can also be considered to be promoting insight (“vipassanā”) through self-​awareness and acceptance on the way to Buddhist markers of existence such as impermanence (“anicca”). Impermanence itself can be viewed as analogous to the Heraclitean and Hegelian concepts, as it concerns the notion that existence is transient and depends on a constant state of flux. It thus seems that Buddhist thought includes both explicit dialecticism in the form of debate and implicit dialecticism in the principles of explaining the world. Dialectical Thought in Taoism

Dialectical thought is also evident in the dominant East Asian philosophy associated with the teaching of the Tao, which operates through the interaction between yin and yang. Similarly to Hegelian dialectic, Taoism is

140 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

oriented toward movement and plurality in nature. The first stanza of the second chapter of Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu & Mitchell, 2006, p. 2) expresses this dialectical method well: When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-​being create each other. Difficult and ease support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other. (­chapter 2).

As evident from this quote, the principle of contradiction and the holistic approach to understanding reality is central to Taoist teaching. Further reading of the Tao Te Ching suggests clear exposition of the dialectical principle of change (­chapter 40) and the notion of accepting the contradictions between yin and yang by “integrating their energy” (­chapter 42). What this brief review of various intellectual traditions of dialecticism demonstrates is that there is no “single” dialecticism. Differences in the conceptualizations of dialecticism are evident both within Hellenistic philosophy (cf. Aristotle’s explicit notion of debate vs. Heraclitus’ intrinsic dialectic as a principle of life), within the Western European tradition (cf. Hegel’s idealism vs. Marxist materialism), and within various traditions in the East (cf. Buddhist formalized debate culture vs. Taoist notion of passive acceptance of change). There is likely no clear answer to the question of how the modern interpretation of “Hegelian” dialecticism (with a heavy layer of interpretation during a century of Marxism-​Leninism) differs from the twenty-​first century interpretation of Taoism or the “new age” Buddhism.

Postformalist Approach to Dialectical Thought Piaget versus Riegel: The Introduction of Dialecticism to Empirical Psychology Klaus Riegel provided one of the first known definitions of dialecticism in modern psychological literature (Riegel, 1973). Riegel claimed to have derived his interpretation of dialecticism from Hegelian philosophy (see Hegel, 1812–​1816/​1929, 1807/​1967):

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 141

Every thing is itself and, at the same time, many other things. For example, any concrete object, such as a crystal, is itself but is also of many different properties. By selecting some and disregarding others we might develop one or another abstract notion (theory) about the crystal, as indeed the crystallographer, the glassgrinder, the watchmaker, or a housewife will do. But only when we conceive all properties in their complementary dependencies do we reach an appropriate, concrete comprehension. But what is then, the thing itself? It is the totality of all the different, often contradictory notions about it to which the thing itself stands in contradictory relations. Dialectical thinking comprehends itself, the world, and each concrete object in its multitude of contradictory relations. (Riegel, 1973, p. 351)

In line with Hegelian dialectics, Riegel pointed out that many forms of thinking and their respective development across the lifespan similarly exist in a state of mutual interdependence (Riegel, 1973). For Riegel, many concepts such as cause and effect, being and becoming, passivity and activity cannot be thought of in isolation but rather in terms of mutual dependence. Acknowledgment of this interdependence and acceptance of seeming contradiction represent the key aspect of Riegel’s theory of dialecticism. In the following discussion I elaborate on how Riegel conceptualized this interdependence. In Riegel’s view, dialecticism is first and foremost a theoretical model of human development. More specifically, it is a revision of Jean Piaget’s model of cognitive development (Piaget & Inhelder, 1973). For Piaget, cognitive development unfolded through changes in levels of operations, progressing from intuitive to formal operations. Such formal operations involve “propositional thought”—​an abstract set of symbolic rules which help to determine whether something is true, solely on the basis of the wording of the statement, irrespective of the social context (Piaget, 1972). According to Piaget, cognitive development follows a sequence of stages; one cannot move from the preoperational stage (i.e., a stage at which thought processes are driven by intuitions; there is no understanding of concrete logic) to the formal operational stage (i.e., a stage at which abstract reasoning is developed) without passing through the concrete operational stage (i.e., understanding of logic, but lack of abstract thinking abilities). Movement across stages is enabled through the balance (i.e., equilibration) between assimilation of new information into previously existing schemas (i.e., assimilation) and the altering of the existing schemas in light of new information (i.e., accommodation). Piaget proposed that assimilative and accommodative processes explain how a person deals

142 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

with contradictions, suggesting that people strive to resolve such contradictions. Explicit resolution of contradictions in the Piagetian theory reminds one of the philosophical principles of dialectical debate advocated by Plato, Aristotle, and some of the Buddhist teaching described earlier. Piagetian theory of development further suggests that once adults reached the formal operational stage, they cannot go back and reason in terms of preformal or concrete operations (Piaget & Inhelder, 1973). Riegel criticized the structuralism in Piaget’s view of human development, pointing out that Piaget’s theory provides insufficient explanation of development beyond young adulthood (and particularly, development in advanced adulthood). Riegel also disagreed with its focus on formal operations and “abstract thought, away from and toward a denial of contradictions” (Riegel, 1973, p.  350) as a finite developmental stage. In Riegel’s view, mature individuals can often jump between more and less advanced operational stages and are not required to linearly progress from one stage to another. Riegel (1973) pointed out that the permanence of formal thought is unrealistic when describing thinking of mature adults, with daily activities often demanding “logic and operations of much lower power” (p. 363) than those called for by the formal operational stage. For instance, creative scientific thinking often requires intuitive thought, as well as acceptance of contradictions and holistic reasoning, rather than systematic delineation of various issues and calculation of all possible outcomes for a given solution (as would be expected in the formal operational stage of thought). To address the limitations of the Piagetian model of development, Riegel suggested a stage of postformal operations, in which one’s views are represented by dialectical patterns of thought. Achieving this dialectical stage enables mature individuals to operate simultaneously at different levels of cognition, switching back and forth between or choosing different levels of cognition for different types of activities. For example, consider how a successful scientific or business project may unfold over time. The earlier stages of a project may involve a great deal of intuitive thought and holistic brainstorming about ideas to pursue. After this idea-​generating phase, formal operations may help to identify which of the ideas are most promising with regard to the “knowns” in the field. While executing the ideas, concrete operations are likely useful. During the stage of interpreting the results and integrating them with trends in the field, one likely requires both intuitive and propositional thought. Whereas the Piagetian view on cognitive development sees the simultaneous coexistence of cognitive operations from different developmental stages as contradictory, Riegel’s

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 143

model views this coexistence as a sign of natural cognitive development (Riegel, 1973). In Riegel’s view (1973), “the individual does not necessarily equilibrate these conflicts, but is ready to live with these contradictions; stronger yet, the individual accepts these contradictions as a basic property of thought and creativity” (p. 366). The ideas in this quote overlap both with the Hegelian principles and some of the Taoist and Jainist writings—​ dialecticism is not about explicit confrontation to resolve a conflict along the lines of assimilation or accommodation but rather acceptance of apparent contradictions and the principle of change.

A Schemata-​Oriented Representation of Dialectical Thought Riegel’s model remained largely theoretical until Michael Basseches elaborated on it by translating it into a set of 24 reasoning schemata in the early 1980s. Following Riegel, Basseches (1980, 1984) defined dialectical thinking as a form of cognitive organization, indicative of mature thought. Basseches approached dialecticism as a family of world outlooks with “common emphases on change, on wholeness, and on internal relations” (Basseches, 1980; p. 404). The principle of change referred to the temporary (vs. immutable) nature of “elements of existence” (1980, p. 404), whereas the principle of wholeness stands in contrast to the view of individual elements as separate from each other. Finally, the principle of internal relations describes the dynamics that occur within a whole. Putting these three principles together, Basseches defined dialectic as a “developmental transformation (i.e., developmental movement through forms) which occurs via constitutive and interactive relationships” (1980, p.  405), and dialectical thinking as “thinking which looks for and recognizes instances of dialectic, and which reflects this orientation in the way in which it engages in inquiry” (1980, p. 406). It becomes somewhat clearer what Basseches means with this abstract conceptualization when examining the schemata he proposed to represent dialectical thought. The schemata Basseches refers to are revealed as themes in utterances by participants reflecting on various complex social events. The “motion-​ oriented schemata” include recognition of thesis–​ antithesis–​ synthesis movement, recognition of ongoing interaction as a source of movement, and/​or understanding of the situation as moments of development. “Form-​ oriented schemata” include location of an element within the whole of which it is a part and an assumption of contextual relativism. Finally,

144 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

“relationship-​oriented schemata” include descriptions of a two-​way reciprocal relationship, or recognition of the limits of separation and the value of relatedness. Basseches also included “meta-​formal schemata” as a criticism of formalism based on the interdependence of form and content. Readers interested in examples of these themes in verbal responses may consult Basseches’ book from 1984. One of the most important contributions by Basseches to the study of dialecticism in psychology may have been his successful demonstration that it is possible to code for dialectical thinking in verbal responses. Basseches accomplished this task by surveying college students and faculty members at Swarthmore College (Basseches, 1984). Results from 27 interviews he conducted showed that faculty members were somewhat more likely to apply dialectical schemata than the freshmen, suggesting that maturity may play a role in dialectical thinking. Whereas Riegel (1973) described his philosophical orientation as Hegelian, Basseches (1980) emphasized the complex relationship between the multitude of philosophical perspectives on dialecticism and their relationship to psychology: Prior to being suggested as a cognitive psychological concept, the term “dialectical thinking” referred to the thinking growing out of a philosophical tradition with which the word dialectic has become associated. It is difficult to define that philosophical tradition precisely. Hegel is said to have articulated the Hegelian dialectic, and Marxian philosophy is known as dialectical materialism . . . . [I]‌n determining which intellectual works grow out of the dialectical tradition and contribute to the meaning of dialectical thinking, one also must deal with the question of how to treat work reflecting similar central assumptions to work clearly within the tradition, but where no clear historical connection can be demonstrated. Further problems are encountered in trying to trace the pre-​Hegelian sources of the tradition. (p. 403)

Indeed, Basseches’ conceptualization shared a great deal in common with both the Hegelian and with some of the Asian dialectical philosophical traditions (i.e., the principles of change and holism). At the same time, his method of studying dialectical thought through analysis of utterances in participants’ interviews may be characterized as oriented toward Marxism given that the topic of the interviews involved transformation of social conflicts and other forms of societal changes, as well as the explicit reference to the concept of thesis–​antithesis–​synthesis.

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 145

A Multitude of Postformal Definitions of Dialectical Thinking Since the 1980s, other postformalist developmental psychologists aimed to refine both the theory and the operationalization of dialecticism. For instance, Kramer and Melchior (1990) characterized cognitive development in terms of absolutistic, relativistic, or dialectical thinking. In their view, absolutistic thinking lends itself to categorizing people into traits and types that are seen as inherent and fixed, thinking in terms of absolute principles and ideals, and/​ or understanding complex psychological phenomena by reducing them to single causes. This characterization shows similarities to the constructs of dualistic thinking (King, Kitchener, Davison, Parker, & Wood, 1983), intrasystemic thinking (Labouvie-​Vief, 1982), late formal thinking (Pascual-​Leone, 1983), and, more recently, entity beliefs (Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1995). In contrast to absolutistic thinking, relativistic thinking capitalizes views of the world as uncertain and ever-​changing. Knowledge is perceived as subjective, and contradiction is simply accepted, as it seems inherent and impossible to change. In their extreme form, such beliefs are viewed as ineffective in judgment and decision-​making because they deter individuals from acting in a given situation. Such extreme relativistic beliefs resonate with what social psychologists refer to as attitudinal ambivalence (Thompson, Zanna, & Griffin, 1995). The general view of relativistic thinking is related to the constructs of dogmatism-​skepticism (Chandler, 1987), intersystemic thinking (Labouvie-​Vief, 1982), multiplicity (King et  al., 1983; Perry, 1970), and predialectical thinking (Pascual-​Leone, 1983). Finally, dialectical thinking integrates absolute and relativistic concepts. Similar to relativistic thinking, it construes all phenomena as ever-​ changing and contradictory. However, it allows one to provide order and direction to the change, and enables one to focus on the resolution of apparent contradictions or to realize that the seemingly contradictory statements are both part of a larger system. This view of dialectical thinking shows some parallels to autonomous thinking (Labouvie-​Vief, 1982), post-​skeptical rationalism (Chandler, 1987), relativistic operations (Sinnott, 1984), and has been most recently evident in the psychological scholarship on wisdom (Grossmann, 2017). Since developmental researchers proposed a multitude of definitions, each emphasizing somewhat different facets of dialecticism, it is important to keep in mind that the central themes featured in these constructs remained largely analogous to those advocated by Riegel (1973) and Basseches (1984). They deal with the principles of change and relativism,

146 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

acceptance of contradictions, and the notion of internal relations and interdependence thereof as a means to integrate apparent contradictions (e.g., Yan & Arlin, 1995). As such, they build on the philosophical heritage of both Hegelian dialectic and (to a lesser extent) Marxist dialectical materialism, and share a great deal in common with the treatment of dialecticism in the classic Indian, (some) Buddhist, and Taoist philosophies.

Dialectical Thought in Cultural Psychology Lay Dialecticism In the last few decades, cross-​cultural researchers have become interested in the concept of dialecticism. This growing interest in cultural variation in dialectical thinking has culminated in this handbook. Importantly, when Peng and Nisbett (1999) introduced dialecticism to the cultural psychological community, they conceptualized dialectical thinking broadly, referring to a cluster of concepts and not just to the forms of dialectical reasoning that cognitive and developmental psychologists had spoken of (Peng & Nisbett, 2000). Peng and Nisbett (1999) considered dialectical dynamics at the societal level (e.g., Marxist dialectics), at the level of interpersonal discourse (e.g., dialectical argumentation), and at the intrapsychic level (e.g., integrative complexity). Synthesizing these different perspectives, they proposed that a key aspect of dialecticism deals with understanding the interaction between seeming oppositions in thought, as well as the reconciliation of such oppositions. Peng and colleagues (e.g., Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng et al., 2006) further proposed that dialectical thought is prevalent in modern Chinese psychology as a sort of folk belief system. This “naïve dialecticism” is proposed to be guided by the principles of change, contradiction, relationship, and unity. The principle of change concerns the notion that reality is a process and events are constantly in flux, dynamic and changeable. As Peng and Nisbett (1999) pointed out, if one follows this principle, “to be or not to be” becomes a meaningless question. Building on the principle of change, the principle of contradiction suggests that reality is not at all clear and is full of contradictions, as exemplified in the paragraph from Tao Te Ching quoted earlier. Finally, the principle of relationship and unity builds on the principles of change and contradiction, proposing that nothing in the world exists in isolation but rather is interconnected, similar to how individual musical notes only become meaningful when embedded in a melody.

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 147

Holistic Cognitive Style and Interdependent Social Orientation Cultural psychologists have also discussed values and behaviors linked with dialecticism within the bodies of research on individualism/​collectivism and holistic (vs. analytic) cognitive style. These concepts were initially developed to describe systematic cross-​cultural differences in patterns of thought and behavior between East Asian and Western individuals (mainly North Americans and Western Europeans; Markus & Kitayama, 1991)  and since then were extended to describing variations in other cultural regions (e.g., Grossmann & Kross, 2010; Grossmann & Varnum, 2011; Grossmann & Na, 2014; Varnum, Grossmann, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2010). Individualism/​collectivism has been described as the degree to which individuals are focused on their relational/​interdependent (vs. autonomous/​independent) self and act on the basis of socially shared norms and values (vs. the self’s desires, attitudes, and personal goals; Hofstede, 1991). Collectivism is associated with a view of the self as interconnected and encompassed in important relationships, whereas individualism is associated with a view of the self as separate from social others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Empirical cross-​ cultural studies revealed that members of East Asian societies tend to be collectivist/​interdependent, as indicated by a relatively greater focus on harmony, relatedness, and social connection, whereas members of Western societies (e.g., Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK, or the U.S.) tend to be individualist/​ independent, as indicated by a relatively greater emphasis on self-​direction, autonomy, and self-​expression (e.g., Kitayama, Ishii, Imada, Takemura, & Ramaswamy, 2006; Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). In terms of cognitive style, the holistic versus analytic distinction is made mainly on the basis of whether one’s cognitive strategies enable a contextualized or decontextualized focus in perception, cognition, or information processing (Grossmann & Na, 2014; Nisbett et  al., 2001; Varnum et al., 2010). The holistic cognitive style has been characterized by a focus on contextual information in visual attention and relationships with an emphasis on situational explanations of behavior, dialectical reasoning, and relation-​focused categorization of objects. In contrast, analytic cognitive style has been characterized by a narrow focus on focal objects in the visual field, a preference for dispositional explanations of behavior, formal logic in reasoning, and use of rule-​based categorization of objects. What unites the elements of the analytic style is a tendency to focus on a single dimension or aspect and a tendency to disentangle phenomena from

148 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

the contexts in which they are embedded. Similar to prior work on lay dialecticism and social orientation, empirical research indicated that members of studied Western societies tend to be analytic, whereas members of studied East Asian societies tend to be holistic.

Emotional Dialecticism As the conceptualization of dialecticism became broader, researchers started to examine its relevance to other forms of human functioning other than cognition. Specifically, cross-​cultural researchers of emotion began to conceptualize dialecticism as the experience of pleasant and unpleasant states in a coincidental or temporally related fashion (e.g., Bagozzi, Wong, & Yi, 1999; Grossmann, Huynh, & Ellsworth, 2016; Miyamoto, Uchida, & Ellsworth, 2010).1

Comparison of Dialectical Thought in Cultural and Developmental Psychology How do the cultural psychological concepts of lay dialecticism, collectivism/​ interdependence (vs. individualism/​ independence), and holistic (vs. analytic) cognitive style just discussed compare to the various philosophical treatments of dialecticism, as well as the body of developmental literature? It is evident that lay dialecticism and holistic cognitive style are largely comparable to Hegelian as well as Taoist and classic Indian philosophical ideas, because each of these theories considers the principles of change, contradiction, and holism. When focusing on these principles, the notions of lay dialecticism, collectivism, and holistic cognitive style in cultural psychology are also consistent with the writings of Riegel, Basseches, and other developmental psychologists. It is less clear if the dialectical traditions in philosophy can be viewed as directly analogous to the concept of collectivism versus individualism. Perhaps the central overlap of the notion of collectivism–​individualism and dialectical thought in Western and Eastern philosophy concerns the notion of internal relations between parts constituting the whole. Some differences between philosophical and psychological concepts of dialectic are also evident. Lay dialecticism and holistic cognitive style are clearly distinct from the dialectical (debate) traditions in the Hellenistic and Buddhist philosophies, because the latter traditions largely use the dialectical method as a way to seek a “single” truth. The single truth is

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 149

a priori the one that does not involve a contradiction, which is diametrically opposed to the core principles of lay dialecticism and the holistic cognitive style. Lay dialecticism is also somewhat different from the principles of dialecticism in the Marxist tradition, because the latter assumes an explicit and permanent struggle between opposite poles, whereas the former accepts the unity of the opposites (cf. Peng et al., 2006), much like the Jainists and Taoists do. Finally, cultural psychological concepts of lay dialecticism, collectivism, and holistic cognitive style are distinct from human developmental concepts of dialecticism, because they concern a different level of analysis. Whereas lay dialecticism, collectivism, and holistic cognitive style concern cultural psychological phenomena—​folk beliefs, shared meaning systems, and their manifestations in culturally transmitted behavior of cultural groups (Na et al., 2010)—​the discussion of dialectical thought in developmental psychology mainly addresses the question of cognitive development of an individual toward maturity.

Development of Dialectical Thought and Emotion So far, I have discussed how different models of dialectical thought have come about in the human development literature and subsequently in cultural psychology. Yet, what are the psychological models concerning the development of dialectical thought? To examine this question, I will review several theoretical propositions for how dialecticism develops, as well as corresponding empirical evidence. Subsequently, I  will contrast these models with the ideas discussed in cultural psychology and evaluate them against the existing cross-​cultural evidence.

Development of Dialectical Thought in the West Theoretical Models

Dialecticism was initially introduced to scientific psychology as a developmental concept representing a form of mature thought. Yet, developmental researchers differ in the age range they consider (e.g., child development vs. lifespan development). Postformal researchers (Kramer, 1983; Labouvie-​Vief, 1982, 2003; Sinnott, 1984) suggested several ontogenetic models of dialecticism. As mentioned earlier, these models use somewhat different terminology but share many similarities, including a view of dialecticism-​related thought processes as an indicator of cognitive maturity. A  developmental model

150 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

with a relatively large empirical base is that proposed by Kramer and colleagues (Kramer, 1989; Kramer & Melchior, 1990). Kramer suggested that absolutistic beliefs develop during early adolescence, relativistic concepts during early to middle adolescence, and dialectical schemata in late adolescence and emerging adulthood. Comparable models also have been proposed for the development of faith-​related beliefs. For instance, Fowler and Dell (2006) proposed a developmental-​stage theory of faith, in which different stages—​ “synthetic conventional,” “individuative-​ reflective faith,” “conjunctive faith,” and “universalizing faith”—​map onto stages of development toward dialectical thinking in general. Similar to Kramer (Kramer, 1989; Kramer & Melchior, 1990), Fowler and Dell (2006) emphasize the notion of an onset period for the development of dialecticism by proposing that there is a minimum age below which the more advanced stages of thought are not normally present. Yet, onset models do not agree on the exact timing of transition from one stage to another. In contrast to Kramer (1989), Fowler and Dell (2006) view dialecticism as emerging later in life. In their view, the early 20s is the time of the onset of development of relativistic concepts, and this development continues throughout one’s lifespan. Moreover, these exemplar views of postformal dialectical development emphasize that the progress from earlier stages toward dialecticism is not a given. In fact, many people may not reach the stage of dialectical beliefs. Researchers interested in habitual tendencies to reason dialectically often view dialecticism as an attribute of later life. Here, dialecticism represents a key cognitive component of wisdom in older age.2 Starting with Riegel’s (1973) original critique of the Piagetian model of development (Piaget & Inhelder, 1973), postformal developmental researchers characterized dialecticism as a sign of successful aging, which allows for flexibility in switching between different modes of cognitive operation in the face of aging-​related declines of fluid cognitive abilities (e.g., Baltes, 1993; Labouvie-​Vief & Blanchard-​Fields, 1982). For instance, Labouvie-​ Vief and Blanchard-​Fields (1982) argued that apparent deficits found in cognitive aging are due to overemphasis on Piaget-​style formal operations and logic. In their view, examination of dialectical thought processes (e.g., contextualization of formal logic) suggests a progression rather than a decline in later adulthood. Similarly, Baltes proposed that cognitive “pragmatics” (e.g., experience-​based wisdom) are less subject to aging-​related cognitive decline than cognitive “mechanics” (e.g., basic processes of memory). He suggested in his theory of selective optimization with compensation (SOC) that pragmatics may compensate for some corresponding

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 151

aging-​related losses in mechanics (Baltes, 1997). Importantly, Baltes’ conceptualization of “pragmatics” included dialectical thought (Baltes & Staudinger, 1993). To date, little theoretical work has proposed specific age norms for habitual-​level dialecticism. The notion that dialecticism is more commonly found in later life could refer to any time after middle age, in people’s early 50s, post-​retirement, or even among octogenarians. Empirical Evidence from Western Samples

Basseches was among the first to empirically investigate age differences in dialecticism (Basseches, 1984). He asked younger college freshmen, graduate students, and older professors at Swarthmore College to reflect on social issues, and content-​analyzed their responses according to 24 dialecticism schemata. He observed more dialecticism among older professors than among graduate students, who in turn showed greater dialecticism than college freshmen. This evidence was preliminary, however, because in his study older age was confounded with education and likely with intelligence. In addition, Basseches’ elaborate coding was impractical, hence other researchers subsequently proposed simplified criteria and developed questionnaires with items modelled on previous theory and coding of dialectical thought (e.g., Baltes & Smith, 2008; Grossmann et al., 2010; Grossmann & Kross, 2014, see Grossmann, 2017, for a review). In her theoretical extension of Riegel’s model, Labouvie-​Vief proposed the inclusion of emotions and the self (Labouvie-​Vief, 2003). Blanchard-​ Fields wrote her dissertation under Labouvie-​Vief’s supervision and hence was guided by the former’s theoretical model in her empirical research on the postformal development of dialecticism (Blanchard-​Fields, 1986). She conducted interviews with a community sample from Detroit, prompting high school students, young adults, and middle-​aged participants to reflect on two contradictory accounts of social conflicts and life dilemmas. She subsequently coded participants’ responses on several reasoning “levels,” some of which were conceptually derived from earlier definitions of dialectical thought by Riegel and Basseches. These levels included acceptance of contradiction between event descriptions (level 5, second-​highest level) and the interpretation and recognition of multiple perspectives on a conflict, grounded in different interpretative frameworks (level 6, highest level). Only about 10% of high school students obtained scores on the second-​highest level, and only middle-​aged adults obtained scores on the highest level of reasoning, suggesting that the onset of dialecticism development is likely to occur in young adulthood. Moreover, middle-​aged

152 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

adults’ statements were twice as likely to be on the second-​highest level as were those of younger adults. Unfortunately, Blanchard-​Field’s restricted age range did not permit inferences about habitual level differences across the full lifespan. Kramer and Woodruff (1986) were also early adopters of Basseches’ operational framework of dialectical thought. In their initial empirical work on dialectical thinking, they presented an age-​heterogeneous group of predominantly European American participants (full-​time and continuing education college students at Temple University and members of the investigators’ social network) with social dilemmas designed to assess dialectical thought and scored their verbal responses with respect to dialectical reasoning (Kramer & Woodruff, 1986). Results indicated that older adults scored higher on dialectical reasoning than did younger and middle-​aged adults. In another study, Kramer and Kahlbaugh (1994) examined memory for dialectical versus non-​dialectical statements among college students and older adults, who were alumni of the same university. They found that older (but not younger) adults were more likely to recall non-​dialectical statements as if they included dialectical components. Moreover, older (vs. younger) adults were more likely to provide additional dialectical themes that were not explicitly stated in a dialectical passage. To simplify the procedure of measuring dialectical thought even further, Kramer and colleagues (Kramer, Kahlbaugh, & Goldston, 1992; Kramer & Melchior, 1990) developed a questionnaire: the Social Paradigm Belief Inventory (SPBI). The SPBI requires participants to provide Likert-​type scale responses to statements about the social world, with some responses modelled on previously discussed dimensions of dialectical thought. Kramer and Melchior (1990) initially tested the SPBI among college students and found that seniors were relatively more dialectical than college freshmen, particularly when comparing male students. In subsequent studies, Kramer and colleagues (e.g., Kramer et al., 1992) examined SPBI responses from an age-​heterogeneous sample of middle-​class European Americans and found a weak positive relationship between age and preference for dialectical items, with an increase between young and middle adulthood. Independently from Kramer, McBride (1998) used the SPBI in her dissertation to explore age differences in preference for dialectical statements with an ethnically and economically diverse sample of Americans. Consistent with Kramer and Woodruff (1986), McBride found greater preference for dialectical statements among older (60+ years) than among younger (19–​23 years) and middle-​aged (38–​43 years) adults.

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 153

With the exception of McBride’s dissertation, initial empirical work on the development of dialecticism was largely limited in its focus, concentrating mostly on middle-​class, highly educated samples of European Americans. In addition, the work examining actual behavioural tendencies associated with dialecticism (assessed in interview responses, as opposed to self-​report questionnaires) was based on small samples (N < 100)  of restricted age range, limiting possibilities for lifespan inferences about dialecticism. Moreover, evidence provided by these postformal researchers were contradicted by findings from the series of studies on wisdom across the lifespan, conducted by Paul Baltes and his colleagues (e.g., Baltes & Smith, 2008). In the 1990s, researchers at the Max-​ Plank Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, led by Paul Baltes, conducted a series of studies to explore age differences in “wisdom-​related thought”—​aspects of thinking that may be distinct from fluid cognitive abilities and thus less subject to cognitive decline in advanced adulthood. To explore these aspects of thought, Baltes’ group developed the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm (BWP; Baltes & Smith, 2008; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000; Smith & Baltes, 1990), which was similar to methods used by postformal researchers like Kramer, Labouvie-​Vief, and Blanchard-​Fields. In this paradigm, people were asked to read hypothetical stories about uncertain and difficult life dilemmas, and researchers coded their verbal responses for wisdom-​ related thought. Some of the wisdom coding dimensions included value relativism, lifespan contextualism, and recognition and management of uncertainty and change. These three dimensions were closely related to the characterization of dialectical thought by postformal researchers (e.g., Basseches, 1984; Blanchard-​Fields, 1986; Kramer, 2000; Labouvie-​Vief, 1982; Riegel, 1973). The BWP provided a set of important insights relevant to understanding dialecticism across the lifespan. First, dialectical scores were fairly rare, with only a few people displaying high levels of wise reasoning in their responses (Baltes & Smith, 2008; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). Second, Baltes and colleagues found that the period of late adolescence and early adulthood appeared to be the primary time for the onset of dialecticism (e.g., Pasupathi, Staudinger, & Baltes, 2001). However, and in contrast to postformal researchers, the BWP studies did not yield conclusive evidence regarding differences in dialecticism between younger and older (60+) adults. On the one hand, older adults in their samples were more frequently among the top performers of dialecticism (Baltes, Staudinger, Maercker, & Smith, 1995). On the other hand, Baltes and colleagues failed to observe mean-​level differences in several systematic

154 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

studies within the BWP paradigm (for a review, see Baltes & Smith, 2008; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). Recently, my colleagues and I  attempted to resolve this inconsistency in findings on dialectical thinking and wisdom across the lifespan (Grossmann et al., 2010; Grossmann, Na, Varnum, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2013). We noticed a few possible limitations of the BWP project. One such limitation dealt with sample selection and associated history effects. Younger and older adults were recruited in Berlin right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, during which time many younger adults were actively engaged in promoting the resulting societal changes. If life-​based experience with contradictions plays a role in the development of dialecticism, younger German adults may have experienced an atypically large number of dialectical experiences during that time. Second, the BWP materials were very brief and devoid of contextual information. The experiments were conducted in a largely artificial setting (e.g., in some studies, there was no interaction partner and participants spoke into a microphone in an empty room). In contrast, my colleagues and I thought that a naturalistic interview setting and substantial contextual detail (provided in the descriptions of the social problems) may be essential to encourage older individuals to reason in a dialectical fashion. Therefore, we examined “wise” aspects of reasoning (including dialecticism) using naturalistic, context-​ rich materials about social conflicts, and then measured dialecticism in a structured face-​to-​face interview. In these interviews, a community sample of participants read six newspaper articles describing a series of intergroup conflicts (e.g., political power, immigration, natural resources) and interpersonal conflicts (e.g., friends, relatives, spouses). Participants discussed the articles with an interviewer, who used a set of standardized probes (e.g., “What do you think will happen after the events you read about?” “Anything else?” “Why do you think it will happen this way?” “What do you think should be done?”). To address the sample limitations of previous work, we recruited a representative community sample of 25-​to 90-​ year-​olds from the Midwest, with participants ranging from uneducated blue-​collar workers to affluent college professors. As Figure 5.1 indicates, older Americans, relative to young and middle-​aged Americans, displayed greater dialecticism when analyzing social conflicts. These results held when controlling for various relevant variables (e.g., cognitive abilities, social class, and education). Moreover, a recent follow-​up on this study indicated that a tendency toward greater dialecticism in reasoning about social conflicts contributes to successful aging. Dialectical thinking was related to various aspects of individual well-​being,

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 155

2.0

Performance group Performance group lower 80% higher 20%

Score

1.8

1.6

1.4

30

40

50

60 Age

70

80

90

Figure 5.1  Performance on dialectical reasoning tasks among Americans. Results represent an average score across two studies reported by Grossmann and colleagues (2010). For visual clarity, individuals were split into top 20% and bottom 80% of dialectical reasoning performance on the tasks.

ranging from relationship quality to emotion regulation and life satisfaction. Additionally, the magnitude of this association was greater in older age (Grossmann et al., 2013). Taken together, the last 30 years of empirical research on the development of dialectical thinking across the lifespan suggests that Westerners become increasingly dialectical with age and that, on average, the tendency to reason dialectically seems to be more common in older age (but see Grossmann & Kross, 2014, Study 3, for a failure to observe age-​related differences for personal situations3). Next, I turn to body of research on emotional dialecticism across the full lifespan.

Development of Emotional Dialecticism in the West Theoretical Models

Emotion researchers view dialecticism as a form of emotional complexity (Grossmann & Ellsworth, 2017; Lindquist & Barrett, 2008). One theoretical framework that addressed the lifespan trends in emotional dialecticism built on the previously mentioned theory of selective optimization and compensation (Baltes & Baltes, 1990). The theoretical framework of socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) postulates that younger people

156 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

view the future as expansive, and they prioritize goals that prepare them for a long future, particularly goals of gaining knowledge and information (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). However, as people age, they may realize that their time is limited and, as a consequence, they may reorient themselves toward present goals of emotional well-​being over future-​oriented goals (Carstensen et  al., 1999), because people come to appreciate and invest more effort in matters of life important to them at a given moment. Importantly, Carstensen and colleagues do not suggest that the emotional lives of older people are uniformly happy—​quite the opposite. Rather, the focus on meaningful activities under time-​limited conditions elicits richly complex emotional experiences (e.g., gratitude accompanied by a sense of fragility, happiness tinged with sadness). Such complexity of emotional experience (operationalized as dialecticism) may lead to improved emotion regulation (Roberts & Gotlib, 1997). It thus follows that older adults report greater well-​being than younger adults because they have more dialectical experiences in their lives, and the focus on these complex and meaningful emotional experiences is instigated by the diminishing time horizon. A different theory has been proposed by Labouvie-​Vief. Labouvie-​ Vief’s cognitive-​ affective developmental theory (CADT; 2003)  postulates that emotional experiences become more complex and dialectical as individuals progress in their cognitive and ego development (Labouvie-​ Vief, 2003; Labouvie-​Vief & Diehl, 2000; Labouvie-​Vief, Hakim-​Larson, DeVoe, & Schoeberlein, 1989). In fact, Labouvie-​Vief was the first to propose that integration of emotions and the self is essential for the development of dialecticism (Labouvie-​Vief, 1982), foreshadowing future work on the dialectical self in cultural psychology (see Chapter 14 in this volume). Similar to other neo-​Piagetian models, Labouvie-​Vief proposes that emotional dialecticism starts to develop after formal operations are established in early adulthood. Importantly, in more recent iterations of the CADT, Labouvie-​Vief has gone beyond characterization of onsets of emotional dialecticism, focusing on general improvements in emotion regulation across the lifespan (Labouvie-​Vief, 2003). In contrast to Carstensen and colleagues, Labouvie-​Vief differentiates emotional dialecticism from affect optimization (maximization of positive affect and minimization of negative affect), proposing that middle age provides plenty of experiences with conflicting feelings, and that such experiences can boost emotional dialecticism among middle-​aged adults as compared to younger adults. In Labouvie-​ Vief’s view, emotional dialecticism is closely interconnected with cognitive abilities. In light of empirical work on demonstrated

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 157

aging-​related declines in many such cognitive abilities (e.g., fluid cognitive abilities; Park & Reuter-​Lorenz, 2009), Labouvie-​Vief proposed that emotional dialecticism peaks in middle age and declines after middle-​ aged adulthood because the cognitive losses begin to outweigh the gains in experience. Empirical Evidence

A number of researchers have examined how young Americans acquire an understanding of mixed emotions, with a particular focus on positive and negative emotions. In many ways, these studies on instances of mixed emotions (or mixed affect) are synonymous with the idea of emotional dialecticism, and I  review them next. Kestenbaum and Gelman (1995; Study 2)  conducted one of the first empirical studies along these lines, presenting U.S.  children with stories that would either elicit dialectical emotions (happy/​mad, happy/​sad, or sad/​mad) or pure emotions (happy, sad, or mad), and asked them to choose a response indicating what the person in the story was feeling, such as “both happy and sad” or “just happy” or “just sad.” In addition, the children had to select a facial expression (mixed or “pure”) that would go with the story. Their results showed that 5-​years-​olds matched emotionally dialectical verbal labels to emotionally dialectical experiences well, whereas 4-​year-​olds tended not to choose mixed-​emotion verbal labels, irrespective of story type. In addition, 5-​year-​ olds identified dialectical facial expressions and linked them to the appropriate scenarios, whereas 4-​year-​olds failed on the task. Overall, this initial work suggested that the development of dialectical emotional experience in the West begins to unfold between the ages of 4 and 5. More recently, Pons, Harris, and de Rosnay (2004) tested whether children understood the concept of emotional dialecticism among a larger age range of children. Children viewed a cartoon that was likely to provoke ambivalent feelings in the protagonist and were asked what the protagonist felt. Similar to Kestenbaum and Gelman’s (1995) work, Pons et al. found an increase in the understanding of mixed emotions between the 3-​year-​olds and 5-​ year-​olds. However, this increase was rather small in comparison to the difference between 7-​year-​olds and 9-​year-​olds. Whereas only 20% of the 7-​year-​olds mentioned that the protagonist felt mixed emotions, 95% of the 9-​year-​olds did so. Larsen, To, and Fireman (2007) extended this early work examining U.S.  children’s experience of emotional dialecticism by asking children about their own feelings after watching an emotionally ambivalent movie clip from the Disney movie The Little Mermaid. Larsen and colleagues

158 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

(2007) differentiated between reports of the protagonist’s experience of both positive and negative emotions when the children were prompted to do so and the spontaneous mentioning of the experience of positive and negative emotions. Similar to results from previous work, they found that older children (8-​to 12-​year-​olds) were more likely to view the protagonist (Arielle’s father, Triton) as experiencing mixed emotions, relative to the 5-​to 6-​year-​olds. In fact, only 6% of boys and no girls aged 5–​6 spontaneously reported Triton as experiencing mixed emotions. Importantly, older children were more likely to spontaneously mention experiencing mixed emotions, whereas no children aged 5–​6 spontaneously did so. Whereas the work on the onset of emotional dialecticism suggests that the concept of emotional dialecticism is both understood and experienced by children, work on habitual tendencies to experience dialecticism in daily life cumulatively suggests that this tendency is more prevalent among older adults. Williams and Aaker (2002) examined age differences in attitudes toward mixed-​emotion information in advertisements. Their results indicated that older adults exhibit relatively more positive attitudes toward emotional dialecticism in advertisements than do their younger counterparts, in part because younger adults felt discomfort with the mixed emotional information. Similarly, Hong and Lee (2010) showed that younger participants had less favorable attitudes toward a mixed-​ emotion advertisement than toward a happy advertisement, whereas older participants’ attitudes toward the mixed-​emotion advertisement and the happy advertisement were equally favorable. Other empirical research suggests that older adults are able to acknowledge complexity in their own feelings and work through the tension between positive and negative emotions better than younger adults (Labouvie-​Vief, DeVoe, et  al., 1989). Finally, several studies assessed individuals’ daily experience of mixed emotions by examining intra-​ individual variations between positive and negative affect in the context of experience-​sampling research (Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr, & Nesselroade, 2000; Ong & Bergeman, 2004). Most of the studies in this tradition indicate a linear increase in emotional dialecticism with age; that is, older adults tend to report more mixed and bittersweet emotions within the same sampled moment than younger adults do (although see work by Grühn and colleagues for a notable exception to this trend; 2013).4 Much of this research comes from a longitudinal project by Carstensen and colleagues. In the initial wave of the project (i.e., an experience-​sampling study of American participants ranging in age from 18 to 94), pleasant and unpleasant emotions were inversely related among younger participants,

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 159

but this correlation diminished and even reversed with age (Carstensen et al., 2000; also see Ong & Bergeman, 2004, for a similar observation of a positive correlation between pleasant and unpleasant emotions among older adults). Further analyses showed that this age-​related pattern was also manifested in a subsequent sampling of the same participants 10 years later (Carstensen et al., 2011). Moreover, adults reported more emotional dialecticism over time (Carstensen et al., 2011; Ersner-​Hershfield, Mikels, Sullivan, & Carstensen, 2008; Hershfield, Scheibe, Sims, & Carstensen, 2013), a finding suggesting a longitudinal positive relationship between age and emotional dialecticism. Similar results were observed in other studies in which adults reported their emotions in a narrative form. Magai and colleagues (Magai, Consedine, Krivoshekova, Kudadjie-​ Gyamfi, & McPherson, 2006)  observed greater co-​ occurrence of mixed emotions among middle-​aged and older adults than among younger adults. Consistent with this body of literature on emotional dialecticism across the lifespan, other researchers have observed age differences in the organization of positive and negative information in memory, indicating that older adults organize and represent emotional memories in a more dialectical fashion than do younger adults (Ready, Robinson, & Weinberger, 2006). Moreover, related work on facial expressions suggests that older, as compared with younger, women show more complex facial expressions and that they combine multiple emotions in a single expression (Malatesta & Kalnok, 1984). Taken together, these different streams of empirical work suggest that older adults in the West tend to think about social dilemmas in a more dialectical fashion and experience greater emotional dialecticism than younger adults. Middle-​aged Westerners are somewhere in between, but somewhat closer to older-​aged adults than younger adults in terms of emotional experience (Magai et al., 2006) and some aspects of cognitive dialecticism (Kramer et al., 1992). Middle-​aged Westerners also tend to be distinct from younger Westerners on emotional and cognitive dialecticism. Yet, it is important to point out that studies on the full range of the adult lifespan have been relatively rare, and thus any conclusions about age-​related changes in dialecticism are still premature. Age-​related effects in dialecticism are likely context-​specific (Grossmann, 2017; Grossmann et al., 2016; Study 3). Only one study so far (Carstensen et al., 2011) has examined emotional aspects of dialecticism longitudinally, and no published empirical work has examined dialectical reasoning (cognitive dialecticism) longitudinally. Moreover, work on the onset of the development of dialecticism (particularly among children) has been fairly limited.

160 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Development of Dialectical Thought from a Cross-​Cultural Perspective: Theory and Findings It is difficult to characterize the specifics of the non-​Western models of dialecticism, because the notion of development is not well integrated into the body of research on cultural psychology. Cultural psychologists interested in the concept of lay dialecticism or holistic cognitive style have mainly focused on college students, with limited attention to how processes of acquiring and maintaining dialectical thought unfold over one’s lifespan (cf. Grossmann, Karasawa, Kan, & Kitayama, 2014; Keller & Greenfield, 2000). Thus the non-​Western literature on the development and maintenance of dialecticism appears to be much less systematic than the Western literature. With this caveat, the existing streams of theoretical thought on this topic can be roughly divided into those dealing with indigenous concepts of early childhood development of dialecticism, and theories concerning cross-​cultural differences in socialization, parenting styles, or aging-​related processes.

Indigenous Concepts Indigenous concepts about the development of dialecticism focus largely on its onset and on the contribution of early childhood socialization. A prominent indigenous model of infant development among the Japanese has been proposed by Doi (1973). Before age 7 months, Japanese infants are believed to experience “oneness” with their social environment, which is supposedly oriented toward the development of the unique Japanese characteristic called “amae”—​a relatively pleasant feeling of knowing that one is dependent on others (including the awareness that one may take advantage of other individuals and social groups of which one is a part in order to gain personal support, or the knowledge that one may even act inappropriately toward a close other as a sign of a close bond; Niiya, Ellsworth, & Yamaguchi, 2006). According to Doi (1973), amae does not begin until the seventh to eighth month of life, when the infant becomes aware of the presence of the mother as separate from him-​or herself. My interpretation of Doi’s theorizing (without a claim for accuracy) is that the infant strives to preserve the sense of oneness, now seeking the experience of amae as a way to overcome the evident separation. Doi (1973) suggests that the development of amae has profound implications for Japanese individuals’ later personality. One can extend this theoretical model to the discussion about the development of dialecticism. Amae, with its focus on

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 161

interdependence and acceptance of situationally inappropriate behavior, may be exactly the strategy that promotes the early onset of dialecticism in emotion and thought among the Japanese.

Cross-​Cultural Perspectives on the Development of Dialecticism A different approach to understanding the role of culture in the development of dialecticism has been taken by researchers comparing social cognitive development in different cultural groups. Some researchers construe culture-​specific developmental processes as orienting individuals toward cultural themes dominant in a given region (Whiting & Whiting, 1977). Given that lay dialecticism, holistic cognitive style, and interdependent social orientation are more prevalent among East Asian societies, and that orientation toward “lay Aristotelianism” (i.e., linear determinism, adherence to the law of non-​contradiction; Peng & Nisbett, 1999), analytic cognitive style, and independent social orientation are more prevalent among Western societies (for reviews, see Grossmann & Na, 2014; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Nisbett, 2003), some researchers have also theorized about how developmental processes (e.g., parenting, schooling) contribute to these differences (Keller & Greenfield, 2000). Early Childhood

Researchers proposed and found that in cultures in which an interdependent social orientation is dominant, customs endorse extensive body contact and body stimulation of the infant, which are conducive to close ties and a sense of relatedness. This is in contrast to cultures in which independent social orientation is dominant, which in turn encourage face-​to-​face interactions, with reduced bodily interaction, and are conducive to the sense of individuation and separateness (Keller & Greenfield, 2000; MacDonald, 1992). In some interdependent cultures such as Japan (Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, & Weisz, 2000), Cameroon (Yovsi & Keller, 2000), India (Saraswathi & Pai, 1997), and Mexico (Brazelton, Robey, & Collier, 1969) it has been shown that parents also tend to react immediately to infants’ distress signals, thus minimizing the self–​other distinction (Greenfield, Keller, Fuligni, & Maynard, 2003). Mothers in interdependently oriented cultures such as Japan also tend to view the baby as an extension of the self and emphasize proximal contact and dependence. Moreover, in many parts of Africa, Asia, and South America, infants tend to sleep with their parents (particularly mothers), with separation of the infant

162 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

from the mother viewed as undesirable (Morelli, Rogoff, Oppenheim, & Goldsmith, 1992, Shweder et al., 1998). Comparatively, mothers in such independently oriented cultures as the United States view the baby as a separate and autonomous being and emphasize separateness (e.g., Caudill, 1971 Vogel, 1976; for review also see Greenfield et  al., 2003; Miyake, Campos, Kagan, & Bradshaw, 1986). Connection-​oriented interdependent forms of parent–​child interactions may be viewed as early socialization factors promoting the early onset of dialecticism in non-​Western societies. A sizeable body of research has examined cultural differences in beliefs about individual abilities and school effort. Specifically, Chinese and Japanese adults and school children alike have been found to endorse beliefs that abilities are malleable and that effort is important, whereas Americans endorse entity views of intelligence and school abilities (Dweck et al., 1995; Holloway, 1988; Hong, 2001; Li, 2003; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992). Entity views of abilities include the belief that intelligence and other school abilities are not changeable (i.e., are fixed) dispositions (also see Kung, Eibach, & Grossmann, 2016). It is possible that entity views of abilities carry over to other forms of reasoning in a way that prevents the early childhood development of dialecticism in general and ideas about change in particular. In contrast, the view that school abilities are changeable via the efforts of the student may be conducive to promoting dialecticism in reasoning and emotion. A recent study of elementary school textbook themes also indicated that children in non-​Western societies such as Japan are explicitly taught to reason in a socially interdependent and dialectical fashion, as indicated by such themes as “accepting one’s portion in life,” “responsibleness,” “modesty,” “moderation,” “sympathy,” “pleasure in making others happy,” “collaboration,” “sharing,” or “friendship and affection.” In contrast, comparable textbooks from the United States teach children to aspire to individual achievement and self-​ entitlement, as indicated by such themes as “freedom,” “independence,” “choosing own goals,” “self-​respect,” “control,” ambition,” or “competition” (Imada, 2012). Finally, some emerging research has started to examine how children develop intuitions concerning change, a key component of “naïve dialecticism.” For instance, Ji (2008) compared how Chinese and Canadian children of different ages read a set of standardized stories and make predictions about various social matters depicted in these stories (e.g., relationships, happiness, or parental income). Across the board, Chinese children predicted more change than did Canadian children. Importantly, however, the magnitude of cultural difference depended on the age of the

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 163

children, as it increased with age. At age 7, Chinese and Canadian children did not differ in their change predictions. The difference started to emerge among 9-​year-​olds and was substantial among 11-​year-​olds. Though preliminary, research by Ji suggests that cultural differences in lay beliefs about change start to emerge in middle childhood (also see Chapter 3 in this volume). Adolescent Development

For a long time, Western researchers have speculated that adolescence is a general period during which children begin the process of separation from their parents (e.g., Freud, 1969), suggesting adolescents become orientated away from the principles of wholeness and internal relations common to dialectical thought. However, cross-​cultural developmental studies have provided a more nuanced view of how cultures vary in the degree to which they emphasize both autonomy and relatedness and how these qualities are valued for and by adolescents (for a review, see Greenfield et al., 2003). Feldman and Rosenthal (1991) examined the age at which adolescents in Australia, Hong Kong, and the United States were expected to be capable of autonomy (e.g., to go out at night, choose their own clothes, stay home alone), finding that Hong Kong Chinese adolescents had later expectations for autonomy than their Western counterparts. Furthermore, familial duty and obligation were emphasized in non-​Western (Asian, African, and Latin American) cultures to a greater extent than in Western cultures (for a review, see Greenfield et al., 2003). Adult Development

Cognitive and emotional development is a life-​long process, and it can take different forms in older age (Baltes, 1997). In this respect, it is worth considering what “age” in developmental models means in the first place. Many theorists have argued that age itself is not an independent variable per se (Schaie, 1977; Wohlwill, 1970). For instance, age differences in cognition may represent biological aging. Thus, it may be that changes in cognitive structures due to biological aging lead to changes in emotional experience and dialecticism. Coping with biological losses, as well as losses in autonomy, may lead to heightened awareness of life being in flux, thus promoting dialecticism. Aging can also be construed as a rough proxy for accumulated sociocultural experiences over one’s lifespan. Given that a person is likely to become increasingly aware of contradictions due to social conflicts they encounter in

164 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

their lifetime, they may also gradually become more oriented toward the principles of change and acceptance of contradictions indicative of dialecticism. Both models are consistent with prior findings of aging-​ related gains in dialectical reasoning among Americans (Grossmann et al., 2010). Note, however, that these models of adult development are largely individual-​centered, ignoring the fundamental role of the social context for shaping the type of experiences one encounters across the lifespan and the acquired rules and norms for dealing with these experiences. Children in Western cultures are socialized and taught to develop an individual-​ centered focus (e.g., development of personal preferences and individuation in relationships), whereas children in non-​Western cultures such as Japan are socialized and taught to develop a sensitivity to the social context and interpersonal harmony. Consequently, Western adults tend to resolve contradictions and interpersonal conflicts they encounter over their lifespans using direct conflict management strategies (e.g., direct persuasion), whereas non-​Western adults (e.g., Chinese and Japanese) prefer less direct forms of social-​conflict management (e.g., avoidance strategies, third-​ party mediation; Leung, 1988; Morris et al., 1998; Ohbuchi & Takahashi, 1994), potentially resulting in fewer explicit cases of conflict resolution over one’s lifespan. If cultures differ in their focus toward either the social context and interpersonal harmony or individual and personal achievement, one may expect corresponding differences in the development of dialecticism. Specifically, people from cultures that encourage a focus on social context (e.g., Japan) may show a greater ability to reason dialectically early on than people from cultures that encourage an individual-​ centered focus (e.g., U.S.). Moreover, as a result of the earlier acquisition of dialecticism, aging-​related gains in dialecticism may be attenuated in non-​Western (vs. Western) cultural groups. What about the additional aging-​related gains in dialecticism due to awareness of one’s losses and limitations? Although biological losses are evident across cultures, the consequences thereof differ dramatically across societies. Non-​Western societies such as Japan socialize individuals toward personal limitations and self-​control earlier on (Rothbaum, Pott, et  al., 2000), thus aging-​related limitations may not be as subjectively salient for adults reaching advanced adulthood. Moreover, older adults in non-​Western societies are not expected to be independent and self-​reliant, often living with younger family members and relying on their children and relatives to compensate for their losses. Thus, an interdependent family structure may prevent elderly persons from seeking opportunities to

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 165

develop their level of dialecticism beyond what they have been socialized into earlier in life. Cross-​Cultural Differences in the Effects of Aging on Dialectical Thought

These ideas were recently put to the test in a multi-​session study involving age-​and social class–​heterogeneous samples of Americans from the Midwest, and Japanese individuals from the Tokyo metropolitan area (age range: 25–​75 years; Grossmann et al., 2012). In these studies, my colleagues and I used a design comparable to that used in our earlier work, instructing Japanese participants to take part in the same series of intergroup (political power, immigration, natural resources; Grossmann et al., 2010; session 1) and interpersonal conflicts (friends, relatives, spouses; Grossmann et al., 2010; session 2)  described earlier. An interviewer asked participants to reflect out loud on the future development of the issues described in the article, using such probes as “What do you think will happen next?”, “Why do you think it will happen as you just said?”, and “What do you think should be done?” Participants’ responses were transcribed and content-​analyzed by independent coders for various aspects of reasoning, including recognition of uncertainty and limits of knowledge, recognition of the world being in flux, consideration of different perspectives on an issue, recognition of the importance of integrating different perspectives, and compromise. Results indicated that younger and middle-​ aged Japanese showed greater ability to reason more dialectically about societal and interpersonal conflicts than their American counterparts (see Figure 5.2). These results held when controlling for cognitive abilities, occupational prestige, and response length. Across cultures, older participants in this study talked more, often digressed, showed lower performance on tests of fluid cognitive abilities, and had a similar level of crystallized cognitive abilities compared to their younger counterparts, which are all consistent with a large body of research on aging-​related changes in general cognitive abilities and distractibility (e.g., Healy, Campbell, & Hasher, 2008; Schaie, 1994). Yet, despite these limitations, older (compared to younger) Americans showed a greater level of dialectical reasoning about social conflicts, whereas there was no age effect among Japanese participants (see Figure 5.2). Cross-​Cultural Differences in the Effects of Aging on Emotional Dialecticism

Does culture also influence aging-​related differences in emotional experiences? Preliminary evidence indicates that it may be the case. For 166 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

53

T-score ± 1 S.E.

52 51 50 49 48 47 46 45 25 yrs

50 yrs

75 yrs

Age Japan

US

Figure 5.2  Wise reasoning scores by age and culture. Full sample standardized T-​scores (i.e., mean is 50 and standard deviation is 10) are shown, with mean estimates at 25, 50, and 75 years of age. Error bars represent standard error (S.E.) of the estimate. Actual means for three age groups (25–​39; 40–​59; 60–​75 years) are similar, except that the wisdom of the 40–​59 group as a whole is lower than implied by the point estimate.

instance, my colleagues and I (Grossmann, Karasawa, et al., 2014) examined the universality of the claim that older adults place a greater priority on goals of maintaining positive experiences and distancing from negative experiences. We hypothesized that these aging-​related differences in emotional experiences are more pronounced in the United States, given that American culture encourages linear approaches to well-​being, whereas East Asian cultures encourage more dialectic approaches to well-​being. We compared reports of positive and negative emotional experiences from stratified random samples of Americans (a culture characterized by focus on positive experiences and distancing from negative experiences; samples collected in the Midwest) and Japanese (a culture characterized by its endorsement of dialectical experiences; samples collected in the Tokyo metropolitan area). In support of our hypothesis, older Americans reported significantly less negative emotions in unpleasant situations, relative to their younger counterparts. Furthermore, both trait-​level negativity (i.e., rumination) and interpersonal negativity (i.e., recall of unpleasant relationships and intensity of an unpleasant interpersonal experience) were lower among older than among younger Americans. However, such aging-​ related effects were absent in the Japanese respondents. Further, although older and younger Japanese participants reported the same amount of negative emotions in unpleasant situations, older Japanese also reported more positive emotions in the same unpleasant situations. Yet, we did not observe corresponding aging-​related differences among the Americans.

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 167

Taken together, these findings suggest culture-​specific paths to satisfying one’s well-​being across adulthood, with the “linear” way (i.e., maximizing the positive and distancing from the negative) being more prevalent among older Americans, and the “dialectical way” (i.e., maintaining the positive across adulthood and emphasizing the positive in the negative) being more prevalent among older Japanese. Note that not all social experiences are equally likely to promote dialecticism. Some experiences involve greater challenges to one’s existing knowledge structures and promote dialecticism, whereas others do not. These challenging life experiences are likely to happen across many periods of one’s lifespan, and the relative salience of these transitional periods may vary substantially from one culture to another. Given the preliminary evidence for an age-​related difference in dialecticism among Americans but not among Japanese, it is possible that the transition into older age provides a more significant period for restructuring one’s self-​and world-​related knowledge for Americans than for Japanese. One of the reasons for this observation may have something to do with the salience of older adulthood across the two countries. According to the official census data, Japan’s population is much older in general, with over 23% being 65 years or older in 2011 (Statistics Japan, 2011). Although the proportion of older adults is currently increasing in North America, current census forecasts suggest that the United States may need another 20 years to reach this quota of adults age 65 years and older (Holder & Clark, 2008). A larger proportion of older individuals in Japan means greater familiarity with challenges associated with upcoming old age earlier on for aging Japanese than for aging North Americans. This could make the transition into older adulthood less abrupt for Japanese and enable middle-​aged Japanese transitioning into older adulthood to approach such a transition with more knowledge about it.

Outlook and Future Directions Some key unanswered questions about dialecticism across the lifespan concern the psychological and sociocultural mechanisms underlying the development of dialecticism. First, it is not yet clear if the cultural differences in the unfolding of dialecticism across the lifespan reflect differences in the onset of dialecticism, the habitual preferences for dialectical thought and emotion, or a combination of both. Future work should test these questions by designing studies that address the growth and peak in dialecticism (addressing the onset questions) and studies involving naturalistic observations of habitual dialecticism in daily life.

168 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Second, it is not clear what psychological processes enable the development of dialecticism. In the concluding section, I will review emerging experimental work on psychological processes that enable the development of dialecticism, and I will outline a few future directions for research at the intersection of cultural and developmental psychology.

Psychological Self-​Distance and Generativity in Older Age: Evidence from Experiments Self-​Distancing

Early human development theory suggested that successful aging and maturity are linked to generativity (Erikson, 1980, 1984), a central element of which deals with a focus on others. Given that dialecticism is often viewed as a central element of successful aging and maturity (e.g., Baltes, 1993; Grossmann et al., 2010, 2013; Kramer, 2000; Labouvie-​Vief, 1982), it is possible that psychological mechanisms dealing with a focus away from the self and toward others may promote this tendency. Recent research conducted by my colleagues and me addressed this question in three ways. Ethan Kross and I examined how the focus away from the self is linked to dialecticism (Grossmann & Kross, 2014; Kross & Grossmann, 2012), experimentally cueing participants to adopt a self-​distanced perspective when reasoning about future life dilemmas. We conducted a series of experiments in which we randomly assigned participants to adopt an immersed (“watching the situation through your own eyes”) versus a distanced (“watching the situation as a fly on the wall”) perspective as they reasoned about how a series of personally meaningful future life events could transpire. For instance, we found that participants who adopted a visually distanced perspective displayed a more dialectical view of change and a recognition of uncertainty when reflecting on personal employment outcomes of the economic recession (Kross & Grossmann, 2012; Study 1). Similarly, when asking participants to predict the economic and political developments in the United States during a time of highly polarized opinions on politics (a week before the 2016 presidential election), we found that psychological distance promoted greater dialecticism (Kross & Grossmann, 2012; Study 2). Similar effects were observed when instructing participants to take a temporally distant perspective (1 year from now vs. right now) on a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a friend (Huynh, Yang, & Grossmann, 2016): participants spontaneously mentioned more self-​growth and change

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 169

when reflecting on their recent interpersonal conflict from a temporally distant as opposed to a temporally close perspective. Generativity—​Orientation toward Others

My colleagues and I further examined how focus toward others influences dialectical reasoning. We reasoned that adopting the role of a mentor represents one form of orientation toward others. From a social cognitive perspective, assuming the role of a mentor may result in social distance from the issue, which is a form of psychological distance (Trope & Liberman, 2003, 2010). Based on the findings that some forms of psychological distance may promote dialecticism (Kross & Grossmann, 2012), we hypothesized that assuming the role of a mentor may similarly facilitate greater dialecticism in reasoning. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that individuals describing a contentious political issue to a child resulted in a more balanced view of the issue (including dialectical synthesis of different perspectives on the issue) than when merely reflecting on the issue or describing the same issue to a friend (Huynh, Santos, Tse, & Grossmann, 2017). Beyond explicit advice-​ giving, diary evidence indicates that situations in which one is surrounded by people one cares about (e.g., one’s co-​workers or family members), one is more likely to reason dialectically, as compared to situations that do not involve people one cares about (Grossmann, Gerlach & Denissen, 2016). Finally, in another set of recent studies, Ethan Kross and I wondered if a mere change in target focus would promote greater dialecticism in reasoning about meaningful social issues. We contrasted reasoning about personal versus a close other’s relationship dilemma (e.g., partner’s infidelity or trust betrayal by a close friend) and found that participants displayed greater dialecticism when reasoning about their friend’s than about their own situation (Grossmann & Kross, 2014). These effects were largely comparable for younger and older adults, suggesting that greater wisdom among older than younger adults (Grossmann et al., 2010) is confined to reasoning about others, rather than reasoning about the self. Taken together, this emerging body of work provides initial experimental support for one of the key mechanisms of dialecticism and its unfolding in daily life: a focus away from the self toward other people. In light of the developmental focus of this chapter, one caveat is in order. Much of this work has yet to examine the effectiveness of these strategies beyond college students and younger adults, which is one of the outstanding issues for future investigations.

170 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Testing Cultural Differences (and Similarities) in Dialecticism across the Lifespan Even though a large body of cross-​cultural work suggests that the development of dialecticism would unfold differently across cultures, this research is far from being systematic. For instance, little is known about the cross-​cultural variations in folk beliefs about how the development of dialecticism should unfold over the lifespan. Such folk beliefs are in turn likely influenced by general folk beliefs about change. So far, existing work on folks beliefs (or implicit theories) mainly addresses beliefs about the malleability of the self (e.g., Dweck et al., 1995). Less is known about folk beliefs concerning the malleability of various aspects of the social world (Kung et al., 2016; although see Ji, 2008, and Chapter 3, this volume). Ideally, one would want to cast the net wide, with a multi-​method approach that uses experiments (e.g., random assignment of participants to situations in which one has to react to hypothetical scenarios concerning developmental change in the self), surveys (e.g., design of scale-​based measurements of beliefs about developmental stability vs. change), and the study of cultural products (e.g., comparison of depictions of developmental change and stability in East Asian vs. Western folklore). Another important direction for future research concerns the systematic cross-​cultural investigation of developmental change (as compared to age differences) in dialecticism-​related cognitive and emotional processes. To decouple cohort and aging effects (Grossmann & Varnum, 2015; Santos, Varnum, & Grossmann, 2017; Varnum, & Grossmann, 2017), a successful project requires a combination of in situ experiments and longitudinal studies. In-​situ experiments could include studies with younger and older adults from respective cultures, in which participants would be randomly assigned to dialecticism-​boosting and control conditions (e.g., self-​ distancing, advice-​giving), whereas longitudinal observations could trace the development of dialecticism over time and systematically study the conditions preceding changes in dialecticism.

Concluding Comments In light of the emerging evidence on cross-​cultural differences in dialecticism across the lifespan, it seems unwise to ignore either the cross-​cultural or the human developmental perspectives on this topic. Much more has to be done in developing our understanding of both the cultural variations in dialecticism and how they unfold over the lifespan. An integrative picture

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 171

of cultural and ontogenetic factors and a consideration of their dialectical interdependence can prove fruitful for a more complete, holistic model of human psychology (Riegel, 1976; Sameroff, 2010).

Acknowledgments I thank Becky Zhao, Julia Espinosa Grossmann, and Jacklyn Koyama for their valuable comments. The present manuscript was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight grant # 435-​2014-​0685) and the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science (Early Researcher Award).

Notes 1. Independent of cross-​cultural researchers, Gisela Labouvie-​Vief also proposed a model of cognitive-​affective development, with emotional dialecticism as an indicator of more advanced human development (Labouvie-​Vief, DeVoe, & Bulka, 1989). Labouvie-​ Vief’s model of cognitive-​affective development views emotional dialecticism as indicative of affective complexity and emotion regulation (Labouvie-​Vief, 2003). 2. As others and myself have argued elsewhere, dialecticism represents one of the wisdom-​related reasoning strategies, because it is instrumental for navigating challenging life dilemmas (e.g., Baltes & Smith, 2008; Grossmann & Kross, 2014; Grossmann, Na, Varnum, Parkm Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2010; Grossmann, Na, Varnum, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2013; Kross & Grossmann, 2012; Lemieux, 2012). 3. Some scholars have also examined the association between age and participants’ responses on the Dialectical Self Scale (DSS). Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, and Hou (2004; Study 3) found no correlation between age and DSS scores among European Americans, Asian Americans, and Chinese college students in Beijing. Chen and colleagues (Chen, Wang, Huang, & Spencer-​Rodgers, 2012) also failed to find a significant relationship between age and participants’ scores on the contradiction and change subscales of the DSS. The participants were employees in China, around 35 years of age. This lack of correlation is not that surprising, however, given the restriction of age range. 4.  Another exception to this trend was observed in a cross-​sectional experience-​ sampling study by Riediger and colleagues (Riediger, Schmiedek, Wagner, & Lindenberger, 2009). They conceptualized emotional dialecticism/​mixed affect by counting the number of episodes in which both positive and negative affect were simultaneously above the average level of emotional intensity for an individual across all episodes. In this work, adolescents showed the greatest level of mixed affect, and the level of mixed affect linearly declined across the lifespan into older age. The researchers’ focus on high-​ intensity emotional experiences may explain the discrepancy in findings. Other work indicates that the recall of mixed emotional experiences is typically less intense than the recall of single-​valenced emotions (Aaker, Drolet, & Griffin, 2008). Older adults tend to

172 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

prefer lower-​arousal emotional experiences than younger adults (Scheibe, English, Tsai, & Carstensen, 2013), thus complicating the interpretation of Riediger et al.’s finding.

References Aaker, J., Drolet, A., & Griffin, D. (2008). Recalling mixed emotions. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(2), 268–​278. Anacker, S. (2005). Seven works of Vasubandhu:  The Buddhist psychological doctor (Rev. ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Bagozzi, R. P., Wong, N., & Yi, Y. (1999). The role of culture and gender in the relationship between positive and negative affect. Cognition and Emotion, 13(6), 641–​672. Baltes, P. B. (1993). The aging mind: Potential and limits. Gerontologist, 33(5), 580–​594. Baltes, P. B. (1997). On the incomplete architecture of human ontogeny:  Selection, optimization, and compensation as foundation of developmental theory. American Psychologist, 52(4), 366–​380. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066x.52.4.366 Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (1990). Psychological perspectives on successful aging: The model of selective optimization with compensation. In P. B. Baltes & M. M. Baltes (Eds.), Successful aging: Perspectives from the behavioral sciences (pp. 397). New York: Cambridge University Press. Baltes, P. B., & Smith, J. (2008). The fascination of wisdom: Its nature, ontogeny, and function. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(1), 56–​64. Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (1993). The search for a psychology of wisdom. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2(3), 75–​80. Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (2000). Wisdom: A metaheuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue toward excellence. American Psychologist, 55(1), 122–​136. Baltes, P. B., Staudinger, U. M., Maercker, A., & Smith, J. (1995). People nominated as wise: A comparative study of wisdom-​related knowledge. Psychology and Aging, 10(2), 155. Basseches, M. (1980). Dialectical schemata: A framework for the empirical study of the development of dialectical thinking. Human Development, 23(6), 400–​421. Basseches, M. (1984). Dialectical thinking and adult development. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Blanchard-​ Fields, F. (1986). Reasoning on social dilemmas varying in emotional saliency: An adult developmental perspective. Psychology and Aging, 1(4), 325–​333. Brazelton, T. B., Robey, J. S., & Collier, G. (1969). Infant development in the Sincanteco Indians of Southern Mexico. Pediatrics, 44(2), 274–​283. Carstensen, L. L., Isaacowitz, D. M., & Charles, S. T. (1999). Taking time seriously. American Psychologist, 54(3), 165–​181. Carstensen, L. L., Pasupathi, M., Mayr, U., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2000). Emotional experience in everyday life across the adult life span. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(4), 644–​655. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.79.4.644 Carstensen, L. L., Turan, B., Scheibe, S., Ram, N., Ersner-​Hershfield, H., Samanez-​Larkin, G. R., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2011). Emotional experience improves with age: evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling. Psychology and Aging, 26(1), 21–​33. Caudill, W. (1971). Tiny dramas:  Vocal communication between mother and infant in Japanese and American families. In W. Lebra (Ed.), Mental health research in Asia and the Pacific (Vol. II, pp. 25–​48). Honolulu: East-​West Center Press.

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 173

Chandler, M. (1987). The Othello effect. Human Development, 30(3), 137–​159. Chen, J., Wang, L., Huang, M., & Spencer-​Rodgers, J. (2012). Naive dialecticism and Chinese employees’ commitment to change. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 27(1), 48–​70. Doi, T. (1973). The anatomy of dependence. Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd. Dundas, P. (2004). Beyond Anekāntavāda:  A Jain approach to religious tolerance. In T. Sethia (Ed.), Ahimsā, Anekānta, and Jaininsm (pp. 123–​136). Delhi:  Motilal Banarsidass. Dweck, C. S., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (1995). Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions: A world from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry, 6(4), 267–​285. Erikson, E. H. (1980). Identity and the life cycle. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Erikson, E. H. (1984). Reflections on the last stage—​and the first. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 39, 155–​165. Ersner-​ Hershfield, H., Mikels, J. A., Sullivan, S. J., & Carstensen, L. L. (2008). Poignancy: Mixed emotional experience in the face of meaningful endings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(1), 158. Feldman, S. S., & Rosenthal, D. A. (1991). Age expectations of behavioural autonomy in Hon Kon, Australian, and American youth: The influence of family variables and adolescents’ values. International Journal of Psychology, 26(1), 1–​23. Fichte, J. G. (1794/​1997). Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre. Hamburg: Meiner. Fowler, J. W., & Dell, M. L. (2006). Stages of faith from infancy through adolescence:  Reflections on three decades of faith development theory. In E. C. Roehlkepartain (Ed.), The handbook of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence (pp. 34–​45). Sage Publications. Freud, A. (1969). Adolescence as a developmental disturbance. In G. Caplan & S. Ledovici (Eds.), Adolescence:  Psychosocial perspectives (pp. 5–​10). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gier, N. (1983). Dialectic: East and West. Indian Philosophical Quarterly: Journal of the Department of Philosophy University of Poona, 10, 207–​218. Greenfield, P. M., Keller, H., Fuligni, A., & Maynard, A. (2003). Cultural pathways through universal development. Annual Review of Psychology, 54(1), 461–​490. Grossmann, I. (2017). Wisdom in context. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(2), 233–​257. doi:10.1177/​1745691616672066 Grossmann, I., & Ellsworth, P.C. (2017). What are mixed emotions and what conditions foster them? Life-​span experiences, culture and social awareness. Current Opinion in Behavioral Science, 15, 1–​5. doi:10.1016/​j.cobeha.2017.05.001 Grossmann, I., Ellsworth, P. C., & Huynh, A. C. (2016). Emotional complexity: Clarifying definitions and cultural correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(6), 895–​916. doi:10.1037/​pspp0000084 Grossmann, I., Gerlach, T. M., & Denissen, J. J. A. (2016). Wise reasoning in the face of everyday life challenges. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(7), 611–​ 622. doi:10.1177/​1948550616652206 Grossmann, I., Karasawa, M., Izumi, S., Na, J., Varnum, M. E.  W., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2012). Aging and wisdom: Culture matters. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1059–​1066. doi:10.1177/​0956797612446025 Grossmann, I., Karasawa, M., Kan, C., & Kitayama, S. (2014). A cultural perspective on emotional experiences across the lifespan. Emotion, 14(4), 679.

174 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Grossmann, I., & Kross, E. (2010). The impact of culture on adaptive versus maladaptive self-​reflection. Psychological Science, 21(8), 1150–​ 1157. doi:10.1177/​ 0956797610376655 Grossmann, I., & Kross, E. (2014). Exploring “Solomon’s paradox”:  Self-​distancing eliminates the self-​ other asymmetry in wise reasoning about close relations in younger and older adults. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1571–​1580. Grossmann, I., & Na, J. (2014). Research in culture and psychology: past lessons and future challenges. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 5(1), 1–​14. Grossmann, I., Na, J., Varnum, M. E.  W., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2013). A route to well-​being:  Intelligence versus wise reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142(3). doi:10.1037/​a0029560 Grossmann, I., Na, J., Varnum, M. E., Park, D. C., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2010). Reasoning about social conflicts improves into old age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(16), 7246–​7250. doi:10.1073/​pnas.1001715107 Grossmann, I. & Varnum, M.E.W. (2011). Culture, social class, and cognition. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(1), 81–​89. doi:10.1177/​1948550610377119 Grossmann, I., & Varnum, M. E. W. (2015). Social structure, infectious diseases, disasters, secularism, and cultural change in America. Psychological Science, 26(3), 311–​ 324. doi:10.1177/​0956797614563765 Grühn, D., Lumley, M. A., Diehl, M., & Labouvie-​Vief, G. (2013). Time-​based indicators of emotional complexity: Interrelations and correlates. Emotion, 13(2), 226. Hammer, R., & McLaren, P. (1991). Rethinking the dialectic:  A social semiotic perspective for educators. Educational Theory, 41(1), 23–​ 46. doi:10.1111/​ j.1741-​5446.1991.00023.x Healy, M. K., Campbell, K. L., & Hasher, L. (2008). Cognitive aging and increased distractibility: Costs and potential benefits. Progress in Brain Research, 169, 353–​363. Hegel, G. W.  F. (1929). Science of logic (W. H. Johnston & L.G. Struthers, trans.). London: G. Allen & Unwin. (Original work published 1812–​1816.) Hegel, G. W.  F. (1967). The phenomenology of mind (J. B. Baillie, trans.). New York: Harper-​Torch Books. (Original work published 1807.) Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-​3), 61–​83. Hershfield, H. E., Scheibe, S., Sims, T. L., & Carstensen, L. L. (2013). When feeling bad can be good: Mixed emotions benefit physical health across adulthood. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(1), 54–​61. Hofstede, G. (1991). Empirical models of cultural differences. In N. Bleichrodt & P. J. D. Drenth (Eds.), Contemporary issues in cross-​cultural psychology (pp. 4–​20). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger. Holder, K. A., & Clark, S. L. (2008). Working beyond retirement age. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://​www.census.gov/​people/​laborforce/​publications/​ Working-​Beyond-​Retirement-​Age.pdf. Holloway, S. (1988). Concepts of ability and effort in Japan and the United States. Review of Educational Research, 58(3), 327–​345. Hong, J., & Lee, A. Y. (2010). Feeling mixed but not torn:  The moderating role of construal level in mixed emotions appeals. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(3), 456–​472.

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 175

Hong, Y. (2001). Student motivation. In F. Salili, C. Y. Chiu, & Y. Y. Hong (Eds.), Student motivation (pp. 105–​120). Boston: Springer. doi:10.1007/​978-​1-​4615-​1273-​8 Huynh, A. C., Santos, H. C., Tse, C., & Grossmann, I. (2017). The Socrates Effect: How a teacher’s mind impacts political reasoning. Manuscript in preparation. Huynh, A. C., Yang, D. Y., & Grossmann, I. (2016). The value of prospective reasoning for close relationships. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(8), 893–​902. doi:10.1177/​1948550616660591 Imada, T. (2012). Cultural narratives of individualism and collectivism: A content analysis of textbook stories in the United States and japan. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43(4), 576–​591. doi:10.1177/​0022022110383312 Ji, L. J. (2008). The leopard cannot change his spots, or can he? Culture and the development of lay theories of change. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(5), 613–​622. Kaufmann, W. (1965). Hegel:  Reinterpretation, texts. commentary. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Keller, H., & Greenfield, P. M. (2000). History and future of development in cross-​ cultural psychology. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 31(1), 52–​62. Kestenbaum, R., & Gelman, S. A. (1995). Preschool children’s identification and understanding of mixed emotions. Cognitive Development, 10(3), 443–​458. King, P. M., Kitchener, K. S., Davison, M. L., Parker, C. A., & Wood, P. K. (1983). The justification of beliefs in young adults: A longitudinal study. Human Development, 26(2), 106–​116. Kitayama, S., Ishii, K., Imada, T., Takemura, K., & Ramaswamy, J. (2006). Volunary settlement and the spirit of independence: Evidence from Japan’s “northern frontier.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(3), 809–​903. Kitayama, S., Mesquita, B., & Karasawa, M. (2006). Cultural affordances and emotional experiences: Socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 890–​903. Kramer, D. A. (1983). Post-​formal operations? A  need for further conceptualization. Human Development, 26(2), 91–​105. Kramer, D. A. (1989). Development of an awareness of contradiction across the lifespan and the question of postformal operations. Adult Development, 1, 133–​159. Kramer, D. A. (2000). Wisdom as a classical source of human strength: Conceptualization and empirical inquiry. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19(1), 83–​101. Kramer, D. A., & Kahlbaugh, P. E. (1994). Memory for a dialectical and a nondialectical prose passage in young and older adults. Journal of Adult Development, 1(1), 13–​26. Kramer, D. A., Kahlbaugh, P. E., & Goldston, R. B. (1992). A measure of paradigm beliefs about the social world. Journal of Gerontology, 47(3), 180–​189. Kramer, D. A., & Melchior, J. (1990). Gender, role conflict, and the development of relativistic and dialectical thinking. Sex Roles, 23(9-​10), 553–​575. Kramer, D. A., & Woodruff, D. S. (1986). Relativistic and dialectical thought in three adult age-​groups. Human Development, 29(5), 280–​290. Kross, E., & Grossmann, I. (2012). Boosting wisdom: Distance from the self enhances wise reasoning, attitudes, and behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 141(1), 43–​48. doi:10.1037/​a0024158 Kung, F., Eibach, R., & Grossmann, I. (2016, June 6). Culture, fixed-​world beliefs, relationships and perceptions of identity change. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(7), 631–​639. doi:10.1177/​1948550616652208

176 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Labouvie-​Vief, G. (1982). Dynamic development and mature autonomy: A theoretical prologue. Human Development, 25(3), 161–​191. Labouvie-​Vief, G. (2003). Dynamic Integration:  Affect, Cognition, and the Self in Adulthood. Current directions in psychological science, 12(6), 201–​206. Labouvie-​Vief, G., & Blanchard-​Fields, F. (1982). Cognitive ageing and psychological growth. Ageing & Society, 2(02), 183–​209. doi:10.1017/​S0144686X00009429 Labouvie-​Vief, G., DeVoe, M., & Bulka, D. (1989). Speaking about feelings: Conceptions of emotion across the life span. Psychology and Aging, 4(4), 425–​437. Labouvie-​Vief, G., & Diehl, M. (2000). Cognitive complexity and cognitive-​affective integration:  Related or separate domains of adult development. Psychology and Aging, 15(3), 490–​504. Labouvie-​Vief, G., Hakim-​Larson, J., DeVoe, M., & Schoeberlein, S. (1989). Emotions and self-​regulation: A life span view. Human Development, 32(5), 279–​299. Lao Tzu & Lin, D. (2006). Tao Te Ching: Annotated & explained. Nashville, TN: Skylight Paths Publishing. Lao Tzu & Mitchell, S. (2006). Tao Te Ching: A new English version. New York: Harper Perennial Classics. Larsen, J. T., To, Y. M., & Fireman, G. (2007). Children’s understanding and experience of mixed emotions. Psychological Science, 18(2), 186–​191. Lemieux, A. (2012). Post-​formal thought in gerontagogy or beyond Piaget. Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science, 2(3), 399–​406. Lenin, V. I. (1980). On the question of dialectics: A collection. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Leung, K. (1988). Some determinants of conflict avoidance. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 19(1), 125–​136. Li, J. (2003). US and Chinese cultural beliefs about learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(2), 258–​267. doi:10.1037/​0022-​0663.95.2.258 Lindquist, K. A., & Barrett, L. F. (2008). Emotional complexity. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-​Jones, & L. Feldman Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 513–​530). New York: Guilford Press. MacDonald, K. B. (1992). Warmth as a developmental construct: An evolutionary analysis. Child Development, 63(4), 753–​773. Magai, C., Consedine, N. S., Krivoshekova, Y. S., Kudadjie-​Gyamfi, E., & McPherson, R. (2006). Emotion experience and expression across the adult life span: Insights from a multimodal assessment study. Psychology and Aging, 21(2), 303–​317. Malatesta, C. Z., & Kalnok, M. (1984). Emotional experience in younger and older adults. Journal of Gerontology, 39(3), 301–​308. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–​253. McBride, L. R. (1998). A comparison of postformal operations in diverse adult populations:  Contrasting African Americans and standard-​average-​European Americans. PhD doctoral dissertation, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX. Miyake, K., Campos, J., Kagan, J., & Bradshaw, D. (1986). Issues in socioemotional development in Japan. In H. Azuma, I. Hakuta, & H. Stevenson (Eds.), Kodomo: Child development and education in Japan (pp. 239–​261). San Francisco: Ereeman. Miyamoto, Y., Uchida, Y., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2010). Culture and mixed emotions: Co-​ occurrence of positive and negative emotions in Japan and the United States. Emotion, 10(3), 404–​415.

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 177

Morelli, G. A., Rogoff, B., Oppenheim, D., & Goldsmith, D. (1992). Cultural variation in infants’ sleeping arrangements:  questions of independence. Developmental Psychology, 28(4), 604–​613. Morris, M. W., Williams, K. Y., Leung, K., Larrick, R., Mendoza, M. T., Bhatnagar, D., . . . Hu, J.-​C. (1998). Conflict management style: Accounting for cross-​cultural differences. Journal of International Business Studies, 29(4), 729–​747. Mueller, G. E. (1958). The Hegel legend of “thesis-​antithesis-​synthesis”. Journal of the History of Ideas, 19(3), 411–​414. Na, J., Grossmann, I., Varnum, M.E.W., Gonzalez, R., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R.E. (2010). When cultural differences are not reducible to individual differences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(14), 6192–​6197. doi:10.1073/​pnas.1001911107 Niiya, Y., Ellsworth, P. C., & Yamaguchi, S. (2006). Amae in Japan and the United States:  An exploration of a “culturally unique” emotion. Emotion, 6(2), 279–​295. doi:10.1037/​1528-​3542.6.2.279. Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently  . . .  and why. New York: Free Press. Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–​310. Ohbuchi, K.-​ I., & Takahashi, Y. (1994). Cultural styles of conflict management in Japanese and Americans:  Passivity, covertness, and effectiveness of strategies. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24(15), 1345–​1366. Ong, A. D., & Bergeman, C. S. (2004). The complexity of emotions in later life. Journals of Gerontology Series B:  Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 59(3), P117–​P122. Park, D. C., & Reuter-​Lorenz, P. (2009). The adaptive brain: Aging and neurocognitive scaffolding. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 173. Pascual-​Leone, J. (1983). Growing into human maturity: Toward a metasubjective theory of adulthood stages. Life-​Span Development and Behavior, 5, 117–​156. Pasupathi, M., Staudinger, U. M., & Baltes, P. B. (2001). Seeds of wisdom: Adolescents’ knowledge and judgment about difficult life problems. Developmental Psychology, 37(3), 351–​361. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54(9), 741–​754. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Dialectical responses to questions about dialectical thinking. American Psychologist, 55(9), 1067–​1068. Peng, K., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Nian, Z. (2006). Naïve dialecticism and the Tao of Chinese thought. In Indigenous and Cultural Psychology (pp. 247–​ 262). New York: Springer. Perry, J. (1970). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Piaget, J. (1972). The principles of genetic epistemology. New York: Basic Books. Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1973). Memory and intelligence. London:  Routledge and Kegan Paul. Pons, F., Harris, P. L., & de Rosnay, M. (2004). Emotion comprehension between 3 and 11 years: Developmental periods and hierarchical organization. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1(2), 127–​152.

178 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Ready, R. E., Robinson, M. D., & Weinberger, M. (2006). Age differences in the organization of emotion knowledge: Effects involving valence and time frame. Psychology and Aging, 21(4), 726. Riediger, M., Schmiedek, F., Wagner, G. G., & Lindenberger, U. (2009). Seeking pleasure and seeking pain:  Differences in prohedonic and contra-​hedonic motivation from adolescence to old age. Psychological Science, 20(12), 1529–​1535. doi:10.1111/​ j.1467-​9280.2009.02473.x Riegel, K. F. (1973). Dialectic operations:  The final period of cognitive development. Human Development, 16(5), 346–​370. Riegel, K. F. (1976). The dialectics of human development. American Psychologist, 31(10), 689–​700. Roberts, J. E., & Gotlib, I. H. (1997). Temporal variability in global self-​esteem and specific self-​evaluation as prospective predictors of emotional distress: Specificity in predictors and outcome. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106(4), 521–​529. Rothbaum, F., Pott, M., Azuma, H., Miyake, K., & Weisz, J. (2000). The development of close relationships in Japan and the United States: Paths of symbiotic harmony and generative tension. Child Development, 71(5), 1121–​1142. Sameroff, A. (2010). A unified theory of development: A dialectic integration of nature and nurture. Child Development, 81(1), 6–​22. Santos, H. C., Varnum, M. E. W., Grossmann, I. (2017). Global increases in individualism. Psychological Science. doi:10.1177/​0956797617700622 Saraswathi, T. S., & Pai, S. (1997). Socialization in the Indian context. In H. S. R. Kao & D. Sinha (Eds.), Cross-​Cultural Research and Methodology Series, Vol. 19. Asian Perspectives on Psychology (pp. 74–​92). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Schaie, K. W. (1977). Quasi-​experimental research designs in the psychology of aging. In J. E. Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (Vol. 1, pp. 39–​69). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Schaie, K. W. (1994). The course of adult intellectual development. American Psychologist, 49(4), 304–​313. Scheibe, S., English, T., Tsai, J. L., & Carstensen, L. L. (2013). Striving to feel good: Ideal affect, actual affect, and their correspondence across adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 28(1), 160–​171. Shweder, R. A., Goodnow, J., Hatano, G., LeVine, R. A., Markus, H. & Miller, P. (1998). The cultural psychology of development:  One mind, many mentalities. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology, volume 1: Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 865–​937). New York: Wiley. Sinnott, J. D. (1984). Postformal reasoning: The relativistic stage. In Beyond formal operations (pp. 298–​325). New York: Praeger Publishers. Smith, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1990). Wisdom-​related knowledge:  Age/​cohort differences in response to life-​planning problems. Developmental Psychology, 26(3), 494–​505. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(11), 1416–​1432. Statistics Japan (2011). Population census. Ministry of Internal Affaird and Communications. Retrieved from http://​www.stat.go.jp/​data/​jinsui/​. Stevenson, H. W., & Stigler, J. W. (1992). The learning gap: Why our schools are failing and what an we learn from Japanese and Chinese education. New York: Summit Books.

Dialecticism across the Lifespan 

| 179

Thompson, M. M., Zanna, M. P., & Griffin, D. W. (1995). Let’s not be indifferent about (attitudinal) ambivalence. In R. E. Petty & J. A. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 361–​386). New York: Psychology Press. Tolman, C. W. (1983). Further comments on the meaning of dialectic. Human Development, 26(6), 320–​324. Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal. Psychological Review, 110(3), 403–​421. Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-​level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117(2), 440–​463. Varnum, M. E., Grossmann, I. (2017). Cultural change: The How and Why. Perspectives on Psychological Science. Varnum, M. E., Grossmann, I., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2010). The origin of cultural differences in cognition: The social orientation hypothesis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 9–​13. doi:10.1177/​0963721409359301 Vogel, E. (1976). Japan’s new middle class: The salaryman and his family in a Tokyo suburb. Berkeley: University of California Press. White, J. D. (1996). Karl Marx and the intellectual origins of dialectical materialism. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Whiting, B. B., & Whiting, J. (1977). Children of six cultures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams, P., & Aaker, J. L. (2002). Can mixed emotions peacefully coexist? Journal of Consumer Research, 28(4), 636–​649. Wohlwill, J. F. (1970). The age variable in psychological research. Psychological Review, 77(1), 49–​64. Yan, B., & Arlin, P. K. (1995). Nonabsolute/​relativistic thinking: A common factor underlying models of postformal reasoning? Journal of Adult Development, 2(4), 223–​240. Yovsi, R. D., & Keller, H. (2000). Breastfeeding: An adaptive process. Presented at Conf. Int. Union Anthropol. Ethnolog. Sci. (IUCAES). Presented in Agrigento, Italy. Zaehner, R. C. (1973). The Bhagavad-​Gita. New York: Oxford University Press.

180 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition



­C HAPTER 6

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking Bobby K. Cheon, Rongxiang Tang, Joan Y. Chiao, and Yi-​Yuan Tang

Cultures have evolved and integrated over the course of human history, representing unique characterizations and classifications of shared human experiences and ideas. These experiential inputs often directly or indirectly influence individual behavior and thinking. Variations between cultures are easily detected in daily life through social customs and practices. Yet, these cultural elements reflect the possibility of a more fundamental difference in the patterns of thought and sense-​making that reside among cultures, which could potentially affect human cognition and action in a subtle, yet profound way. Holistic (relative to analytic) styles of perception and cognition represent one form of sense-​making that is critically modulated by the cultural environment. Holistic patterns of thought involve attending to both a focal object and the context that it is situated in, and understanding behavior and causality on the basis of relationships between individual elements (e.g., people, objects, and the environment). On the other hand, analytic patterns of thinking involve a separation or disconnection between a focal object and its context. Instead, behavior and causality are understood through the application of pre-​existing rules and categories, and inferences from attributes (e.g., traits, personality dispositions) of people and objects, rather than their relationship with contextual factors (Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001; Varnum, Grossmann, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2010). Extensive research in cultural psychology has demonstrated that members of East Asian cultures, such as those of China, Japan and Korea,

exhibit stronger patterns of perception and cognition representing holism, while members of Western cultures, such as United States, Canada, and Western Europe, rely predominantly on more analytic forms of processing (Choi, Koo, & Choi, 2007; Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett et al., 2001). One source for these differences in reliance on holistic versus analytic modes of thought are cultural variations in how social relations are conceptualized and defined. Ecological constraints may indirectly shape the promotion and adoption of holistic styles of thought within a culture by influencing how much people within specific ecological niches must depend or rely on each other. For instance, communities that rely on farming (particularly rice farming) for sustenance exhibit more holistic patterns of thought than communities that rely on herding (or wheat farming), methods for food acquisition that require lower levels of social coordination and cooperation (Nisbett, 2003; Talhelm et  al., 2014; Uskul, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2008). Within environments that promote and value social interdependence and harmony with others, people may be more likely to face recurring demands to favor relationships over individuals, understand behavior as situated within social contexts, and achieve harmony through reconciling inconsistencies between an individual and the social context. Ultimately, these recurring cultural tasks (see Kitayama, Park, Sevincer, Karasawa, & Uskul, 2009) associated with interdependent social environments may facilitate and reinforce holistic thinking styles. Conversely, social environments that promote independence may be more conducive and congruent with analytic thinking styles, which heighten the salience of the independence of individuals and personality dispositions as primary motivators of behavior. In recent years, a growing body of literature suggests that cultural variations are embedded in different levels of cognitive functioning and processing, and further evidence has revealed the neural correlates of these manifest differences, the concept of a “cultural brain” that participates in higher-​level cognition (Cheon et  al., 2013; Chiao, Cheon, Pornpattananangkul, Mrazek, & Blizinsky, 2013; Han & Northoff, 2008; Park & Gutchess, 2006; Tang & Liu, 2009). Cultural variations in the component processes of holism may manifest as different patterns of neural responses during perception and cognition. Moreover, given the influence of social interdependence and independence on holistic and analytic thought, respectively, cultural variations in the endorsement of these patterns of social relations may also critically contribute to cultural diversity in the engagement of neural substrates of holism. In the following sections, we describe emerging insights and contributions from cultural

182 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

neuroscience to the neural substrates of holistic thinking. Based on our objective of examining how cultural variations in holism may contribute to cultural diversity in cognition, our review focuses on cultural neuroscience studies comparing the neural correlates of perception, judgments, decision-​making, and arithmetic processing across members of cultures that adopt relatively more holistic or analytic patterns of thought.

Reconciling Incongruity and Integrative Processing One important manifestation of holism is the manner in which inconsistent and contradictory information is navigated. Given that holistic thought involves the recognition of potential relationships between elements, rather than the categorization and conceptualization of elements discretely, people prone to holistic styles of thought may more readily recognize and integrate incongruent information (Nisbett et al., 2001; although see Choi & Nisbett, 2000), at least with respect to the perception of social and physical objects in the environment. As such, when holistic thinkers perceive social or physical phenomena, attention may be spontaneously directed at stimuli that consist of incongruous elements (e.g., when an object is incongruent with its background, such as a desk in a river), which may be observable through neural signatures reflecting attentional orientation and control. Furthermore, contradictory or expectancy-​violating information elicits a cascade of sense-​making processes (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Roese & Sherman, 2007), which may vary as a function of holism. While those relying on formal and analytical reasoning styles may ignore or discount contradictory elements in the perceptual field, those endorsing holistic forms of thought may actively engage contradictory elements—​ultimately establishing common ground through reconciliation and integration. If so, neural signatures reflecting semantic or perceptual integration should be more evident among people from cultures that endorse holistic thinking. It is important to note that East Asians, who typically exhibit great levels of holistic thinking, are also more inclined to be dialectical thinkers (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010). A growing body of research suggests that East Asians approach contradiction in the domains of others and social groups and the physical world differently than they do in the domains of the self, family, and ingroups (for a review of this literature, see Chapter 11 in this volume). Notably, East Asian dialectical thinkers tend to be tolerant of contradiction with respect to the self and ingroup members (Ma-​Kellams, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng,

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 183

2011; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010), but generally not so with respect to perceiving social and physical objects. To illustrate, East Asians may not seek to reconcile contradictory information about the self (e.g., Spencer-​ Rodgers, Boucher, Mori, Wang, & Peng, 2009), and the self is viewed as internally inconsistent and changeable over time and contexts (Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2010), perhaps because East Asians must flexibly adjust their behaviors in order to meet the demands of others and cultural norms in an interdependent social context. Hence, East Asians appear to exhibit less integrative thinking with regards to the self, close others, and ingroups (see Chapters  12 and 14 in this volume). To our knowledge, no studies have examined the neural substrates of dialectical thinking (tolerance and acceptance of contradiction), and future research should disentangle the potential effects of holistic and dialectical thinking on East Asian cognition in different domains, a point to which we return later in the chapter.

Neural Substrates of Holistic Thinking Cognitive neuroscience has demonstrated reliable neural signatures that are involved in recognizing and processing incongruent stimuli and integrative processing. One signature is the N400 event-​related potential (ERP) component. The N400 is a negative deflection located around central and posterior electrodes that typically occurs approximately 400 ms after stimulus presentation. This component is especially sensitive to semantic incongruity (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980). Importantly, the N400 has been suggested to reflect cognitive processing to integrate discrete, and sometimes inconsistent, representations into a unified or emergent meaning (Hagoort, Baggio, & Willems, 2009; Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). The N400 has been used in studies of language and semantic processing, and is analogously observed in studies of incongruities in other modalities. For instance, Ganis and Kutas (2003) observed an N400-​like response (N390) that was stronger when participants observed an object that was incongruent with the background scene (e.g., a desk in a river) compared to objects that appropriately matched the background context. If the N400 is an index of semantic integration of discrete and potentially incongruous elements of a scene, would individuals from a relatively more holistic cultural background exhibit greater N400 responses when exposed to stimuli with inconsistent elements? Goto and colleagues (Goto, Ando, Huang, Yee, & Lewis, 2010)  conducted a study that addressed this question. In their study, Asian-​American and European-​American

184 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

participants viewed scenes in which a focal object (e.g., a crab) was presented on a congruent scene (e.g., a beach) or an incongruent scene (e.g., a parking lot). The participants completed an incidental behavioral task that involved identifying whether the central object was animate or inanimate. ERP recordings revealed that Asian-​American (holistic) participants exhibited greater N400 negativity to incongruent (e.g., a crab in a parking lot) relative to congruent trials (e.g., a crab on a beach). Conversely, there was no difference in N400 responses to the two conditions among the European American (analytic) participants. Moreover, the magnitude of the N400 response to incongruity was negatively correlated with independent self-​construals, as assessed with the Self-​Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994). Greater interdependence was related to greater N400 negativity, suggesting that holistic/​interdependent thinkers exhibited greater sensitivity to incongruent stimuli and perhaps greater integrative processing than did analytic/​independent thinkers. This finding reinforces the notion that cultural tasks or demands associated with social interdependence may modulate neural mechanisms involved in holistic styles of perception (Kitayama et al., 2009). In addition to the domain of object-​context perception, N400 has also been observed when vocal cues, such as intonation, are inconsistent with their meanings. For instance, stronger N400 amplitudes are exhibited among females, who may be more sensitive to subtle vocal emotional cues, when hearing vocal tones of emotion that are incongruent with the emotional meaning of the words being spoken (Schirmer and Kotz, 2003). More recent work adopted this paradigm to test whether the N400 response may be prominent in contexts that heighten social and relational concerns (Ishii, Kobayahi, & Kitayama, 2010). Participants were exposed to vocal tones that were either congruent or incongruent with the valence of the spoken word. For instance, congruent trials involved hearing words with positive valence and meaning (e.g., grateful, warm) in a smooth, positive tone, or hearing words with negative valence and meaning (e.g., bitter, sly) in a harsh, negative tone. By contrast, incongruent trials were represented by words with positive meanings spoken with a harsh tone or words with negative meanings spoken in a positive tone. The authors predicted that N400 responses to incongruent vocal tones would be especially heightened during situations when social interactions or relations are salient. To measure social-​relational salience, half of the participants were exposed to a schematic set of eyes during the task, which has been linked to increased social normative concerns (Haley & Fessler, 2005). Subsequently, the authors observed a pronounced N400-​like response, as

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 185

well as late-​negative responses in the 600–​750 ms range (post-​stimulus window from midline locations), during the incongruent-​ relative-​ to-​ congruent conditions. Moreover, this incongruity-​based neural response was amplified after exposure to schematic eyes and among female participants, further supporting the notion that social-​relational demands may facilitate holistic integration of discrete social cues. This work by Ishii and colleagues (2010) also suggests that a holistic orientation plays a role in reconciling perceived incongruities in emotional cues when perceiving others. Behavioral studies on culture and sensitivity to incongruities in emotional expressions have demonstrated that members of East Asian cultures may also engage in more holistic or integrative interpretations of facial expressions of emotional inconsistencies than Westerners. For instance, when exposed to a focal person whose emotional expression conflicts with the emotional expressions of other group members, Japanese participants were more likely to pay attention to the emotions of the group members and assimilate and assign the groups’ emotion to the central person than American participants (Masuda et al., 2008). For instance, when viewing a central person with a sad expression surrounded by people with happy expressions, Japanese participants’ ratings of the target person’s sadness were more likely than American participants’ ratings to be influenced by and adjusted to the group’s emotional expression. Goto and colleagues (2013) further extended these findings to investigate cultural variations in the brain’s responses to facial expressions of emotions that were consistent or inconsistent with the immediate affective context. The authors exposed Asian-​American and European-​American participants to scenes in which a focal person’s emotional expressions were congruent or incongruent with the affective valence of a background scene (e.g., a person smiling or frowning in front of a pleasant or unpleasant social scene). Again, compared to the European-​American participants, Asian-​American participants exhibited heightened N400 responses (from centroposterior midline electrodes) when viewing affectively incongruent scenes relative to congruent scenes. Moreover, greater levels of incongruity N400 responses were associated with greater levels of self-​reported interdependence (Singelis, 1994). Together with the findings of Masuda and colleagues (2008), these results suggest that culture may promote the near spontaneous (within 1 second) integration of seemingly contradictory affective signals between an individual and his or her surrounding social context. Studies with increased spatial resolution of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have offered complementary support for the role

186 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

of holism in modulating neural processing of incongruities previously observed in ERP studies. While integration of incongruent focal and background perceptual elements can be indexed by N400 responses, fMRI paradigms assessing adaptation and habituation to incongruous scenes may serve as another viable method for mapping the influence of holism on neural function. Repetition-​suppression is an fMRI adaptation paradigm based on the principle that repeated exposure to specific stimulus features can cause reductions in neural activity (hemodynamic BOLD signal) in regions involved in processing of the stimulus (Goh et al., 2007; Grill-​Spector, Henson, & Martin, 2006; but see Segaert, Weber, de Lange, Petersson, & Hagoort, 2013 for cases when repetition can cause enhancement of neural response). If holism facilitates attention to and integration of inconsistent stimulus elements, then adaptation of neurophysiological responses to repetition of the inconsistent stimuli may occur more rapidly among East Asians than among Westerners. Jenkins Yang, Goh, Hong, and Park (2010) utilized this paradigm to measure adaptation among Chinese and American participants who viewed incongruent scenes. Similar to the study by Goto and colleagues (2010), a focal object (e.g., a deer) was presented in front of a congruent (e.g., a meadow) or incongruent (e.g., inside of a building) background context. Compared to the American participants, Chinese participants exhibited greater adaptation within the bilateral lateral occipital complex to incongruent scenes than did American participants. The authors interpreted these results as reflecting greater attention to focal objects exercised by Chinese when such objects semantically conflicted with the context. Taken together with convergent results from ERP studies on culture and incongruity (Goto et al., 2010; 2013), these findings suggest that holistic processing styles modulate the salience of inconsistencies by attenuating neural responses to incongruent elements through integration and reconciliation. Yet, future studies will be required to clarify the relationships between holism and repetition-​suppression and N400. To illustrate, studies that manipulate and measure holistic thinking directly are needed to establish the causal relationship between holism and such neural responses. Nevertheless, these initial studies reveal the promise of these methods for the cultural neuroscience of holistic thinking.

Attention/​Cognitive Control during Holistic Thinking Although these prior neuroscience studies examined relatively spontaneous and automatic processes, cultural neuroscience can also shed light

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 187

on the role that holism may play in deliberative and controlled cognitive processes. This research is based on the premise that engaging in culturally non-​preferred tasks requires greater levels of top-​down executive and cognitive control, since such tasks may conflict with overlearned and automatic patterns of thought and behavior within one’s cultural environment (see Kitayama et al., 2009). For instance, while people of different cultural backgrounds are equally capable of considering the perspective and mental states of others, members of relatively more interdependent East Asian cultural contexts may engage in other-​focused modes of processing, such as perspective-​taking and empathy, in a more spontaneous manner than members of relatively less interdependent, Western cultural contexts (Cheon et al., 2013; Cheon, Mathur, & Chiao, 2010; Wu & Keysar, 2007). Chronic exposure to recurring influences and pressures within one’s cultural environment to adopt thinking styles that are holistic, relational, and context sensitive may consequently lead to the need for greater mental effort in situations that demand culturally non-​preferred patterns of thought (e.g., analytic, context insensitive and object-​focused cognition and attention). As such, the neuroscience of holistic thinking could also be effectively studied by investigating the neural correlates of cognitive control when individuals from holistic and analytic cultural backgrounds complete tasks that are incongruent with their culturally preferred thinking styles. The frame and line task (FLT; Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003)  is one paradigm that consists of context-​dependent and context-​ independent task demands. The absolute version (analytic version) of the task requires engagement of object-​ centered attention and cognition, while simultaneously inhibiting interference from contextual cues. Conversely, the relative version (holistic version) of the task demands context-​dependent attention and cognition. Given these demands, members of East Asian cultures tend to exhibit better performance on the relative task, while members of Western cultures exhibit better performance on the absolute task (Kitayama et al., 2003, 2009). Importantly, performance on the FLT is critically modulated by acculturation and cultural exposure to environments that promote relatively more holistic or analytic modes of thinking. For instance, Kitayama and colleagues (2003) conducted the task on four groups of participants: Americans in the United States, Americans in Japan, Japanese in the United States, and Japanese in Japan. This design allowed the experimenters not only to compare performance on the task between people living in two separate native cultural environments (Americans in the United

188 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

States and Japanese in Japan), but also to compare participants from these two cultures who are immersed in a different host culture (Americans in Japan and Japanese in the United States). Consistent with prior studies, the authors observed cultural variations among Americans in the United States and Japanese in Japan, such that the Japanese were more accurate on the holistic relative task than the absolute task, while Americans were conversely more accurate on the absolute task than the relative task. But, given the critical role of cultural exposure and acculturation on these processes, both groups of participants residing in a foreign culture exhibited performance that was more in line with members of the host culture compared to their respective home cultures. These intriguing findings suggest that the influence of holistic and analytic styles of thought on patterns of cognition, as well as associated brain function, may be dynamic and malleable. The FLT paradigm was adopted by Hedden and colleagues (Hedden, Ketay, Aron, Markus, & Gabrieli, 2008) in an fMRI study focusing on cultural differences in neural activity within networks associated with attentional control. When completing the culturally non-​preferred version of the task (i.e., absolute for East Asians, and relative for Americans), both American and East Asian participants (who had recently arrived in the United States) displayed stronger activity in regions involved in attention and cognitive control (i.e., inferior parietal lobule and precentral gyrus) compared to when they performed the culturally preferred version of the task. Importantly, among the East Asian participants, level of neural activity in cognitive control regions was negatively correlated with their self-​ reported acculturation (i.e., adoption of American cultural values). Thus, paralleling the behavioral findings from Kitayama and colleagues (2003), East Asians who were less acculturated more closely exhibited a holistic pattern of neural processing and showed greater engagement of brain regions involved in attention and cognitive control during the absolute version of the task. Importantly, these cultural neuroscience findings highlight that cultural differences in holistic versus formal/​ analytical reasoning may reflect variation in the degree to which these thinking styles are employed across cultures, rather than variation in absolute ability. Through heightened engagement of attentional and cognitive control, East Asians and Americans are readily able to adopt culturally non-​preferred styles of cognition and perception. Although holistic and context-​sensitive means of perception and cognition may be the dominant mode of navigating the environment in East Asian cultures, these automatic processing strategies

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 189

may be overridden dynamically—​at the expense of cognitive resources—​ based on situational demands.

Causal Attributions and Trait Inferences Given its core principles regarding the lay understanding of change and interrelatedness of agents and their situated contexts, holistic reasoning can shape sense-​making in the domain of cause and effect. As a result of cultural diversity in holism, explanations about the causes of social and nonsocial phenomena can also vary across cultures. In regard to perceptions of social events (even those involving nonhuman agents such as fish), Chinese are more likely than Americans to adopt a holistic approach when judging the causes of an agent’s behavior. For instance, when describing the behavior of a single fish in relation to the movements of other fish around it, Chinese students were more likely to rely on situational cues and external pressures to explain the social behavior of the fish rather than internal dispositions (Morris & Peng, 1994). Furthermore, activation of cultural knowledge also dynamically shapes attributional styles among those who have been exposed to both holistic and analytic cultures (e.g., bicultural Chinese Americans). For instance, compared to reminders of American culture (e.g., American flag, Superman), activating Chinese cultural knowledge through exposure to iconic Chinese images (e.g. a dragon, Chinese calligraphy) heightened reliance on external attributions to explain the behavior of the single fish in relation to the other fish, especially when the single fish clearly stood out from the group (Hong, Benet-​Martinez, Chiu, & Morris, 2003). These cultural variations in lay causal attributions are observed even when the social element is stripped from these tasks and only physical interactions remain. To illustrate, when observing abstract computer-​ generated objects interacting with one another (e.g., colliding, pushing, magnetically attracting) or interacting with a medium (e.g., floating in water, falling through the air), Chinese participants were more likely than American participants to prefer contextual explanations for a target ball’s movements (e.g., gravity; an external force), whereas American participants preferred dispositional explanations (e.g., the object’s weight; an internal property) (Peng & Knowles, 2003). Moreover, the use of cultural identity priming among participants with limited formal education in physics similarly influenced preferences for different types of explanations and attributions. Chinese or American identity was primed among

190 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Chinese American participants by having them write about an experience that made their Chinese or American identity salient. Participants then rated how much an interaction between two computerized objects was due to a series of dispositional (e.g., shape, weight, composition) or contextual (e.g., gravity, friction, water) factors. The authors observed that priming Chinese cultural identity among these Chinese American participants similarly produced greater reliance on contextual attributions. These results demonstrate the malleability of these cognitions to accessible cultural knowledge. Cultural neuroscience has offered emerging insights into the neural correlates of holistic reasoning about contextual and dispositional causality. Using an adapted paradigm similar to that used by Peng and Knowles (2003), Han, Mao, Qin, Friederici, and Ge (2011) assessed neural activity via fMRI while Chinese participants viewed videos of moving balls colliding with each other and subsequently influencing each other’s movements. Participants completed two tasks while viewing these videos and undergoing fMRI scanning. In one task, participants made a causality judgment regarding the direction of one specific ball’s movement by indicating the appropriateness of different explanations for the ball’s motion. These explanations represented either a dispositional attribution (e.g., “the blue ball is heavy”) or a contextual attribution (e.g., “the air resistance is large”). In another motion judgment task that served as a comparison condition (without causal attributions), participants rated the appropriateness of different descriptions of the ball’s movement (e.g., “the blue ball moved rightward at the end of the video clip”). The researchers also presented these videos in situations that were contextually simple (involving only two balls) or complex (involving several balls). Compared to the motion judgment task, performing causality judgments (both dispositional and contextual) elicited greater activity across a network including the medial prefrontal cortex and lateral parietal cortex. While both of these regions were responsive to causality judgments, the lateral parietal cortex was more responsive to complex (rather than simple) contextual attributions but did not differ for complex and simple dispositional attributions, findings suggesting that this region may be especially sensitive to the complexity of the contextual information. By contrast, the medial prefrontal cortex did not differ with respect to complexity, for either the contextual or dispositional attributions, which suggests a more general role of this region in causality judgments. The researchers also conducted a follow-​up study that compared the neural responses of Chinese and American participants on a similar task.

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 191

Although there was no difference in endorsement of dispositional and contextual causal attributions between the two participant groups, there were notable cultural variations in neural responses during the tasks. Specifically, compared to the American participants, Chinese participants exhibited greater responses from the lateral parietal cortex during both the dispositional and contextual causality judgments. Given the observed sensitivity of the lateral parietal cortex to contextual information and the role of the parietal cortex in attention (see Hedden et al., 2008), the authors suggested that the heightened left parietal cortex responses observed among the Chinese may reflect automatic attending to contextual information during judgments of causality in general. Consistent with the holistic cognitive style prevalent in Chinese culture, the Chinese participants may have been automatically processing and attending to contextual information in the videos, regardless of whether the contextual forces had an explicit influence on the ball’s motion (i.e., dispositional judgment). Greater reliance on dispositional attributions while discounting situational contributions to behaviors may also manifest in how readily people infer traits from an individual’s behavioral cues (Carlston & Skowronski, 1994; Uleman, Saribay, Gonzalez, 2008). For instance, someone who is prone to readily drawing conclusions about a person’s dispositions on the basis of observations of their behavior may spontaneously infer that a person is “aggressive” after observing him or her pushing another person. Whereas such spontaneous trait inferences may be commonly activated within Western cultural samples, members of relatively more holistic East Asian cultures make less direct inferences about underlying traits, instead incorporating situational constraints into their judgments (Choi & Nisbett, 1998; Lieberman, Jarcho, & Obayashi, 2005; Masuda & Kitayama, 2004). For example, it may be premature to infer that a person who is pushing someone else is dispositionally aggressive if he or she is reacting in self-​ defense to an assault—​information that acts as a situational constraint on inferences. Research by Na and Kitayama (2011) demonstrates that this cultural difference in tendency to make such spontaneous inferences about others’ traits and dispositions can be observed neurally. In their study, Asian-​ American and European-​American participants were shown faces of people accompanied by behavioral descriptions that implied specific traits (e.g., a description of behavior that implied the person was cautious). During a lexical decision task that followed, participants were first primed with one of the faces before being presented with trait words that were consistent or inconsistent with the previously presented trait corresponding to the

192 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

face. ERP measurement and analysis was conducted focusing on the N400 component. If participants spontaneously formed trait impressions for the faces based on the behavioral descriptions, then presentation of incongruent trait words (e.g., “careless”) with that face should produce prominent N400 responses compared to congruent traits (e.g., “cautious”). Indeed, this is what the researchers found, but only among the European American participants, which suggests that they made more spontaneous trait inferences. For the Asian American participants, there were no differences in N400 amplitudes between the presentation of congruent and incongruent traits, which suggests that they had not automatically inferred the trait implied by the initial behavioral description. Furthermore, cultural differences in this N400 signature were partially mediated by participants’ level of independent self-​construal; thus the adoption of an independent (relative to interdependent) style of relating to others may contribute to analytic (relative to holistic) forms of social inferences, as well as their underlying neural signatures. Future studies that prime holistic thinking are needed to establish a more causal association between holism and cultural differences in spontaneous trait inference.

Moral Decision-​Making Decision-​making is a flourishing field of research that has attracted great scholarly attention, and of particular interest is the topic of moral decision-​ making. Preliminary research on the cultural neuroscience of moral decision-​making suggests that members of holistic cultures (East Asians) exhibit greater integrative processing of moral dilemmas than do members of analytic cultures (Westerners). In one study (culture × type of dilemma), Wang and colleagues (Wang, Deng, Sui, & Tang, 2013) combined ERP techniques with standardized low-​resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) to study potential cultural variation within the brain. Chinese and Western college students were recruited to participate in a moral dilemma task that included both personal and impersonal situations. An example of a personal situation is the footbridge dilemma:  the only way to save five workers from a runaway trolley is to push a large man off an overpass bridge onto the tracks below. He will die, but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the other five people. An impersonal situation includes the trolley dilemma: the only way to save five workers is to pull a lever redirecting the trolley onto another set of tracks, where it will kill a single worker instead of five workers. Each dilemma was presented

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 193

in the participants’ native language (Chinese or English) and as black text against a gray background on a computer monitor, with a series of three screens. The first two screens described the scenario of a dilemma, and the third posed a question asking whether or not the hypothetical action was morally appropriate. Choosing appropriate options was considered to be utilitarian (taking part in the harmful act since doing so will maximize good consequences—​saving five workers in the footbridge dilemma, which requires overcoming the prepotent emotional response), whereas choosing inappropriate options was considered to be non-​utilitarian. The dependent variables were the proportion of utilitarian judgments, reaction time, ERP responses, and sLORETA activity. There was a main effect of type of dilemma such that participants made a smaller proportion of utilitarian judgments and exhibited longer reaction times in response to personal than impersonal dilemmas, with no difference observed between Westerners and Chinese, as shown in Figure 6.1b. The main focus of the authors’ analysis was the P3 and P260 components (ERP components elicited in the process of decision-​making). Notably, the ERP components were significantly different between the two cultural groups. For Westerners, smaller P3 amplitudes were evoked by personal than by impersonal dilemmas, whereas for Chinese, smaller P260 deflections were elicited by personal than by impersonal dilemmas. The different ERP components elicited by moral dilemmas may be attributable to cultural differences. It has been widely demonstrated that East Asians and Westerners differ in experience and socialization, which influences cognition and the allocation of attention (Kitayama & Park, 2010). Previous research has indicated that P3 is an index of inhibition of (a)

0.51

(b) Mean reaction time in s

Mean proportion of utilitarian judgments

0.48 0.45 0.42 0.39 0.36 0.33 0.30

6.10

Personal Chinese

Impersonal Western

5.80 5.50 5.20 4.90 4.60 4.30 4.00

Personal

Impersonal

Chinese

Western

Figure 6.1 (a) Mean proportion of utilitarian judgments by dilemma type for Chinese and Westerners. (b) Mean reaction time by dilemma type for Chinese and Westerners. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean.

194 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

task-​irrelevant emotional information, with less positive amplitudes for negative stimuli than for neutral stimuli in implicit emotional tasks (Yuan et al., 2007). The P3 results reported here are consistent with the former findings, suggesting that more negative emotions needed to be inhibited in response to personal than to impersonal dilemmas. Moreover, the P260 component has been suggested to be a combination of a P2-​and a P3-​ like process and has been reported to reflect immediate affective reactions toward options that integrate attention, working memory, and emotional processing (Miltner, Johnson, Braun, & Larbig, 1989). This different cognitive functioning may be related to holistic thinking. Thus, the P260 component may suggest a more integrated process during the solution of moral dilemmas in Chinese than that in Westerners. The analysis with sLORETA revealed a significantly different pattern of brain activity between Westerners and Chinese. As shown in Figure 6.2, the main source of both P2 and P3 components for personal dilemmas was the cingulate gyrus, as in other studies (Gajewski, Stoerig, & Falkenstein, 2008). In contrast, the main sources of P2 and P3 components for impersonal dilemmas were localized in the medial frontal area and cingulate gyrus (with contributions from several other brain regions, including the temporal and insula areas). These findings are in accordance with brain imaging research demonstrating that a complex network of brain regions is involved in moral decision-​making (Prehn et al., 2008). Unlike the brain region sources of the P2 and P3 components, the P260 component for both dilemma types was mainly activated in areas in the posterior cingulate, parahippocampal gyrus, and cuneus and precuneus cortices; these areas have been considered to be related to emotional processing and evaluation, retrieval of episodic memory representations, and attention, as well as to the detection of salient stimulus and higher-​order cognitive functions (Cavanna & Trimble, 2006; Daniel & Donna Rose, 2007; Vogt, Vogt, & Laureys, 2006). These findings suggest that brain areas associated with attention, memory retrieval, and emotional processing were involved in the process of moral decision-​making and may involve holistic thinking. Future research examining cultural differences in these processes would benefit from direct manipulations of holistic and analytic thinking.

Arithmetic Processing Another example of a higher cognitive function that may be influenced by holistic versus analytic thinking styles involves discrete neural patterns

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 195

Figure 6.2  Grand average sLORETA images, derived from voxel-​by-​voxel t-​test (p < 0.05). First row: grand average P2 for personal dilemmas. Second row: grand average P3 for personal dilemmas. Third row: grand average P2 for impersonal dilemmas. Fourth row: grand average P3 for impersonal dilemmas. Fifth row: grand average P260 for personal dilemmas. Sixth row: grand average P260 for impersonal dilemmas. sLORETA = standardized low-​resolution brain electromagnetic tomography. Yellow–​red areas indicate the activated areas (p < 0.05) and maxima are color coded as yellow. Results are collapsed across cultures.

of arithmetic processing in Chinese and Westerners (Tang et  al., 2006). The universal use of Arabic numbers in mathematics raises the question of whether they are processed the same way in people from different cultures and who speak different languages, such as Chinese and English. To address this question, researchers used fMRI to scan the brains of 12 native Chinese speakers and 12 native English speakers who had a college-​level

196 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

education. The participants were instructed to perform four tasks during the scanning (see Figure 6.3 for examples): (1) Symbol condition: Judge the spatial orientation of non-​numerical stimuli in which a triplet of nonsemantic characters or symbols are visually presented either in an upright or in an italic orientation. The task was to decide whether the third symbol had the same orientation as the first two. (2) Number condition: Judge the spatial orientation of numerical stimuli, using the same task as in the Symbol condition except for using Arabic digits as visual stimuli. (3) Addition condition: The numerical addition task was to determine whether the third digit was equal to the sum of the first two in a triplet of Arabic numbers. (4) Comparison condition: The quantity comparison task was to determine whether the third digit was larger than the larger of the first two in a triplet of Arabic numbers. A baseline condition of matching white and/​or gray circular dots was used to control for the motor and nonspecific visual components of the tasks. Results indicated a different cortical representation of numbers between native Chinese speakers and native English speakers. While the English speakers employed a language process relying on the left perisylvian cortices for mental calculation, such as a simple addition task, the Chinese speakers instead engaged a visual-​premotor association network for the same task (see Figure 6.3). We further chose two regions of interest: first, the perisylvian language region, including both the Broca (BA) and Wernicke areas, and second, the premotor association area in between BA6, BA8, and BA9. Quantitative analyses were conducted by comparing the fMRI signal between the English and Chinese groups. We found that the perisylvian activations were significantly larger in the English speakers than in the Chinese speakers (Figure  6.4A). As the arithmetic complexity increased across the four conditions (Symbol < Number < Addition < Comparison) there was a trend toward increased premotor activation in the Chinese speakers, but not in the English speakers (Figure 6.4B). Therefore, there was a double dissociation in brain activation between these two groups during these tasks, supporting clear cultural differences in the processing of numbers. In addition, for both cultural groups, the inferior parietal cortex was activated in the numerical quantity comparison; however, the fMRI connectivity analyses (He et  al., 2003)  revealed a difference in the brain networks involved in the task for

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 197

Figure 6.3  Dissociation in the brain representation of Arabic numbers between native Chinese speakers (NCS) and native English speakers (NES). (A) During the symbol task in NCS. (B) During the number task in NCS. (C) During the symbol task in NES. (D) During the number task in NES. The task-​dependent brain activation was determined by Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) by using a liberal threshold (p  NCS during Comparison (b)

1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

**

**

CS (n = 10) ES (n = 10) * ns

Symbol

Number

Addition

Comparison **

0.7 CS (n = 10) ES (n = 10)

0.6 0.5 0.4

**

*

0.3 0.2

ns

0.1 NES > NCS during Comparison

0.0

Symbol

Number

Addition Comparison

Figure 6.4  Comparison of the activation intensity between native Chinese speakers (NCS) and native English speakers (NES) in the perisylvian language region (A) and the premotor association area (PMA) (B). Brain activation maps (left) were determined by contrasting BOLD signal between NCS and NES only during the Comparison task, with the NES group showing relative increase of the signal (A, English > Chinese) and the NCS group showing relative increase of the signal (B, Chinese > English). The within-​ group task-​dependent activation was determined by Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM)99 by using a threshold (p < 0.001, uncorrected) for defining the regions of interest (ROIs) in the perisylvian language region, including both the Broca area (Br) with Talairach coordinates at (−50, 12, 7) and Wernicke area (Wn) (−57, −59, 16), and in the PMA (−18, 22, 56). For each individual, the fMRI activation index (right) was then determined by integrating the BOLD signal changes in these ROIs for statistical comparisons. Two-​sample t-​tests were used to compare the mean of the activation index for each task. *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01; ns = not significant. The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 199

the notion that there are different neural substrates underlying verbal and numerical processing (Dehaene & Cohen, 1995; Dehaene, Spelke, Pinel, Stanescu, & Tsivkin, 1999). Second, there are differences in the brain representation of number processing between Chinese and English speakers. Although differences between the two cultures in terms of language, educational systems, or genetics may contribute to these findings, relatively greater reliance on analytic and formal logical (rather than holistic) styles of cognition among Westerners may have contributed to the greater observed activity in language-​related regions among Westerners during the arithmetic task. Future cultural neuroscience research should investigate the consequences of holistic versus analytic forms on thought in mathematical processing and would help confirm the culturally variant patterns of neural activity observed during arithmetic tasks. Furthermore, genetics and environmental factors often work together in shaping human cognition and social behavior (Cheon & Hong, 2015; Cheon, Livingston, Hong, & Chiao, 2014; Chiao, Cheon, Bebko, Livingston, & Hong, 2012; Tang & Liu, 2009). Future studies should address how gene × environment (or experience) interact to affect high-​level cognition in different cultures. For example, if both genes and experience shape human cognitive functions such as numerical processing in the brain, another challenge will be to understand how different educational systems may influence our core understanding of numbers (Tang & Liu, 2009).

Future Directions in the Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic and Dialectical Reasoning Plasticity of Holistic Thinking The plasticity or malleability of the neural substrates of holistic thinking serves as a promising avenue for future research. Although holistic thinking may be relatively favored in some cultures, human social experiences consist of encounters with situations that require both analytic and holistic forms of thought. For example, in one situation, we may need to judge the emotions of a single person in a group (i.e., reliance on analytical processing of focal target), whereas in another situation we may be required to gauge the collective emotions of a group of people (i.e., holistic integration of information). Consequently, to adapt to changing situational demands, people must switch between holistic and analytic modes of cognition, which may be triggered or activated by culturally relevant cues (see Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-​Martinez, 2000; Oyserman & Li, 2008).

200 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

The use of culture priming methods in cultural neuroscience has revealed that the neural correlates of cognition may dynamically change as a function of temporarily accessible cultural knowledge. For instance, the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), particularly the anterior-​rostral portion, has been associated with the engagement of self-​relevant cognitions (e.g., thinking about one’s own traits, qualities, and preferences) (Amodio & Frith, 2006). Yet, cultural influences on how people relate to others may shape how responsive this brain region may be to different forms of self-​ knowledge. Chiao and colleagues (2009) observed that people endorsing greater levels of interdependence exhibit stronger responses from the anterior-​rostral MPFC when thinking of themselves in the context of others (e.g., judging the statement “I am assertive” in the context of talking with one’s mother), whereas people endorsing greater levels of independence exhibit stronger responses from the same region when thinking of themselves in a dispositional manner (e.g., judging the statement “I am assertive” without any contextual information). Notably, this selectivity of MPFC response to different forms of self-​ knowledge can also be dynamically modulated by the situational activation of cultural knowledge. In another study, Chiao and colleagues (2010) administered a similar self-​ judgment task during fMRI scanning but included a culture priming manipulation. Before scanning, an independent (or interdependent) self-​construal style was activated by having bicultural Asian American participants read a story that highlighted individualistic (or collectivistic) values and writing about how they are different from (or similar to) their friends and family (see Trafimow, Triandis, & Goto, 1991). There was a significant interaction between self-​construal prime and type of self-​knowledge judgment (dispositional or contextual) on activity within the anterior-​rostral MPFC. Those who received the independence prime exhibited stronger MPFC responses during dispositional self-​judgments, while those who received the interdependence prime exhibited stronger MPFC responses during contextual self-​judgments. Similar cultural priming effects on self-​related judgments and self–​other contexts have also been supported in other studies (see Zhu, Zhang, Fan, & Han, 2007). These findings support the notion that cultures promoting interdependence dynamically exhibit holistic styles of neural processing, even in the domain of self-​knowledge. Future investigations into the cultural neuroscience of holistic thinking would benefit from incorporating cultural priming methods to examine the plasticity of the neural correlates of holistic and analytic cognition to situational demands. For instance, the use of cultural identity priming with bicultural Asian-​Americans before measuring N400 responses to

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 201

incongruent objects and backgrounds (see Goto et al., 2010, 2013; Ishii et al., 2010) could provide direct causal insights into the role that salient cultural knowledge plays on the regulation of neural signatures associated with the integration of contradictory information.

Holism and Interdependent Self-​Construals Another topic of future research is the extent to which the cultural neuroscience findings described in this chapter are due to holistic thinking per se, versus interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Because East Asians are generally both holistic and interdependent, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of these two cultural variables on perception and cognition, or whether one variable has primacy over the other in determining behavior. In actuality, both factors are likely influential, given that they may mutually reinforce one another: holism leads people to perceive interconnections between focal objects (e.g., physical and social) and the surrounding context; interdependence leads people to be sensitive to social relationships and interconnections among people. Future cultural neuroscience studies should directly manipulate both holistic thinking and interdependence to examine whether they have additive or interactive effects on the neural signatures of cognition and perception explored in this chapter.

Dialectical Thinking and Tolerance for Contradiction Thus far, we have reviewed research related to the influence of holism on cognitive and integrative processing. This work suggests that members of holistic cultures are (1) more likely to perceive incongruities in physical phenomena and social objects and (2) more likely to engage cognitive processes that integrate and assimilate these incongruities. Importantly, emerging research in cultural psychology suggests that this tendency is domain-​specific and that East Asians respond differently to contradiction in the self, social objects, and the physical world (for a review, see Chapter 11 in this volume). In particular, East Asians are more tolerant of contradiction in the self and self-​related objects, such as romantic partners, families, and ingroup members (see Chapters 1, 12, and 13, this volume). For instance, East Asians expect, perceive, store, and spontaneously retrieve more contradictory information about the self than do Westerners (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). Importantly, dialectical thinkers do not seek to reconcile or integrate this contradictory knowledge into a cohesive whole (e.g., they may describe themselves as being both “shy” and “outgoing” at the same time; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009).

202 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Although prior work has demonstrated cultural diversity in how the brain integrates and processes perceptual incongruities, future research into the cultural neuroscience of dialectical thinking (Peng & Nisbett, 1999)  would benefit from extending these findings to contradictions encountered in other domains. The brain’s response to contradiction and incongruity related to the self is one such critical domain, given the importance of the self-​concept and self-​relevant cognitions for defining intra-​individual and cultural diversity in behavior. Although cultural neuroscience has already contributed a wealth of findings on the variability of self-​related processing in the brain as a function of culture and context (Chiao et al., 2009, 2010, 2013; Zhu et al., 2007), there has been limited research on self-​related incongruity and contradictions. Toward this end, future research into the cultural neuroscience of dialectical thinking could adopt established paradigms from studies on the neuroscience of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance represents the discomfort and unease that arises from maintaining beliefs, values, or behaviors that contradict one another (Festinger, 1957). Functional neuroimaging has already identified some of the neural substrates of cognitive dissonance. For instance, the free-​choice paradigm is one experimental condition that produces the subjective experience of dissonance (Brehm, 1956). When making a choice between two equally attractive options, individuals may engage in a post-​decisional justification of selected options and devaluation of non-​selected options as a means to reconcile dissonance associated with cognitions that favor the rejected choice (Brehm, 1956; Harmon-​Jones, Amodio, & Harmon-​Jones, 2009). Recently, Kitayama, Chua, Thompson, and Han (2013) examined the neural correlates of the dissonance associated with such decisions in a Western sample. While undergoing fMRI scanning, American participants decided between music CDs that were either similar in attractiveness (difficult choice) or CDs in which one CD was clearly more attractive than the other (easy choice), based on participants’ pre-​scanning ratings of the attractiveness of each CD. When examining the regions of the brain that were more responsive during difficult over easy choices, stronger activity was observed in the anterior cingulate cortex and the left anterior insula, regions involved in processing aversive, painful, or conflicting subjective experiences. Furthermore, participants were also asked to rate the CDs again (after the decisions) as a method of determining attitude change toward the CDs that represented choice justification. When exploring the brain regions sensitive to this choice justification, the posterior cingulate cortex (a region involved in self-​referential processing) was engaged. These findings imply

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 203

that, at least in a Western sample, situations that traditionally elicit cognitive dissonance recruit responses from regions of the brain involved in processing conflict, aversive affective states, and self-​relevant cognitions. Further support for these neural substrates of cognitive dissonance have also been provided by neuroimaging studies adopting the forced-​ compliance paradigm of cognitive dissonance (van Veen, Krug, Schooler, & Carter, 2009). After completing a task in the MRI scanner, American participants were asked to respond to a series of statements about their experiences and attitudes toward the scanning session. One group of participants (dissonance condition) were requested to respond to the statements in a manner that reflected a favorable attitude toward the scanning session in order to help comfort an ostensible participant (who ostensibly is scheduled for the next experiment and is viewing the responses). In a control condition, participants were asked to respond with favorable attitudes toward the scanning session but were also provided additional payment for each of these counter-​attitudinal responses, which alleviated dissonance through attribution of counter-​attitudinal behaviors to payment. Compared to the control group, participants in the dissonance condition exhibited stronger activity from the anterior cingulate cortex and the bilateral anterior insula when endorsing counter-​attitudinal responses. Taken together, results from these studies suggest that classic cognitive dissonance paradigms can be effectively adapted to neuroimaging methods, which could be further adapted to cultural comparisons of the neural mechanisms of dissonance. Behavioral research has already identified that culture may influence the manifestation and experience of cognitive dissonance. Members of cultural environments that promote relatively more dialectical thinking styles may experience less internal conflict or intolerance of contradictions of the self (Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004), particularly in situations that involve self-​incongruities experienced privately (Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki, 2004). Another possibility is that the contexts in which dissonance is experienced may vary between people of dialectical and non-​dialectical cultural backgrounds, rather than being an absolute cultural difference in the experience of dissonance to self-​contradictions per se. For instance, people of relatively more dialectical East Asian backgrounds (Asian Canadians and Japanese) experienced less dissonance (as manifested by choice justification) than European Canadians when making choices for themselves—​a situation typically associated with dissonance in Western contexts (Heine & Lehman, 1997; Hoshino-​Browne et al., 2005). However, when making choices for a

204 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

friend, which may activate interpersonal and social-​relational concerns that may be more salient in East Asian cultures and contribute to holistic styles of thinking, the participants of East Asian background were more likely to justify and rationalize their choices (Hoshino-​Browne et al., 2005). As such, future research into the cultural neuroscience of holistic and dialectical thinking (relative to analytic and non-​dialectical/​linear thinking) and their influence on the neural substrates of negotiating self-​related contradictions may critically depend on comparing culturally specific and appropriate contexts that elicit dissonance. Cross-​cultural comparisons of the neural correlates of self-​contradictions may offer promising insight into whether members of cultures associated with holistic and dialectical (vs. analytic and linear) thought actually differ in their capacities for engaging in integrative processing of contradictory information about the self. Studies that manipulate holistic thinking and dialectical thinking, separately, would also help to disentangle the effects of these cultural orientations on cognition and perception.

Concluding Remarks The integration of the social cognitive neuroscience and cultural psychology has provided novel insights into the mutual co-​construction and reinforcement of culture and the brain (Chiao et al., 2013). Environmental and experiential pressures that facilitate analytic or holistic forms of thought may critically contribute to the cultural diversity observed in patterns of brain function. Similarly, these encultured patterns of neural responses may also be reinforced and sustained by allowing members of cultures that favor holistic and analytic forms of thought to better navigate the demands of their respective cultural environments. Consequently, the continued integration of cultural neuroscience and the study of holism on cognition and behavior holds promise for elucidating how cultural environments and neurobiological processes are mutually constituted and jointly shape how we interpret and make sense of the world around us.

Acknowledgement This research was supported by a grant from the United States Office of Naval Research, awarded to Yi-​Yuan Tang and Nanyang Technological University Startup Grant awarded to Bobby K. Cheon.

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 205

References Amodio, D. M., & Frith, C. D. (2006). Meeting of minds: The medial frontal cortex and social cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7(4), 268–​277. doi:10.1038/​nrn1884 Brehm, J. W. (1956). Postdecision changes in the desirability of alternatives. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52(3), 384–​389. doi:10.1037/​h0041006 Carlston, D. E., & Skowronski, J. J. (1994). Savings in the relearning of trait information as evidence for spontaneous inference generation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(5), 840–​856. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.66.5.840 Cavanna, A. E., & Trimble, M. R. (2006). The precuneus: A review of its functional anatomy and behavioural correlates. Brain, 129(3), 564–​583. doi:10.1093/​brain/​awl004 Cheon, B. K., & Hong, Y.Y. (2015). The cultural neuroscience of intergroup bias. In J. Y. Chiao, S. C. Li, R. Seligman, & R. Turner (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Cheon, B. K., Im, D., Harada, T., Kim, J., Mathur, V. A., Scimeca, J. M.,  .  .  .  Chiao, J. Y. (2013). Cultural modulation of the neural correlates of emotional pain perception:  The role of other-​ focusedness. Neuropsychologia, 51(7), 1177–​1186. doi:10.1016/​j.neuropsychologia.2013.03.018 Cheon, B. K., Livingston, R. W., Hong, Y. Y., & Chiao, J. Y. (2014). Gene × environment interaction on intergroup bias: The role of 5-​HTTLPR and perceived outgroup threat. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(9), 1268–​1275. doi:10.1093/​scan/​ nst111 Cheon, B. K., Mathur, V. A., & Chiao, J. Y. (2010). Empathy as cultural process: Insights from the cultural neuroscience of empathy. World Cultural Psychiatry Research Review, 5, 32–​42. Cheon, B. K., Mrazek, A. J., Pornpattananangkul, N., Blizinsky, K. D., & Chiao, J. Y. (2013). ‘Constraints, catalysts and coevolution in cultural neuroscience’: Reply to commentaries. Psychological Inquiry, 24(1), 71–​79. doi:10.1080/​1047840X.2013.773599 Chiao, J. Y., Cheon, B. K., Bebko, G. M., Livingston, R. W., & Hong, Y. Y. (2012). Gene × environment interaction in social cognition. In S. T. Fiske & C. N. Macrae (Eds.), Sage handbook of social cognition (pp. 516–​535). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chiao, J. Y., Cheon, B. K., Pornpattananangkul, N., Mrazek, A. J., & Blizinsky, K. D. (2013). Cultural neuroscience: Progress and promise. Psychological Inquiry, 24(1), 1–​19. doi:10.1080/​1047840X.2013.752715 Chiao, J. Y., Harada, T., Komeda, H., Li, Z., Mano, Y., Saito, D., . . . Iidaka, T. (2009). Neural basis of individualistic and collectivistic views of self. Human Brain Mapping, 30(9), 2813–​2820. doi:10.1002/​hbm.20707 Chiao, J. Y., Harada, T., Komeda, H., Li, Z., Mano, Y., Saito, D., . . . Iidaka, T. (2010). Dynamic cultural influences on neural representations of the self. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(1), 1–​11. doi:10.1162/​jocn.2009.21192 Choi, I., Koo, M., & Choi, A. J. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(5), 691–​705. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167206298568 Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and actor-​observer bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(9), 949–​960. doi:10.1177/​0146167298249003

206 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Cultural psychology of surprise: holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 890–​905. Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (1995). Towards an anatomical and functional model of number processing. Mathematical Cognition, 1(1), 83–​120. Dehaene, S., Spelke, E., Pinel, P., Stanescu, R., & Tsivkin, S. (1999). Sources of mathematical thinking: Behavioral and brain-​imaging evidence. Science, 284(5416), 970–​ 974. doi:10.1126/​science.284.5416.970 Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row Peterson. Gajewski, P. D., Stoerig, P., & Falkenstein, M. (2008). ERP—​Correlates of response selection in a response conflict paradigm. Brain Research 1189, 127–​134. doi:10.1016/​ j.brainres.2007.10.076 Ganis, G., & Kutas, M. (2003). An electrophysiological study of scene effects on object identification. Cognitive Brain Research, 16(2), 123–​ 144. doi:10.1016/​ S0926-​6410(02)00244-​6 Goh, J. O., Chee, M. W., Tan, J. C., Venkatraman, V., Hebrank, A., Leshikar, E. D., . . . Park, D. C. (2007). Age and culture modulate object processing and object: Scene binding in the ventral visual area. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 7(1), 44–​52. Goto, S. G., Ando, Y., Huang, C., Yee, A., & Lewis, R. S. (2010). Cultural differences in the visual processing of meaning: Detecting incongruities between background and foreground objects using the N400. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-​3), 242–​253. doi: 10.1093/​scan/​nsp038 Goto, S. G., Yee, A., Lowenberg, K., & Lewis, R. S. (2013). Cultural differences in sensitivity to social context:  Detecting affective incongruity using the N400. Social Neuroscience, 8(1), 63–​74. doi:10.1080/​17470919.2012.739202 Grill-​Spector, K., Henson, R., & Martin, A. (2006). Repetition and the brain:  neural models of stimulus-​specific effects. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(1), 14–​23. doi: 10.1016/​j.tics.2005.11.006 Hagoort, P., Baggio, G., & Willems, R. M. (2009). Semantic unification. In The cognitive neurosciences (4th ed., pp. 819–​836). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Haley, K. J., & Fessler, D. M. (2005). Nobody’s watching?: Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26(3), 245–​256. doi:10.1016/​j.evolhumbehav.2005.01.002 Han, S., Mao, L., Qin, J., Friederici, A. D., & Ge, J. (2011). Functional roles and cultural modulations of the medial prefrontal and parietal activity associated with causal attribution. Neuropsychologia, 49(1), 83–​91. doi:10.1016/​j.neuropsychologia.2010.11.003 Han, S., & Northoff, G. (2008). Culture-​sensitive neural substrates of human cognition:  A transcultural neuroimaging approach. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(8), 646–​654. doi:10.1038/​nrn2456 Harmon-​Jones, E., Amodio, D. M., & Harmon-​Jones, C. (2009). Action-​based model of dissonance: A review, integration, and expansion of conceptions of cognitive conflict. In M. P. Zanna & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 41, pp. 119–​166). San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press. He, A. G., Tan, L. H., Tang, Y., James, G. A., Wright, P., Eckert, M. A., . . . Liu, Y. (2003). Modulation of neural connectivity during tongue movement and reading. Human Brain Mapping, 18(3), 222–​232. doi:10.1002/​hbm.10097

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 207

Hedden, T., Ketay, S., Aron, A., Markus, H. R., & Gabrieli, J. E. (2008). Cultural influences on neural substrates of attentional control. Psychological Science, 19(1), 12–​ 17. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2008.02038.x Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). Culture, dissonance, and self-​affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 389–​400. doi:10.1177/​0146167297234005 Hong, Y., Benet-​Martínez, V., Chiu, C., & Morris, M. W. (2003). Boundaries of cultural influence. Construct activation as a mechanism for cultural differences in social perception. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 34(4), 453–​464. doi:10.1177/​ 0022022103034004005 Hong, Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C., & Benet-​Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55(7), 709–​720. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.55.7.709 Hoshino-​Browne, E., Zanna, A. S., Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P., Kitayama, S., & Lackenbauer, S. (2005). On the cultural guises of cognitive dissonance:  The case of Easterners and Westerners. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(3), 294–​310. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.89.3.294 Ishii, K., Kobayashi, Y., & Kitayama, S. (2010). Interdependence modulates the brain response to word-​voice incongruity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-​3), 307–​317. doi:10.1093/​scan/​nsp044 Jenkins, L. J., Yang, Y., Goh, J., Hong, Y., & Park, D. C. (2010). Cultural differences in the lateral occipital complex while viewing incongruent scenes. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-​3), 236–​241. doi:10.1093/​scan/​nsp056 Kitayama, S., Chua, H. F., Tompson, S., & Han, S. (2013). Neural mechanisms of dissonance: An fMRI investigation of choice justification. Neuroimage, 69, 206–​212. doi:10.1016/​j.neuroimage.2012.11.034 Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., & Larsen, J. T. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural look at New Look. Psychological Science, 14(3), 201–​206. doi:10.1111/​1467-​9280.02432 Kitayama, S., & Park, J. (2010). Cultural neuroscience of the self:  Understanding the social grounding of the brain. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-​3), 111–​129. doi:10.1093/​scan/​nsq052 Kitayama, S., Park, H., Sevincer, A. T., Karasawa, M., & Uskul, A. K. (2009). A cultural task analysis of implicit independence:  Comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(2), 236–​ 255. doi:10.1037/​a0015999 Kitayama, S., Snibbe, A. C., Markus, H. R., & Suzuki, T. (2004). Is there any “free” choice? Self and dissonance in two cultures. Psychological Science, 15(8), 527–​533. Kutas, M., & Federmeier, K. D. (2011). Thirty years and counting: Finding meaning in the N400 component of the event-​related brain potential (ERP). Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 621–​647. doi:10.1146/​annurev.psych.093008.131123 Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. (1980). Reading senseless sentences:  Brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science, 207(4427), 203–​ 205. doi:10.1126/​ science.7350657 Lieberman, M. D., Jarcho, J. M., & Obayashi, J. (2005). Attributional inference across cultures: Similar automatic attributions and different controlled corrections. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(7), 889–​901. doi:10.1177/​0146167204274094

208 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Ma-​Kellams, C., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2011). I am against us? Unpacking cultural differences in ingroup favoritism via dialecticism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(1), 15–​27. doi:10.1177/​0146167210388193 Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self:  Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–​253. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.98.2.224 Masuda, T., Ellsworth, P. C., Mesquita, B., Leu, J., Tanida, S., & Van de Veerdonk, E. (2008). Placing the face in context: Cultural differences in the perception of facial emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(3), 365–​381. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.94.3.365 Masuda, T., & Kitayama, S. (2004). Perceiver-​induced constraint and attitude attribution in Japan and the US: A case for the cultural dependence of the correspondence bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40(3), 409–​416. doi:10.1016/​ j.jesp.2003.08.004 Miltner, W., Johnson, R., Braun, C., & Larbig, W. (1989). Somatosensory event-​related potentials to painful and non-​painful stimuli: Effects of attention. Pain, 38(3), 303–​ 312. doi:10.1016/​0304-​3959(89)90217-​0 Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 949–​971. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.67.6.949 Na, J., & Kitayama, S. (2011). Spontaneous trait inference is culture-​specific: Behavioral and neural evidence. Psychological Science, 22(8), 1025–​ 1032. doi:10.1177/​ 0956797611414727 Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently  . . .  and why. New York: Free Press. Nisbett, R. E., & Miyamoto, Y. (2005). The influence of culture:  Holistic versus analytic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(10), 467–​ 473. doi:10.1016/​ j.tics.2005.08.004 Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–​310. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.108.2.291 Oyserman, D., & Lee, S. W. (2008). Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 311–​342. doi:10.1037/​0033-​2909.134.2.311 Park, D. C., & Gutchess, A. H. (2006). The cognitive neuroscience of aging and culture. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(3), 105–​108. doi:10.1111/​ j.0963-​7214.2006.00416.x Peng, K., & Knowles, E. D. (2003). Culture, education, and the attribution of physical causality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(10), 1272–​1284. doi:10.1177/​0146167203254601 Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54(9), 741–​754. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.54.9.741 Prehn, K., Wartenburger, I., Mériau, K., Scheibe, C., Goodenough, O. R., Villringer, A., . . . Heekeren, H. R. (2008). Individual differences in moral judgment competence influence neural correlates of socio-​normative judgments. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3(1), 33–​46. doi:10.1093/​scan/​nsm037

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 209

Roese, N. J., & Sherman, J. W. (2007). Expectancy. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology:  Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 91–​115). New York: Guilford Press. Schirmer, A., & Kotz, S. A. (2003). ERP evidence for a sex-​specific Stroop effect in emotional speech. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(8), 1135–​1148. doi:10.1162/​ 089892903322598102 Segaert, K., Weber, K., de Lange, F. P., Petersson, K. M., & Hagoort, P. (2013). The suppression of repetition enhancement:  a review of fMRI studies. Neuropsychologia, 51(1), 59–​66. Singelis, T. M. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-​ construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(5), 580–​591. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167294205014 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Mori, S. C., Wang, L., & Peng, K. (2009). The dialectical self-​concept:  Contradiction, change, and holism in East Asian cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(1), 29–​44. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(11), 1416–​1432. doi:10.1177/​0146167204264243 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction: A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(3), 296–​312. Talhelm, T., Zhang, X., Oishi, S., Shimin, C., Duan, D., Lan, X., & Kitayama, S. (2014). Large-​scale psychological differences within China explained by rice versus wheat agriculture. Science, 344(6184), 603–​608. doi:10.1126/​science.1246850 Tang Y., & Liu Y. (2009). Numbers in the cultural brain. Progress in Brain Research, 178, 151–​157. doi:10.1016/​S0079-​6123(09)17810-​X Tang, Y., Zhang, W., Chen, K., Feng, S., Ji, Y., Shen, J., . . . Liu, Y. (2006). Arithmetic processing in the brain shaped by cultures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(28), 10755–​10780. doi:10.1073/​ pnas.0604416103 Trafimow, D., Triandis, H. C., & Goto, S. G. (1991). Some tests of the distinction between the private self and the collective self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(5), 649–​655. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.60.5.649 Uleman, J. S., Saribay, S. A., & Gonzalez, C. M. (2008). Spontaneous inferences, implicit impressions, and implicit theories. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 329–​360. doi:10.1146/​annurev.psych.59.103006.093707 Uskul, A. K., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2008). Ecocultural basis of cognition:  Farmers and fishermen are more holistic than herders. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(25), 8552–​8556. doi:10.1073/​pnas.0803874105 van Veen, V., Krug, M. K., Schooler, J. W., & Carter, C. S. (2009). Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance. Nature Neuroscience, 12(11), 1469–​1474. doi:10.1038/​nn.2413 Varnum, M., Grossmann, I., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. (2010). The origin of cultural differences in cognition:  Evidence for the social orientation hypothesis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 9–​13. doi:10.1177/​0963721409359301

210 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Vogt, B. A., Vogt, L., & Laureys, S. (2006). Cytology and functionally correlated circuits of human posterior cingulate areas. Neuroimage, 29(2), 452–​466. doi:10.1016/​ j.neuroimage.2005.07.048 Wang, Y., Deng, Y., Sui, D., & Tang, Y. (2014). Neural correlates of cultural differences in moral decision making: A combined ERP and sLORETA study. Neuroreport, 25(2), 110–​116. doi:10.1097/​WNR.0000000000000077 Wu, S., & Keysar, B. (2007). The effect of culture on perspective taking. Psychological Science, 18(7), 600–​606. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2007.01946.x Yuan, J., Zhang, Q., Chen, A., Li, H., Wang, Q., Zhuang, Z., & Jia, S. (2007). Are we sensitive to valence differences in emotionally negative stimuli? Electrophysiological evidence from an ERP study. Neuropsychologia, 45(12), 2764–​2771. doi:10.1016/​ j.neuropsychologia.2007.04.018 Zhu, Y., Zhang, L., Fan, J., & Han, S. (2007). Neural basis of cultural influence on self-​representation. Neuroimage, 34(3), 1310–​1316. doi:10.1016/​j.neuroimage.2006.08.047

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking 

| 211



­C HAPTER 7

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-​Dialectically Cultural Variations in Online Decision-​Making Processes Takahiko Masuda, Liman Man Wai Li, and Matthew J. Russell

Phenomena in the world are complex and multifaceted. People need to interpret phenomena according to their experiential knowledge. As actors in this complicated world, we do our best to make do. Ever-​engaged in dynamic, multifarious situations, we navigate our lives by applying pre-​ existing knowledge and meaning systems to interpret and judge our experiences. To illustrate, take the example of a homeowner contemplating his or her front lawn. For the conscientious homeowner staring out at a multitude of dandelions protruding through an otherwise well-​kept lawn, the yellow plant is viewed as an onerous weed. Ever-​growing and infesting the homeowner’s lawn, dandelions are a yellow terror, needing to be picked and discarded. In another context, however, these same dandelions might be seen as beautiful flowers. Carefully picked and collected, the dandelions can be formed into a delightful, golden flower-​crown to put on your head and wear as you enjoy your time outside on a fine summer’s eve. Actually, dandelions can carry a wide range of interpretations:  a weed, a food, a flower, a decoration, a symbol of spring, or even a medicine, depending on the context. It is only through our life experiences that we can truly determine which meaning to apply to our surroundings (Shweder, 1991). In fact, as humans, we continually engage in meaning-​making and maintenance processes to understand and interpret our world (Deacon, 1997, 2011; Heine, Proulx, & Vohs, 2006; Tomasello, 1999, 2008, 2009). As social beings, people tend to share specific meanings of objects—​a

middle-​class North American homeowner may be biased toward interpreting the dandelion as a weed, but a Chinese person may instead tend to regard the dandelion as a medicine. Cultural psychologists have termed these collections of common and shared meanings in given cultures and civilizations meaning systems (e.g., Bruner, 1990; Geertz, 1973; Miller, 1999; Shweder, 1990), lay theories (e.g., Dweck & Legget, 1988), folk epistemologies (the “ways of knowing” the world; Spencer-​ Rodgers & Peng, 2004, p.  228), implicit cultural beliefs (Chiu, Morris, Hong, & Menon, 2000; Hong, Chiu, Dweck, Lin, & Wan, 1999) or systems of thought (e.g., Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001), and worldviews (e.g., Masuda, Wang, Ishii, & Ito, 2012). Over the past several decades, cultural psychologists have empirically investigated the systematic influences of culturally shared meanings on human cognition, yielding ample evidence that culture and human psychology are mutually constituted (Shweder, 1990). In this chapter, we explore how cultural meaning systems influence people’s judgment and decision-​ making processes, focusing on naïve dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999)  and holism (Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett & Masuda, 2003)  and the divergent perceptions of East Asians, as representative holders of dialectical and holistic thinking styles, and North Americans, as representative holders of non-​dialectical and analytic thinking styles (e.g., Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2004). First, we review past research that clearly shows that people’s attentional and social processes are affected by dialecticism. Next, we report recent findings on the online processes by which people reach their decisions. After this, we describe other recent findings from our research group on how dialectical processes affect resource allocation, personality judgments, and people’s memories. Finally, we bring these findings into context and discuss possible future topics of research.

Naïve Dialecticism between East Asians and North Americans Naïve dialecticism refers to a constellation of lay cultural beliefs about how the world is organized and is grounded in historic East Asian philosophical traditions such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism (e.g., Spencer-​Rodgers, Boucher, Mori, Wang, & Peng, 2009; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2012; for a review, see Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010). Dialecticism emphasizes three major principles: the theory

214 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

of change, the theory of contradiction, and the theory of holism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). The theory of change (Bian Yi Lu) refers to the idea that the world is in constant flux (Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2004) and states that reality is constantly changing, with all things continually shifting from one state to another (e.g., unhappiness changes to happiness, light becomes dark, etc.). The theory of contradiction (Mao Dun Lu) refers to the idea that the world consists of two opposing aspects in harmony and balance (e.g., the yin and yang), with entities and situations simultaneously consisting of opposing, contradictory elements. Finally, holism (Zheng He Lu) is the overarching essence of dialectical thinking (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). It refers to the idea that nothing is isolated or independent. Instead, everything is interconnected, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The principle of holism implies that individuals tend to develop holistic strategies for viewing the world—​that is, to better understand an entity or situation, they will look at the event as a whole, rather than focusing only on a specific part. Related to the principle of holism, dialectical cultures (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) have been shown to develop holistic thinking styles (Nisbett, 2003). In particular, East Asian cultures are more likely than North American cultures (e.g., in Canada and the United States) to apply holistic thinking styles in their cognitions (Cromer, 1993; Munro, 1985; Nakamura, 1964/​ 1985; Needham, 1954, 1962; Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett et al., 2001; Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2010). This line of research reasons that East Asian cultures historically developed social practices in which people were expected to interpret phenomena contextually and holistically—​ being strongly influenced by traditional East Asian folk epistemology. Western European cultures and North American cultures, in contrast, were influenced by Aristotle’s formal logic, developing analytic thinking styles which state that entities exist independently from their contexts, and therefore, it is important to focus on entities while ignoring contextual information. For the purposes of this chapter, we use the terms holistic thinking and holistic to refer to field dependence as a locus of attention that emphasizes interconnections and interrelationships among phenomena, and analytic thinking and analytic to refer to field independence as a locus of attention that emphasizes a focus on entities as independent from context. We use the terms dialectical thinking and dialecticism to refer to the three overarching dialectical constructs (i.e., contradiction, change, and holism) and non-​dialectical thinking and non-​dialecticism as the North American

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 215

contrasting style of viewing the world. For a detailed discussion regarding terminology, refer to Chapter 1 of this volume.

Empirical Evidence: Cultural Variation in Perceptual-​Cognitive Processes A plethora of behavioral studies have provided evidence of systematic cultural variation related to dialecticism with regard to fundamental perceptual-​cognitive processes. For example, East Asians are more likely than their North American counterparts to demonstrate holistic tendencies, such as when describing scenes with more contextual information and remembering objects in relation to their contexts (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001), performing well on tasks that require attention to the context (Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003), performing worse on tasks that require attention to focal objects (Ji, Peng, & Nisbett, 2000), detecting changes in background scenes better (Masuda, Ishii, & Kimura, 2016; Masuda & Nisbett, 2006), and applying holistic reasoning to various perceptual and decision-​making tasks (e.g., Ji, 2008; Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001; Norenzayan, Smith, Kim, & Nisbett, 2002; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). These earlier findings have been further supported by recent cutting-​ edge methodologies, revealing cultural differences related to holistic thinking with eye-​tracking and neuroscience techniques. Eye-​tracking studies have measured patterns of attention by tracking eye movements, directly measuring the number and duration of eye fixations when participants were asked to view scenes (e.g., Chua, Boland, & Nisbett, 2005; Senzaki, Masuda, & Ishii, 2014). The results of these studies document that East Asians are more likely than their North American counterparts to holistically allocate their attention, focusing on both the foreground and background. Similarly, recent cultural neuroscience studies examining brain-​related events through electroencephalography (EEG) have revealed differences in how cultures process foreground and background information, with East Asians tending to exhibit more error-​related processing when foreground objects do not properly fit background environments, an effect which is not seen among North Americans (Goto, Ando, Huang, Yee, & Lewis, 2010; Goto, Yee, Lowenberg, & Lewis, 2013). Similarly, East Asians exhibit greater sensitivity to emotional incongruence between verbal content and voice tone (Ishii, Kobayashi, & Kitayama, 2010). Researchers have also examined the developmental and socialization processes that give rise to these dialectical vs. non-​dialectical cultural

216 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

tendencies. Developmental studies have begun to investigate when culturally divergent patterns of locus of attention develop, revealing that cultural differences related to dialecticism and holism tend to become stronger during elementary school years. As East Asian children get older, they are more likely than their North American counterparts to apply holistic attention, showing these differences by the age of 6 years when they engage in the framed-​line task (Duffy, Toriyama, Itakura & Kitayama, 2009) and when they describe scenes (Imada, Carlson, & Itakura, 2013), revealing differences by the age of 11 years in expectance of change (related to the dialectical theory of change; Ji, 2008), and differences by the age of 4 when perceiving the relational nature of social events (Kuwabara & Smith, 2012; Kuwabara, Son, & Smith, 2011). Although the age of emergence of cultural variation in behavior varies across different tasks, these cultural differences tend to stabilize during elementary school years. To our knowledge, no studies have examined the onset of cultural differences in tolerance of contradiction. Paralleling cultural differences in basic cognition, cultural variation is seen in social cognition, self-​perception, attitude inference, causal attribution, social judgment, and decision-​making. For example, many studies have demonstrated that East Asians are more likely than North Americans to exhibit and accept inconsistency in their self-​concept (e.g., English & Chen, 2007, 2011; Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001; Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2004; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004; for a review, see Chapter 14 in this volume), suggesting that they dialectically perceive themselves according to varying contexts. Along these lines, East Asians are less likely to show the correspondence bias, referring to both internal and external factors when linking others’ attitudes to their behaviors (Choi & Nisbett; 1998; Choi, Nisbett, & Norezayan, 1999; Masuda & Kitayama, 2004; Miyamoto & Kitayama, 2002; Norenzayan, Choi, & Nisbett, 1999; Norenzayan & Nisbett, 2000). Likewise, East Asians tend to explain potential causes or consequences of events by equally attributing them to internal and external factors (Choi, Koo, & Choi, 2007; Kitayama, Ishii, Imada, Takemura, & Ramaswamy, 2006; Koo & Choi, 2005; Morris & Peng, 1994), and when judging a focal actor’s emotional state, they take into account the emotional states of surrounding others, even when they are instructed to judge the central person’s emotional state and not those of others (Masuda, Ellsworth, Mesquita, Leu, Tanida, & van de Veerdonk, 2008; Masuda et al., 2012). Importantly, these findings suggest that cultural differences in meaning systems related to dialecticism guide not only fundamental

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 217

perceptual-​cognitive processes but also social behaviors. The question then becomes, how do differences in dialecticism and holism affect people’s behaviors in real-​life choices and decisions? Recent research has begun to answer this question, revealing that meaning systems do guide East Asians aesthetic preferences and choices in holistic ways: East Asians are more likely than North Americans to produce context-​rich artwork and portraits (Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, & Nisbett, 2008), to use context-​rich profile photos on their Facebook pages (Huang & Park, 2013), and to aesthetically and functionally prefer context-​rich Web designs (Wang, Masuda, Ito, & Rashid, 2012). Our cultural meaning systems motivate us to attend to the world in a certain way, they influence our sociality, and these cultural biases then influence how we act. With this in mind, we maintain that cultural meaning systems similarly affect our everyday lives, with culturally specific processes influencing the ways in which we make judgments and decisions.

Culture and Decision-​Making Every day we encounter a multitude of situations in which we have to make decisions of varying importance. In the morning, we choose what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, when to leave home, what to bring with us to work or school, whether or not to walk or drive—​and all of this occurs even before leaving our homes. Our decisions range from trivial (such as what to eat) to important and impactful (such as where to work or whom to marry). Regardless of culture or context, we cannot escape the fact that we need to make decisions regularly to make it through our lives. However, how we go about our decision-​making processes substantially varies across cultures. Consequently, the topic of culture and judgment and decision-​making has been investigated by many researchers, with studies on cultural differences in causal attribution (Shteynberg, Gelfand, & Kim, 2009; Zou et al., 2009), probability judgments (e.g., Yates, Lee, & Bush, 1997; Yates, Lee, & Shinotsuka, 1996), risk perception and choice (e.g., Bontempo, Bottom, & Weber, 1997; Weber & Milliman, 1997; Du, Green, & Myerson, 2002; Lau & Ranyard, 2005), conflict resolution (e.g., Leung, 1988; Savani, Morris, Naidu, Kumar, & Berlia, 2011), and consumer behavior (e.g., Briley, Morris, & Simonson, 2000; Ji, Zhang, & Guo, 2008). More specifically, the culture and decision-​making literature has documented that dialectical and holistic meaning systems guide decisions and

218 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

judgments. In one area, researchers have demonstrated that East Asians are more likely than North Americans to hold a holistic view of phenomena, believing that phenomena are influenced by multiple causes and lead to multiple consequences (Maddux & Yuki, 2006; Spina et  al., 2010). Spina and colleagues (2010) demonstrated that when searching for the causes of a given phenomenon (e.g., a disease outbreak), East Asians, compared to North Americans, tended to perceive the outcome of a single event as deriving from multiple antecedent causes. The researchers also replicated this pattern by priming analytic and holistic thinking styles in North American participants. Holistically primed participants perceived that more antecedent causes were associated with an event than did those in the analytic-​prime condition. East Asians also tend to dialectically predict that the future consequences of decisions are broader in scope—​both spatially and temporally—​and make decisions based on the assumption that future trends can change dramatically from current ones (for a review, see Chapter 3 in this volume; Ji, 2008; Ji et al., 2001, 2008; Ji, Guo, Zhang, & Messervey, 2009). Focusing on cultural differences in stock decisions, Ji et al. (2008) examined North Americans’ and East Asians’ predictions regarding stock market trends, by manipulating different stock profiles (increasing, stable, and decreasing trends). Participants were presented with various profiles and asked to decide whether they would sell or buy the stock. Ji and colleagues (2008) found that East Asian stock market decisions were affected by a broader dialectical temporal scope of information: both recent and past information affected Chinese’ buying and selling decisions; in contrast, North Americans selectively focused on recent information showing immediate stock trends. Additionally, research demonstrates that East Asians tend to take information into account holistically, as compared to North Americans (Choi, Dalal, Kim-​Prieto, & Park, 2003). For example, looking at the information people contemplated and weighed in a mock murder case, Choi et al. (2003) asked participants to decide whether a range of available information was important to the motive of the murderer. This study found that East Asians hesitated to exclude information, in comparison to North Americans. Embedding people in their situational contexts, East Asians seem to need to view information holistically before making their judgments and decisions. Combined, these findings provide initial evidence that dialecticism (and holism) plays an important role in the East Asian decision-​making process. However, most of the previous work has tended to focus on the final

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 219

outcomes of decisions and post hoc analyses of possible factors influencing them, paying less attention to the processes that are occurring before people reach final decisions. In order to comprehensively understand how cultural thinking styles influence people’s decision-​making, we elaborated on how culture affects online (antecedent and immediate) processes. Our research parallels findings in cultural psychology, indicating that culture not only affects outcomes but also influences various processes antecedent to these outcomes. These online differences are sometimes evident, even when there is cultural similarity in behavioral outcomes (e.g., Hedden, Ketay, Aron, Markus, & Gabrieli, 2008; Masuda, Russell, Chen, Hioki, & Caplan, 2014).

Potential Cultural Differences in the Online Decision-​Making Process In the following section, we introduce two lines of cross-​cultural research investigating how online decision making processes differ between East Asian and North American cultures. Based on previous cross-​cultural findings, we investigated several potentially important aspects of the online decision-​making process (Li, Masuda, & Russell, 2014, 2015). In one line of research (Li et al., 2015), we examined cultural variation in (1) the type of information used in decisions and (2) the quantity of information used in decisions. In a second set of studies (Li et al., 2014), we investigated how cultural meaning systems influence people’s indecisiveness in decision-​making. We also examined the boundary conditions under which cultural variation in decision-​making is observed, and we show how cultural differences in decision-​making can be moderated by time constraints, the nature of the decision task (e.g., involving the exclusion vs. inclusion of available information), and the type of decision made (e.g., routine vs. important).

Type of Information Used in Decisions When making decisions, people need to access necessary pieces of information before making the decisions. The type of information they access, however, can vary due to cultural beliefs. As described earlier, Masuda and colleagues (e.g., Masuda & Nisbett, 2001, 2006; Masuda, Ellsworth, et al., 2008; Masuda et al., 2012; Senzaki, Masuda, & Ishii, 2014) have repeatedly demonstrated that East Asians are more likely to holistically

220 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

allocate their attention to both focal objects and contextual information, whereas North Americans selectively attend to focal objects. Replicating these findings in the decision-​making domain, Choi et al. (2003) showed that this attentional bias also was observed in their murder motive study, finding that Koreans tended to consider more information, both relevant and not, whereas Americans selectively focused on the most relevant pieces of information. Thus East Asians, as holistic thinkers, have a lower threshold in terms of the perceived relevance of the elements of a given phenomenon—​more available information needs to be taken into account because entities in our world are not isolated and independent. North Americans, by contrast, as analytic thinkers, selectively differentiate information they think is important from other information that they think is peripheral—​effectively isolating entities from their contexts. We expected that East Asians would exhibit similar cultural biases in their online decision-​making processes, attending to both important and less important information, whereas North Americans would focus strictly on important information.

Quantity of Information Used in Decisions Prior work has also revealed that East Asians include more information in various tasks than do North Americans. For example, cultural products (e.g., posters for conferences, government portal pages, and university portal pages) produced by East Asians are more information-​rich than are those of North Americans (Wang et al., 2012). Similarly, East Asians tend to include more information than North Americans when asked to draw pictures or take photos (e.g., Masuda, Gonzalez, et  al., 2008; Senzaki, Masuda, & Nand, 2014). Related to judgments and decisions, East Asians have been shown to assume complex causal relationships between causes and outcomes (Choi et al., 2003; Ji et al., 2008; Spina et al., 2010). Taken together, results from these studies led us to expect that East Asians would demonstrate a holistic need for information, seeking a greater amount of information in their online decision-​making processes, relative to North Americans.

Indecisiveness in Decisions We assumed that East Asians, as holistic thinkers, would also experience greater perceived difficulty when making final decisions than North Americans, given their inability to separate entities from their contexts,

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 221

their tendency to consider multiple perspectives and sides of an issue, their expectation that phenomena will change, and their greater tendency to tolerate, rather than reject, contradictory pieces of information (Ji, Peng, & Nisbett, 2000; Nisbett, 2003; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). This decision difficulty is termed indecisiveness (Germeijs & DeBoeck, 2002). Specifically, it refers to people’s general tendency to perceive and experience decision difficulties and has been indexed in terms of decision speed (with longer decision times indicating greater indecisiveness) and self-​reported experiences of indecision (e.g., via the Indecisiveness Scale; Frost & Shows, 1993). Although no direct evidence exists for the relationship between holism, dialecticism, and indecisiveness, research on attitudinal ambivalence indirectly supported our assumptions. For example, Hamamura (2004) asked East Asian and North American participants to indicate their attitudes toward a wide range of social issues (e.g., “Abortion should not be done under any circumstances”), finding that East Asians exhibit a greater degree of ambivalence in their attitudes than do European Canadians. More importantly, participants’ dialectical beliefs (scores on the Dialectical Self Scale [DSS]; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2015) mediated this cultural difference, with greater dialectical beliefs being associated with increased ambivalence. Hamamura, Heine, and Paulhus (2008) found similar ambivalent patterns with self-​esteem and personality judgments, providing evidence that dialectical thinking mediates cultural differences in moderate and ambivalent responding. Likewise, in another study, East Asian Canadians exhibited greater acceptance of ambivalent attitudes (Ng, Hynie, & MacDonald, 2012). Taken together, these findings suggest that greater exposure to dialectical meaning systems leads to more ambivalent experiences. We maintain that this sense of ambivalence would then lead to greater indecisiveness during decision-​making processes because ambivalent attitudes fail to provide clear guides for decisions.

Empirical Findings from Cross-​Cultural Research on Online Decision-​Making Processes In this section, we introduce findings from two research projects we have conducted recently. First, we discuss findings from Li, Masuda, and Russell’s (2015) study, in which we investigated East Asians’ and North Americans’ type and quantity of information used during decision-​making tasks. Second, we present findings from Li, Masuda, and Russell’s study

222 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

(2014) in which we investigated the relationship between dialecticism and indecisiveness.

The Type and Quantity of Information Sought for Decisions In the study by Li and colleagues (2015), we asked both Hong Kong Chinese, a representative group of dialectical thinkers, and European Canadians, a representative group of non-​dialectical thinkers, to search for an apartment for themselves. The information was presented on a computer screen, in which a grid revealed five possible apartments (apartments A  through F) and six apartment attributes (noise level, neighbourhood, apartment size, rent, suite features, and building amenities), presented as row and column headings, respectively. Predetermined content for each cell was initially hidden but (secretly) contained information about the quality of the apartment attributes—​from very poor to very good. Participants were told they could access as much or as little information needed for their decisions by clicking target cells on the grid to reveal the hidden information. Prior to the decision task, participants were asked to judge the importance of each attribute for their apartment decision. During the information search process, the information that participants accessed was recorded. These data were subsequently analyzed, in combination with the importance ratings, to determine (1) the type and (2) the quantity of information participants sought. First, in line with past findings (e.g. Masuda & Nisbett, 2001, 2006; Senzaki, Masuda, & Ishii, 2014), Hong Kong Chinese attended to information they perceived as both important and less important, whereas European Canadians focused on information they perceived as important (see Figure 7.1). We interpret this result as evidence of East Asians’ holistic approach to accessing information—​holistically viewing the world, they are less motivated to differentiate between the type of information they access, selecting both relevant and non-​relevant information in their decision-​making process. North Americans, by contrast, access information they think is highly relevant and important for their decisions. We maintain that both strategies (holistic vs. analytic) are adaptive when following the logic and culturally based meaning systems dominant in one’s culture (East Asian vs. Western). As part of this research project, we also identified the boundary conditions under which cultural variation is observed in the decision-​making process, by imposing time constraints on participants’ decision-​making. Under a time constraint, cultural variation in online decision-​making processes disappeared, with both cultures showing a focus on perceived important information (see Figure 7.1).

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 223

Attribute importance and quantity of information used correlation

0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4

European Canadians Hong Kong Chinese

0.3 0.2 0.1 0

No time constraint

Time constraint

Figure 7.1  Correlations between perceived importance of attributes and quantity of information accessed, which indicates the attention allocated to important versus less important information in the decision-​making task (a higher correlation denotes a stronger focus on important information), for the no time constraint and time constraint conditions, by culture (with standard error bars).

An interesting facet of this research project is that our analyses indicated that there was no cultural variation in the overall quantity of information taken into account by Hong Kong Chinese and European Canadians. We attribute this unexpected result to the framing of our experimental task. Choi et al. (2003) found that East Asians took into account a larger quantity of information than did Americans when participants were explicitly asked to exclude unnecessary information. However, in the present task, participants were asked to include relevant information from the available sources. Thus, we reason that the discrepancy between Choi et al.’s and our findings is due to the difference in the nature of the tasks (involving exclusion vs. inclusion) and to cultural differences in approach versus avoidance orientations in which East Asians are generally more avoidance oriented, whereas Westerners are more approach oriented (e.g., Hamamura, Meijer, Heine, Kamaya, & Hori, 2009). In Choi et al.’s task (involving exclusion), the contextual information is already present and readily available. As such, the East Asian participants could easily attend to and retain contextual information, presumably owing to their avoidance tendencies (motivating them to avoid losing available information), making cultural differences more pronounced in this context. In contrast, in our task (involving inclusion), the contextual information was not visible. As it requires extra effort to access the contextual information, the task is approach oriented, thus perhaps eliminating cultural differences in this

224 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

context. Future research could test this possibility by manipulating the nature of the task (exclusion vs. inclusion) among East Asian and Western participants and examining its effect on the amount of information used in decision-​making.

Dialecticism and Indecisiveness In a second line of research (Li et al., 2014), we focused on the relationship between cultural meanings systems and indecisiveness. We assumed that (1) East Asians would be more indecisive than North Americans (as indexed by self-​reported felt indecision); (2) dialecticism would mediate this culture difference in indecisiveness; (3) holistically primed individuals would be more indecisive than those analytically primed; and (4) the importance of the decision would be a key factor influencing indecisiveness, with culture and dialecticism playing key roles in indecisiveness for everyday (routine) decisions but not for important decisions. In Study 1, we conducted a simple survey study, asking Hong Kong Chinese and European Canadians to complete the Dialectical Self Scale (Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2015)  and the Indecisiveness Scale (Frost & Shows, 1993). First, replicating findings from previous studies (Spencer-​ Rogers et  al., 2010), our results indicated that Hong Kong Chinese reported significantly higher scores on the DSS (M = 4.09, SD = .42) than did European Canadians (M  =  3.57, SD  =  .79). Second, we found that cultural differences in indecisiveness were fully mediated by dialecticism. Consistent with our results, Ng and Hynie (2014) found a similar relationship between dialecticism and indecisiveness. They found that participants’ dialectical beliefs explained the difference in indecisiveness between European and East Asian Canadians, with strongly dialectical East Asian Canadians being more indecisive than European Canadians. In Study 2, we aimed to show causality between dialecticism (and, more specifically, holism) and indecisiveness by manipulating holistic thinking. This time, we targeted only one cultural group (European Canadians) to control for other confounding variables. Previous studies show that North Americans can be successfully primed to think dialectically and holistically (e.g., Alter & Kwan, 2009; Ma-​Kellams & Blascovich, 2012; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2009; Study 4). For this study, we manipulated holism, randomly assigning participants to either a holistic or an analytic priming condition in which they read a passage and summarized it in a few sentences (Maddux, Lau, Chiu, Hong, & Yuki, 2007). Those in the

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 225

holistic priming condition were presented with a passage that emphasized that things in the world are interconnected, whereas those in the analytic priming condition read that things in the world exist independently of each other. Participants then completed three selection tasks in which they were asked to make decisions about unfamiliar machines, pretending they were a laboratory manager who was responsible for purchasing lab machines from a list (i.e., a relatively non-​routine and unfamiliar task). The indicator of indecisiveness used in the study was the amount of time participants used before reaching their final decision. We hypothesized that decision speeds would be significantly slower among participants in the holistic prime condition, as it should encourage North Americans to adopt a more complex attentional pattern (in comparison to the analytic prime), and the task was relatively unfamiliar and non-​routine. Indeed, participants in the holistic condition spent significantly more time making decisions than did those in the analytic condition. Although we did not collect East Asian data, we assume that they also would experience a similar delay in their decisions following the holistic prime, as they would then take into account more information. In Study 3, we further articulated the contexts in which the relationship between culture and indecisiveness would be stronger and weaker, examining the relationships between culture, dialecticism, and indecisiveness when people make career-​relevant (important) decisions and everyday (routine) decisions. First, Hong Kong Chinese and European Canadian participants completed the DSS (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2015). Next, they reported how much they subjectively felt indecisive about two decision types: (1) everyday decisions (e.g., making a decision about what to have for dinner) and (2) important decisions (e.g., making a decision about their future career), by using a modified version of the Indecisiveness Scale (Frost & Shows, 1993). Consistent with Study 1, Hong Kong Chinese were more dialectical than European Canadians (based on DSS scores). Also, people tended to be more indecisive in general for important career decisions than routine dinner decisions. We further found that Hong Kong Chinese were more indecisive than European Canadians when they made routine decisions, and dialectical beliefs accounted for this cultural difference. However, indecisiveness was not significantly different between Hong Kong Chinese and European Canadians for important career decisions. In sum, our second set of studies demonstrated that East Asians are more indecisive than North Americans, and cultural differences in indecisiveness are mediated by dialecticism (Study 1); that holistically primed North Americans show more indecisiveness (as indexed by slower decision

226 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

speeds) than those analytically primed (Study 2); and that cultural differences in indecisiveness are most pronounced for everyday decisions (Study 3). Again, this pattern was mediated by dialecticism (DSS scores) but only for routine decisions. In the case of important decisions, Hong Kong Chinese and European Canadians did not differ in indecisiveness.

Discussion of the Findings In the studies by Li et al. (2014, 2015), we demonstrated some nuances in cultural variation in online decision-​making processes. The study findings indicate that people from dialectical cultures are less likely than people from non-​dialectical cultures to differentiate between types of information, allocating attention to information that is both deemed important and information that is deemed less important. At the same time, we identified that dialectical and holistic thinking often makes people more indecisive than does non-​dialectical and analytic thinking. This statement is given credence by the findings that (1)  people from dialectical cultures self-​ report more indecisiveness than do those from non-​dialectical cultures, (2) there is a strong association between dialecticism and indecisiveness scales, and (3) those primed with holistic thoughts are more likely than those analytically primed to experience indecisiveness. Our findings further articulate which specific conditions foster and suppress cultural variation in decision making processes. We found that several factors moderated the emergence of cultural variation in the online decision-​making process, including time constraints (Li et al., 2015), the nature of the decision task (exclusion vs. inclusion of information), and the type of decision being made (Li et  al., 2014). We would argue that some situational constraints discourage people’s use of naturally acquired cultural decision-​making styles, leading to cultural similarities in the decision-​making process:  regardless of how dialectical people are, they are more likely to focus on more important information under time constraints and to experience indecisiveness when they make important decisions. In other words, dialectical patterns of decision-​making processes appear especially (1) when there is enough time for people to make decisions, and (2) when the decisions are simple, everyday ones. We maintain that it is crucial to examine context, as it deepens our understanding of the interplay between cultural meaning systems and situational constraints on people’s psychological processes. Future studies should investigate the circumstances under which cultural differences in decision-​making emerge and disappear, by systematically varying situational factors.

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 227

Summary and Implications Previous cross-​cultural research has focused primarily on the final outcomes of decision-​making (e.g., Briley et al., 2000; Choi et al., 2003; Ji, 2008; Ji et al., 2001, 2008, 2009). However, final decisions are the result of online decision-​making processes, and cultural meaning systems guide how people go about making decisions. By targeting a culturally based folk epistemology—​dialecticism—​our research has broadened the scope of the literature on culture and decision-​making.

Dialecticism and Judgments: Resource Allocation, Personality, and Memory In addition to our research on online decision-​making processes, we have conducted several other studies investigating dialecticism and judgments. Our research group has begun investigations into how dialectical/​non-​ dialectical beliefs and attention styles affect people’s judgments regarding (1) how to allocate resources, (2) how to rate their context-​based personalities, and (3) how to differentiate previously seen information from new information. In the following section, we briefly review some of these findings.

Resource Allocation We maintain that to comprehensively understand human decision-​making in its cultural context, we need to pay attention to both decision-​making processes and outcomes. In line with this thinking, we initiated a research project focusing on the processes and outcomes of resource allocation decisions (Li, Masuda, Hamamura, & Ishii, 2017). Hong Kong Chinese and European Canadian participants were asked to imagine being the commander of an army whose mission was to defend its military fort. They were then told that a battle tank was approaching one of eight gates attached to the fort. Their task was to consider the possibility of the enemy’s tanks attacking each gate and decide how to allocate soldiers to each gate. The salient information was the distance between the enemy and the gates of the fort, shown through the placement of a static tank close to one of the gates (held constant for each cultural group). The results of this study indicated that there was a significant interaction between participants’ cultural background and the location of the soldiers. Specifically, Hong Kong Chinese tended to allocate more soldiers to more distant gates as compared

228 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

to European Canadians. In addition, East Asians thought the probability of attack on the farther gates was higher than did European Canadians. Lastly, we coded the answers participants provided for explaining their strategy of soldier allocation into dialectical versus non-​dialectical responses. If participants focused primarily on the distance between the tank and gates, responses were coded as non-​dialectical. If participants did not mention the distance as a concern, responses were coded as dialectical (e.g., “I’m unsure where the tank is going to attack, thus I allocated soldiers to all gates.”). The results indicated that Hong Kong Chinese gave more dialectical responses than non-​dialectical responses, whereas European Canadians gave more non-​dialectical responses than dialectical responses. We interpreted these responses as showing that Hong Kong Chinese, as dialectical thinkers, thought that the tanks’ movements would be complex, approaching in a non-​linear way (e.g., possibly moving to other gates around the fort), whereas European Canadians, as non-​dialectical thinkers, thought that the tanks’ movements would be simple, approaching in a linear fashion (e.g., if the tank appears on the west side of the fort, it would attack the west gate). If these assumptions are correct, then a dialectical manipulation (i.e., presenting a tank moving around the fort) should lead participants to disperse soldiers to many gates, in contrast to a non-​dialectical manipulation (i.e., presenting a tank moving linearly). Our results supported this assumption, and cultural differences disappeared with these manipulations, showing that dialectical (changeable) and non-​ dialectical (linear) movement assumptions likely drive soldier placement. When North Americans and Hong Kong Chinese view the world dialectically following the dialectical manipulation, both spread out their resources. However, when they view the world non-​dialectically, both concentrated their resource allocations.

Consistency and Judgments In another recent study, we investigated how robust North American consistency norms are and if a dialectical manipulation can be used to suppress them (Russell, Li, & Masuda, 2016). As an extension of North American individualism (Triandis, 2001) and analytic thinking (Nisbett, 2003), North Americans are necessarily motivated to seek self-​consistency (Suh, 2002) as a kind of cultural consistency norm. Presented with possible self-​inconsistencies, North Americans experience aversive dissonance that they are motivated to correct for cognitively, behaviorally, or affectively (Festinger, 1957). Related to these consistency norms, North Americans

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 229

are also more likely to behave consistently, with North Americans answering more consistently (e.g., rating themselves as either extraverted or introverted) relative to East Asians (e.g., who may rate themselves as both extraverted and introverted). Interestingly, individuals’ dialectical beliefs mediate this response style difference (for a review, see Chapter 14 in this volume; Church et  al., 2012; Hamamura et  al., 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004), with greater dialectic beliefs being associated with greater inconsistent responding. With this finding in mind, our research group investigated if North Americans would be motivated to correct for potential answering inconsistencies when they were evident, and if a dialectical manipulation would suppress consistency norms and promote the acceptance of contradiction. Previous research suggests that dialectic manipulations are successful among European Americans (Alter & Kwan, 2009) and that consistency norms can be overcome by a simple mirror manipulation (Heine, Takemoto, Moskalenko, Lasaleta, & Henrich, 2008), but research had yet to link dialectical manipulations to the acceptance of self-​inconsistencies. For this study, North American participants were assigned to either a dialectical manipulation condition or a default consistency norm condition and asked to rate themselves on trait words in six roles (i.e., with friends, with family, with strangers, etc.). The six judgments were made simultaneously to make possible inconsistencies salient and to motivate participants to follow consistency norms. In the dialectical manipulation condition, participants read a story that reminded them that people are often inconsistent across situations and then wrote about how this applies to their life. Participants in the default consistency norm condition did not receive any special instructions. Participants’ chronic or stable dialectical beliefs (as measured by the DSS; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2015) were measured prior to the study as a measure of people’s pre-​existing beliefs about the changeability and inconsistency of the self (Church et al., 2012; Hamamura et al., 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). The main dependent variable was the standard deviation (SD) index (Church et al., 2012), with higher SD indices reflecting more deviation across roles and greater inconsistency when responding. We examined the effect of condition (dialectical manipulation vs. default consistency norm) and pre-​existing dialectical beliefs (DSS) on participants’ answering inconsistency (SD index). The results indicated that there was a significant interaction between condition and pre-​existing dialectical beliefs (see Figure 7.2). As expected, North Americans in the default consistency condition were presumably motivated by culturally

230 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

0.76 Answering Inconsistency (SD-Index)

0.74 0.72 0.70 0.68 0.66 0.64 0.62 0.60 0.58 0.56 0.54

Dialectic Beliefs-1 SD Default Consistency Norm

Dialectic Beliefs +1 SD Dialectic Manipulation

Figure 7.2  Graph showing the interaction between experimental condition and pre-​ existing dialectical beliefs, on answering inconsistency (SD index; larger numbers denote more inconsistency).

determined consistency norms, generally showing a relatively low degree of inconsistency, regardless of pre-​existing dialectical beliefs. By contrast, consistency norms were suppressed among highly dialectical participants in the dialectical condition, with those participants showing increased inconsistent answering. These results illustrate the effect that North American consistency norms have on North American answering styles, and how a dialectical manipulation can be used to counteract these norms.

Attention and Memory Judgments We have also investigated how culture influences the use of attentional information for memory judgments using event-​related potential (ERP) methods, by which brainwaves are linked to psychological events (Masuda, Russell, et al., 2014). In previous research, cultural differences in memory performance were found between North Americans and East Asians. In this research, foreground animals were initially paired with background wilderness scenes in a likeability rating task. Later, participants were then asked to judge (in a surprise recognition task) if they had seen the animals before when (1) previously seen animals were with their original backgrounds (congruent condition), (2) previously seen animals were with novel backgrounds

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 231

(incongruent condition), (3) novel animals were with previously studied backgrounds, or (4)  novel animals were with novel backgrounds (see Masuda & Nisbett, 2001, for sample stimuli). As a key cultural difference, Masuda and colleagues found that East Asians had worse memory performance than North Americans when previously shown animals were paired with novel background wilderness scenes (the incongruent condition), a finding suggesting that East Asians attended more to background cues, even when judgments were related to foreground information. As an extension of these findings, we investigated these memory effects with ERP methods (Masuda et al., 2014). For our neural measure, we used an ERP component called the N400. The N400 is a negative deflection that is related to the processing of semantic (meaning-​based) relationships, with a stronger response to incongruent and unexpected semantic events (e.g., Ganis & Kutas, 2003; Kutas & Federmeier, 2011; Kutas & Hillyard, 1980). In terms of other studies using the N400, Goto et al. (2010, 2013) found that N400s were stronger when East Asians were presented with semantically incongruent images (e.g., stronger N400s for images of crabs superimposed on a parking lot than when crabs were superimposed on a beach) but not for North Americans. This result suggests that East Asian holistic attentional tendencies lead to additional neural processing of the incongruence between foreground and background information. Targeting the N400, we used a procedure similar to the memory task in Masuda and Nisbett’s (2001) study, with participants first being shown an animal paired with a unique background and asked to evaluate its likeability (the study phase). Later on, they were asked to judge if they had seen the animals previously, when new and previously seen foregrounds and backgrounds were combined (the test phase). As one key difference from Masuda et  al.’s (2001) study, participants were instructed to focus their attention on foreground animals (analytic instructions) during the study phase, to focus their attention (i.e., to control for possible eye movement effects on ERPs) and increase memory performance. We expected that a stronger N400 would be observed for the incongruent than congruent condition in both cultures, showing that both cultures notice background changes, as this has been documented in North American populations (e.g., Tsivilis, Otten, & Rugg, 2001). However, we expected that the N400 would only be related to memory performance for Japanese, as they have been shown to attend more to background cues (e.g., Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). We focused our analyses on the congruent versus incongruent conditions, as they were the conditions of interest from the Masuda and Nisbett (2001) study, and no other differences emerged in the other conditions.

232 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Memory Performance and N400 ERP Analyses of Variance To assess cultural variation in memory performance, we employed 2 (culture:  North Americans vs. East Asians) by 2 (type of background:  congruent background vs. incongruent background) ANOVAs on memory performance (i.e., whether participants correctly recalled the animals) and N400 amplitudes. In these analyses, we found a main effect of type of background on both measures, revealing that both cultures showed less accuracy in the incongruent condition (vs. congruent condition). This finding suggests that both cultures showed memory interference from the background information when it was novel. Also, both cultures showed more N400 processing in the incongruent condition, suggesting that both cultures noticed the novelty of the background, as evidenced by stronger N400 amplitudes. Although the interaction between culture and type of background on the N400 amplitudes was not significant, the N400 was still stronger for the incongruent than the congruent condition for East Asians, relative to North Americans, which suggests that despite the analytic instructions (instructing participants to focus on the foreground animals), East Asians still tended to show greater processing of incongruent background information than did North Americans.

Memory Performance and N400 ERP Regressions More importantly, we found a cultural difference in how the two cultures were influenced by their processing of background incongruence. For Japanese, the detection of incongruence impeded memory performance, whereas for North Americans, the detection of incongruence had no effect on performance (see Figure 7.3). In the incongruent condition (and only this condition), Japanese participants who processed the detection of background incongruence more (as evidenced by stronger N400s) showed less accuracy in their recognition judgments, whereas the N400 did not relate to memory performance for North Americans. This finding illustrates the importance of incongruity as a cue for judgments for East Asians. When Japanese participants behaved holistically (i.e., ignoring the instructions and not separating the foreground animals from background scenes), they experienced a stronger N400, but as they emphasize both foreground and background information in their decision-​making (e.g., Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Nisbett, 2003), this additional N400 processing subsequently made it difficult for them to perform well on the task, resulting in lower accuracy. However, when the Japanese participants behaved analytically as instructed (i.e., disregarding background information and focusing on the

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 233

Mean voltage (µV)

(Weaker Incongruence effect) (Stronger Incongruence effect)

–1

–2

–3

0

Weaker N400 Stronger N400

0

60

70 80 Accuracy (%) Japanese

90

European Canadian

Figure 7.3  Simple slopes using incongruence effects (with more negative N400 voltages representing stronger incongruence effects) to predict accuracy for Japanese and European Canadians. Voltages closer to zero are smaller in magnitude.

foreground animals), they experienced weaker N400 processing and performed better on the memory task, as the conflicting background information was not taken into account. Since background information is not salient in analytic Western cultures, the North Americans’ performance was not influenced by the detection of changes in the background.

Summary and Implications Beyond our studies on culture and online decision-​making processes, we have also recently initiated research on the interplay between judgment processes and outcomes. As a main emphasis of this chapter, we have focused on the importance of the online decision-​making process, selectively designing experiments in which we would not expect cultural variation in the outcomes of decisions, and showing that, even in these controlled situations, cultural variation in decision-​making processes and neural processing were observed. Researchers should pay attention to both processes and outcomes to comprehensively understand decision-​making 234 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

in a cultural context. Our studies on resource allocation provide evidence to support this assertion. We also maintain that it is imperative to elucidate cultural differences and similarities in judgment within the context of cultural change and stability. Although our other two lines of investigation emphasized different topics, using different methodologies (e.g., individual differences in cultural beliefs and neuroscience techniques), our results suggest that we are able to change people’s patterns of judgments via experimental manipulations; but in the face of these changes, we also observe stability, related to individual propensities. As the topic of cultural change and stability is a central one in cultural psychology (e.g. Heine et al., 2008), these findings help to shed light on the issue of the extent to which our culturally influenced judgments are malleable or stable across different situations.

Conclusion In conclusion, we maintain that to comprehensively elucidate cultural variation in decision-​making, we must investigate the processes by which we come to our decisions. We also advocate for a multifaceted approach to process-​oriented research. When we investigate behaviors (e.g., types of decisions made, the information used, and the judgments or decisions themselves), we see one slice of the process; experimental manipulations extend our understanding of how situations interact with these processes, and neuroscience then helps to reveal their neural underpinnings. The findings reviewed in this chapter add to a growing body of research showing the effect of cultural meaning systems on our decision-​making processes, leading to a better understanding of the complex mutual constitution between culture and psychology.

References Alter, A. L., & Kwan, V. S. Y. (2009). Cultural sharing in a global village: Evidence for extracultural cognition in European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 742–​760. doi:10.1037/​a0014036 Bontempo, R. N., Bottom, W. P., & Weber, E. U. (1997). Cross-​cultural differences in risk perception: A model-​based approach. Risk Analysis, 17, 479–​488. doi:10.1111/​ j.1539-​6924.1997.tb00888.x Briley, D., Morris, M. W., & Simonson, I. (2000). Reasons as carriers of culture: Dynamic vs. dispositional models of cultural influence on decision making. Journal of Consumer Research, 27, 157–​178. Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 235

Chiu, C.-​Y., Morris, M. W., Hong, Y.-​Y., & Menon, T. (2000). Motivated cultural cognition:  The impact of implicit cultural theories on dispositional attribution varies as a function of need for closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 247–​259. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.78.2.247 Choi, I., Dalal, R., Kim-​Prieto, C., & Park, H. (2003). Culture and judgment of causal relevance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 46–​59. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.84.1.46 Choi, I., Koo, M., & Choi, J. A. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 691–​705. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167206298568 Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and actor-​observer bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 949–​960. doi:10.1177/​0146167298249003 Choi, I., Nisbett, R. E., & Norezayan, A. (1999). Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 47–​63. Chua, H. F., Boland, J. E., & Nisbett, R. (2005). Cultural variation in eye movements during scene perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 12629–​12633. doi:10.1073/​pnas.0506162102 Church, A. T., Alvarez, J. M., Katigbak, M. S., Mastor, K. A., Cabrera, H. F., Tanaka-​ Matsumi, J., & Buchanan, A. L. (2012). Self-​concept consistency and short-​term stability in eight cultures. Journal of Research in Personality, 46, 556–​570. doi:10.1016/​ j.jrp.2012.06.003 Cromer, A. (1993). Uncommon sense: The heretical nature of science. New York: Oxford University Press. Deacon, T. (1997). The symbolic species: The co-​evolution of language and the brain. New York: W. W. Norton. Deacon, T. (2011). Incomplete nature: How mind emerged from matter. New York: W. W. Norton. Du, W., Green, L., & Myerson, J. (2002). Cross-​cultural comparisons of discounting delayed and probabilistic rewards. Psychological Record, 52, 479–​492. Duffy, S., Toriyama, R., Itakura, S., & Kitayama, S. (2009). Development of cultural strategies of attention in North American and Japanese children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 351–​359. doi:10.1016/​j.jecp.2008.06.006 Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-​cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256–​273. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.95.2.256 English, T., & Chen, S. (2007). Culture and self-​concept stability:  Consistency across and within contexts among Asian Americans and European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 478–​490. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.93.3.478 English, T., & Chen, S. (2011). Self-​concept consistency and culture:  The differential impact of two forms of consistency. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 838–​849. doi:10.1177/​0146167211400621 Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row Peterson. Frost, R. O., & Shows, D. L. (1993). The nature and measurement of compulsive indecisiveness. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 683–​692. Ganis, G., & Kutas, M. (2003). An electrophysiological study of scene effects on object identification. Brain Research:  Cognitive Brain Research, 16(2), 123–​144. doi:10.1016/​S0926-​6410(02)00244-​6

236 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Germeijs, V., & De Boeck, P. (2002). A measurement scale for indecisiveness and its relationship to career indecision and other types of indecision. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 18, 113–​122. doi:10.1027//​1015-​5759.18.2.113 Goto, S. G., Ando, Y., Huang, C., Yee, A., & Lewis, R. S. (2010). Cultural differences in the visual processing of meaning: Detecting incongruities between background and foreground objects using the N400. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5, 242–​253. doi:10.1093/​scan/​nsp038 Goto, S. G., Yee, A., Lowenberg, K., & Lewis, R. S. (2013). Cultural differences in sensitivity to social context:  Detecting affective incongruity using the N400. Social Neuroscience, 8, 63–​74. doi:10.1080/​17470919.2012.739202 Hamamura, T. (2004). Cultural difference in dialectical response style:  How much yes is in your yes? (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Hamamura, T., Heine, S. J., & Paulhus, D. L. (2008). Cultural differences in response styles: The role of dialectical thinking. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 932–​942. doi:10.1016/​j.paid.2007.10.034 Hamamura, T., Meijer, Z., Heine, S. J., Kamaya, K., & Hori, I. (2009). Approach-​avoidance motivation and information processing:  Cross-​cultural analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 454–​462. doi:10.1177/​0146167208329512 Hedden, T., Ketay, S., Aron, A., Markus, H. R., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2008). Cultural influence on neutral substrates of attentional control. Psychological Science, 19, 12–​17. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2008.02038.x Heine, S. J., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. D. (2006). Meaning maintenance model:  On the coherence of human motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 88–​ 110. doi:10.1207/​s15327957pspr1002_​1 Heine, S. J., Takemoto, T., Moskalenko, S., Lasaleta, J., & Henrich, J. (2008). Mirrors in the head:  Cultural variation in objective self-​awareness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 879–​887. doi:10.1177/​0146167208316921 Hong, Y.-​Y., Chiu, C.-​Y., Dweck, C. S., Lin, D. M.-​S., & Wan, W. (1999). Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 588–​599. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.77.3.588 Huang, C.-​ M., & Park, D. (2013). Cultural influences on Facebook photographs. International Journal of Psychology, 48, 334–​ 343. doi:10.1080/​ 00207594.2011.649285 Imada, T., Carlson, S., & Itakura, S. (2013). East-​West cultural differences in context-​ sensitivity are evident in early childhood. Developmental Science, 16, 198–​208. doi:10.1111/​desc.12016 Ishii, K., Kobayashi, Y., & Kitayama, S. (2010). Interdependence modulates the brain response to word-​voice incongruity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5, 307–​317. doi:10.1093/​scan/​nsp044 Ji, L. J. (2008). The leopard cannot change his spots, or can he: Culture and the development of lay theories of change. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(5), 613–​622. doi:10.1177/​0146167207313935 Ji, L. J., Guo, T., Zhang, Z., & Messervey, D. (2009) Looking into the past: Cultural differences in perception and representation of past information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 761–​769. doi: 10.1037/​a0014498

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 237

Ji, L.-​J., Nisbett, R. E., & Su, Y. (2001). Culture, change, and prediction. Psychological Science, 12, 450–​456. doi:10.1111/​1467-​9280.00384 Ji, L.-​J., Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 943–​ 955. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.78.5.943 Ji, L.-​J., Zhang, Z., & Guo, T. (2008). To buy or to sell:  Cultural differences in stock market decisions based on price trends. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 21, 399–​413. doi:10.1002/​bdm.595 Kanagawa, C., Cross, S. E., & Markus, H. R. (2001). “Who am I?” The cultural psychology of the conceptual self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(1), 90–​103. doi:10.1177/​0146167201271008 Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., & Larsen, J. T. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural look at new look. Psychological Science, 14, 201–​206. doi:10.1111/​1467-​9280.02432 Kitayama, S., Ishii, K., Imada, T., Takemura, K., & Ramaswamy, J. (2006). Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence:  Evidence from Japan’s “northern frontier”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 369-​384. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.91.3.369 Koo, M., & Choi, I. (2005). Becoming a holistic thinker:  Training effect of oriental medicine on reasoning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1264–​1272. doi:10.1177/​0146167205274692 Kutas, M., & Federmeier, K. (2011). Thirty years and counting:  Finding meaning in the N400 component of the event-​related brain potential (ERP). Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 1–​27. doi:10.1146/​annurev.psych.093008.131123 Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. (1980). Reading senseless sentences: Brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science, 207, 203–​205. Kuwabara, M., & Smith, L. (2012). Cross-​cultural differences in cognitive development: Attention to relations and objects. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 113, 20–​35. doi:10.1016/​j.jecp.2012.04.009 Kuwabara, M., Son, J., & Smith, L. B. (2011) Attention to context: U.S. and Japanese children’s emotional judgments. Journal of Cognition and Development, 12(4), 502–​ 517. doi:10.1080/​15248372.2011.554927 Lau, L.-​Y., & Ranyard, R. (2005). Chinese and English probabilistic thinking and risk taking in gambling. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 36, 621–​627. doi:10.1177/​ 0022022105278545 Leung, K. (1988). Some determinants of conflict avoidance. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 19, 125–​136. doi:10.1177/​0022002188019001009 Li. L. M. W., Masuda, T., Hamamura, T., & Ishii, K. (2016). Culture and decision: Cross-​ cultural similarities and variations in resource allocation between European Canadians and Hong Kong Chinese (Unpublished manuscript). University of Alberta. Li, L. M.  W., Masuda, T., & Russell, M. J. (2014). The influence of cultural lay beliefs:  Dialecticism and indecisiveness in European Canadians and Hong Kong Chinese. Personality and Individual Differences, 68, 6–​ 12. doi:10.1016/​ j.paid.2014.03.047 Li, L. M.  W., Masuda, T., & Russell, M. J. (2015). Culture and decision-​ making:  Investigating cultural variations in the East Asian and North American

238 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

online decision-​making processes. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 183–​191. doi:10.1111/​ajsp.12099 Maddux, W., Lau, I., Chiu, C. -​Y., Hong, Y. -​Y., Yuki, M. (2007). Beneath the surface of the ‘‘ripple effect’’: Understanding the underlying nature of cultural differences in perceptions of event consequences. Unpublished paper, INSEAD. Ma-​Kellams, C., Blascovich, J., & McCall, C. (2012). Culture and the body: East–​West differences in visceral perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 718–​728. doi:10.1037/​a0027010 Maddux, W. W., & Yuki, M. (2006). The “ripple effect”: Cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 669–​683. doi:10.1177/​0146167205283840 Masuda, T., Ellsworth, P. C., Mesquita, B., Leu, J., Tanida, S., & Van de Veerdonk, E. (2008). Placing the face in context: Cultural differences in the perception of facial emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 365–​381. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.94.3.365 Masuda, T., Gonzalez, R. Kwan, L., & Nisbett, R. E. (2008). Culture and aesthetic preference: Comparing the attention to context of East Asians and European Americans. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1260–​ 1275. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167208320555 Masuda, T., Ishii, K., & Kimura, J. (2016). When does the culturally dominant mode of attention appear or disappear? Comparing patterns of eye movement during the visual flicker task between European Canadians and Japanese (Manuscript submitted for publication). University of Alberta. Masuda, T., & Kitayama, S. (2004). Perceived-​induced constraint and attitude attribution in Japan and in the US:  A case for cultural dependence of the correspondence bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 409–​416. doi:10.1016/​ j.jesp.2003.08.004 Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922–​934. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.81.5.922 Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2006). Culture and change blindness. Cognitive Sciences, 30, 381–​399. Masuda, T., Russell, M. J., Chen, Y. Y., Hioki, K., & Caplan, J. B. (2014). N400 incongruity effect in an episodic memory task reveals different strategies for handling irrelevant contextual information for Japanese than European Canadians. Cognitive Neuroscience, 5, 17–​25. doi:10.1080/​17588928.2013.831819 Masuda, T., Wang, H., Ishii, K., & Ito, K (2012). Do surrounding figures’ emotions affect the judgment of target figure’s emotion?: Comparing the patterns of attention between European-​Canadians, Asian-​Canadians, Asian International Students, and Japanese using eye-​trackers. Frontier in Integrative Neuroscience, 6, 72. doi:10.3389/​ fnint.2012.00072 Miller, J. G. (1999). Cultural psychology: Implications for basic psychological theory. Psychological Science, 10, 85–​91. Miyamoto, Y., & Kitayama, S. (2002). Cultural variation in correspondence bias: The critical role of attitude diagnosticity of socially constrained behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1239–​1248. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.83.5.1239.

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 239

Miyamoto, Y., Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2006). Culture and physical environment:  Holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances. Psychological Science, 17, 113–​119. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2006.01673.x Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 949–​971. Munro, D. J. (1985). Introduction. In D. J. Munro (Ed.), Individualism and holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist values (pp. 1–​34). Ann Arbor:  University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies. Nakamura, H. (1985). Ways of thinking of Eastern people. Honolulu:  University of Hawaii Press. (Original work published 1964.) Needham, J. (1954). Science and civilization in China: Vol. 1: Introductory orientations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Needham, J. (1962). Science and civilization in China: Vol. 4. Physics and physical technology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ng, A. H., & Hynie, M. (2014). Cultural differences in indecisiveness:  The role of naïve dialecticism. Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 45–​60. doi:10.1016/​ j.paid.2014.06.022 Ng, A. H., Hynie, M., & MacDonald, T. K. (2011). Culture moderates the pliability of ambivalent attitudes. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 43, 1313–​1324. doi:10.1177/​0022022111429718 Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners thinkdifferently  . . .  and why. New York: Free Press. Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2003). Culture and point of view. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100, 11163. doi:10.1073/​pnas.1934527100 Nisbett, R. E., & Miyamoto, Y. (2005). The influence of culture: Holistic versus analytic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 467–​473. doi:10.1016/​j.tics.2005.08.004 Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought:  Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291–​310. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.108.2.291 Norenzayan, A., Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Eastern and Western perceptions of causality for social behavior: Lay theories about personality and situations. In D. A. Prentice & D. T. Miller (Eds.), Cultural divides (pp. 239–​272). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Norenzayan, A., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture and causal cognition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 132–​135. doi:10.1111/​1467-​8721.00077 Norenzayan, A., Smith, E. E., Kim, B. J., & Nisbett, R. E. (2002). Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning. Cognitive Science, 26, 653–​684. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologists, 54, 741–​754. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.54.9.741 Russell, M. J., Li, L. M. W., & Masuda, T. (2016). Culture and the individual:  Using dialectic manipulation to overcome the North American need to answer consistently (Manuscript submitted for publication). University of Alberta. Savani, K., Morris, M. W., Naidu, N. V., Kumar, S., & Berlia, N. V. (2011). Cultural conditioning: understanding interpersonal accommodation in India and the United States

240 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

in terms of the modal characteristics of interpersonal influence situations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 84–​102. doi:10.1037/​a0021083 Senzaki, S., Masuda, T. & Ishii, K. (2014). When is perception top-​down, and when is it not? Culture, narrative, and attention. Cognitive Science, 38, 1493–​1506. doi:10.1111/​cogs.12118 Senzaki, S., Masuda, T., & Nand, K. (2014). Holistic vs. analytic expressions in artworks:  Cross-​ cultural differences and similarities in drawings and collages by Canadian and Japanese school-​age children. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 45, 1297–​1316. doi:10.1177/​0022022114537704 Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shteynberg, G., Gelfand, M. J., & Kim, K. (2009). Peering into the “Magnum Mysterium” of culture: The explanatory power of descriptive norms. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 40, 46–​69. doi:10.1177/​0022022108326196 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Mori, S. C., Wang, L., & Peng, K. (2009). The dialectic self-​concept: Contradiction, change, and holism in East Asian cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 29–​44. doi:10.1177/​0146167208325772 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2004). The dialectical self: Contradiction, change, and holism in the East Asian self-​concept. In R. M. Sorrentino, D. Cohen, J. M. Olson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Culture and social behavior: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 10, pp. 227–​250). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1416–​1432. doi:10.1177/​0146167204264243 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Srivastava, S., Boucher, H. C., English, T., Paletz, S. B., Hou, Y., et  al. (2015). The Dialectical Self Scale (Unpublished manuscript). University of California, Berkeley. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural influences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction: A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 296–​312. doi:10.1177/​108886831036298 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M., & Peng, K. (2012). Culturally based lay beliefs as a toll for understanding intergroup and intercultural relations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36, 169-​178. doi:10.1016/​j.ijintrel.2012.01.002 Spina, R. R., Ji, L.-​J., Guo, T., Zhang. Z., Li, Y., & Fabriger, Z. (2010). Cultural differences in the representativeness heuristic: Expecting a correspondence in magnitude between cause and effect. Personality Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 583–​597. doi:10.1177/​0146167210368278 Suh, E. M. (2002). Culture, identity consistency, and subjective well-​ being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1378–​ 1391. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.83.6.1378 Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Boston:  Harvard University Press. Tomasello, M. (2008). The origins of human communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tomasello, M. (2009). Why we cooperate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Triandis, H. C. (2001). Individualism-​collectivism and personality. Journal of Personality, 69, 907–​924. doi:10.1111/​1467-​6494.696169

Judging the World Dialectically versus Non-Dialectically 

| 241

Tsivilis, D., Otten, L. J., & Rugg, M. D. (2001). Context effects on the neural correlates of recognition memory: An electrophysiological study. Neuron, 31, 497–​505. doi:10.1016/​S0896-​6273(01)00376-​2 Wang, H., Masuda, T., Ito, K., & Rashid, M. (2012). How much information? East Asian and North American cultural products and information search performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 1539–​1551. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167212455828 Weber, E. U., & Milliman, R. (1997). Perceived risk attitudes: Relating risk perception to risky choice. Management Science, 43, 122–​143. doi:10.1287/​mnsc.43.2.123 Yates, J. F., Lee, J.-​W., & Bush, J. G. (1997). General knowledge overconfidence: Cross-​ national variations, response style, and “reality”. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 87–​94. doi:10.1006/​obhd.1997.2696 Yates, J. F., Lee, J.-​W., & Shinotsuka, H. (1996). Beliefs about overconfidence, including its cross-​ national variation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 65, 138–​147. doi:10.1006/​obhd.1996.0012 Zou, X., Tam, K., Morris, W. M., Lee, L., Lau, I., & Chiu, C. Y. (2009). Culture as common sense:  Perceived consensus vs. personal beliefs as mechanisms of cultural influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 579–​597. doi:10.1037/​ a0016399

242 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition



­C HAPTER 8

Contextualization of Mental Representations and Evaluative Responses A Theory-​Based Analysis of Cultural Differences Yang Ye and Bertram Gawronski

On April 19, 2013, Americans saw on the morning news that a 19-​year old young man, a suspect of the Boston Marathon bombings, was on the run (Carter & Botelho, 2013; National Post Staff & Goodman, 2013). A massive manhunt for this suspect was underway in Watertown, Massachusetts. Later that day, they saw on the afternoon news that this suspect, according to his friends and acquaintances, happened to be a nice and friendly high school kid who was popular among fellow students (ABC News, 2013) and an all-​star wrestler (Schuppe, 2013) and worked occasionally as a lifeguard at Harvard University (Lucky, 2013; for a full story, see Russell, Abelson, Wen, Rezendes, & Filipov, 2013). Given that the same person was responsible for the deaths of 3 innocent people and the injuries of 185 others, it seems difficult not to be perplexed by this conflicting information. How could a friendly teenager commit such a horrible crime? Although quite extreme, this example illustrates a situation that people frequently encounter in everyday life. We are often exposed to information that challenges our existing beliefs about other people, forcing us to reconcile conflicting pieces of information. Imagine, for example, that you witness a new colleague of yours administering first aid to an unknown victim of a hit-​and-​run accident. A few days earlier, however, the same colleague had refused to help one of your co-​workers and yelled at her in the office. How would you feel about your new colleague the next time you see him

in the office? Would your reaction be different if you saw him somewhere on the street? And how would you respond if you saw him in a completely different context, for example, a grocery store? In this chapter, we seek to provide answers to these questions and analyze their implications for cultural differences in context effects on evaluative responses. In an increasingly diverse society, it is important to understand how cultural backgrounds may influence the way people form impressions about and act toward other people, such as the colleague in the example just described. Our analysis focuses particularly on East–​West differences in attention and thinking styles, which influence the processing of conflicting information at the time of encoding (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004). Because differences in the encoding of evaluative information determine how it is stored in memory, cultural differences in attention and thinking styles have fundamental implications for evaluative responses to attitudinal objects upon future encounters. To illustrate how cultural differences in attention and thinking styles can influence evaluative responses, we first review the core assumptions of the representational theory of contextualized evaluation (RTCE) (Gawronski, Rydell, Vervliet, & De Houwer, 2010). The theory offers a mechanistic account of context effects on evaluative responses (see Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2015) by identifying the mental processes and representations that mediate the effects of input stimuli (i.e., a target person, contextual cues) on overt behavior (i.e., evaluative responses). Specifically, the theory explains (1)  how evaluatively inconsistent information about a target object is encoded and integrated into mental representations, and (2) how the resulting representations influence evaluative responses toward the target object in different contexts. Two central factors in the theory are (1) attention to context during the encoding of expectancy-​violating information and (2)  the subsequent impact of contextual cues in modulating evaluative responses toward the target. In the second part of chapter, we provide a theory-​based analysis of cultural differences in the formation of mental representations and their implications for context effects on evaluative responses. Drawing on existing research on East–​West differences in social cognition (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004), we analyze how cultural differences in attention and thinking styles may influence the key processes proposed by the RTCE (Gawronski et  al., 2010), leading to different predictions for individuals from East Asian and Western cultures with regard to context effects on evaluative responses.

244 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Our analysis generates two competing hypotheses which, when tested empirically, may provide interesting new avenues for research on cultural differences in social cognition.

The Representational Theory of Contextualized Evaluation The RTCE was originally designed to integrate disparate findings in the literature on automatic evaluation, including evidence that automatic evaluations can be (1) highly robust and difficult to change, (2) highly flexible and easy to change, and (3) highly context-​dependent (for a review, see Gawronski & Sritharan, 2010). At a broader level, the theory aims to specify the contextual conditions under which evaluative responses reflect initially acquired attitudinal information, subsequently acquired counter-​ attitudinal information, or a mixture of both (Gawronski et al., 2010). Like many other theories in the attitude literature, the RTCE assumes that, when individuals acquire evaluative information about a novel object, the learning experience creates a mental trace that links the object to the newly acquired information. To the extent that this memory trace is sufficiently strong, it will be activated during future encounters with the target object, thereby eliciting an evaluative response to the target that is in line with the valence of the stored information (Fazio, 2007; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006). Thus, if the previously acquired information was positive, evaluative responses should be positive; if the previously acquired information was negative, evaluative responses should be negative. However, to the extent that the valence of previously acquired information was mixed (i.e., both positive and negative), context is assumed to play a central role during (1) the formation of evaluative representations and (2) the activation of these representations upon future encounters with the target object.

Context and the Formation of Evaluative Representations Although learning generally occurs in some kind of context (Smith & Semin, 2004), contextual information is not always included in the mental representation of newly acquired information. For example, people often remember the evaluative quality of an attitudinal experience, while being unable to recall details of the experience itself or the broader context in which it was made (Johnston, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). According to Gawronski et  al.’s (2010) RTCE, whether or not contextual information is integrated into the mental representation of evaluative information

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 245

depends on perceivers’ attention to the context during encoding. If individuals pay attention to the context during learning, contextual information will be integrated into the representation of the newly acquired information. If, however, individuals do not pay attention to the context, contextual information will not be integrated into the representation. Whereas the former case leads to the formation of a contextualized representation, the latter case leads to the formation of a context-​free representation. Despite contextual information being constantly available, perceivers do not pay unconditional attention to contexts. According to Gawronski et  al.’s (2010) RTCE, attention to context is typically low during initial encounters with an attitude object—​a tendency that has been found to be stronger in Western than in East Asian cultures (see Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan, 1999). For example, perceivers may ignore the office context when forming a first impression of a new colleague who yells at a co-​ worker and refuses to provide help. In this case, the negative information about the new colleague would be stored in a context-​free representation that does not include the office context. This idea resonates with research on the correspondence bias (Gilbert & Malone, 1995), suggesting that people tend to draw correspondent dispositional inferences from observed behavior, while paying little attention to the contextual constraints on that behavior (for a review, see Gawronski, 2004). But what happens when perceivers learn new information about a target? Gawronski et  al.’s (2010) RTCE assumes that, if the new information is evaluatively congruent with the previously acquired information (e.g., the new colleague refuses to help an elderly woman in a grocery store), the new information will simply be added to the existing representation, thereby strengthening the existing context-​free representation. If, however, the new information is evaluatively incongruent with the previously acquired information (e.g., the new colleague administers first aid to an unknown victim of a hit-​and-​run accident), the implied conflict between the two pieces of information has to be resolved to reduce aversive feelings of dissonance (Festinger, 1957)—​a tendency that has been found to be stronger in Western than in East Asian cultures (see Heine & Lehman, 1997). Drawing on principles of expectancy violation (Roese & Sherman, 2007), the RTCE proposes that exposure to expectancy-​ violating counter-​attitudinal information enhances attention to the context, thereby leading to an integration of the context into the representation of the counter-​attitudinal information. The central idea is that inconsistency signals the presence of an error in one’s belief system, which enhances attention to contextual factors in order to identify potential causes of

246 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

the expectancy-​violating event (see Gawronski, 2012; Hamilton, 1998; Johnson-​Laird, Girotto, & Legrenzi, 2004). In the example of the co-​ worker, seeing the new colleague providing first aid to a stranger would be inconsistent with the initial negative impression. As a result, attention to the context should be enhanced, thereby leading to an integration of the context into the representation of the newly acquired positive information. Importantly, the RTCE further suggests that, instead of erasing the initially formed representation from memory, the new contextualized representation is simply added to the existing network. The result is a “dual” representation of the target object that includes two distinct components:  (1) a context-​free representation that includes the initially acquired attitudinal information about the target and (2) a contextualized representation that includes the subsequently acquired counter-​attitudinal information about the target and the context in which this information was acquired (Gawronski et al., 2010).

Context and the Activation of Evaluative Representations The proposed integration of contextual information into “dual” representations of evaluatively inconsistent information is important, because it helps us to understand how context modulates the activation of this information upon future encounters with the target object. According to the RTCE, the context during the encoding of counter-​attitudinal information functions as a “gatekeeping” retrieval cue that moderates the activation of the two conflicting pieces of information (see Bouton, 1994). Specifically, the theory assumes that the counter-​attitudinal information will be activated in response to the target object only in the context in which this information was acquired, whereas the initial attitudinal information will be activated in any other context. This hypothesis highlights an interesting parallel to the notion of contextual renewal in the literature on animal learning (for a review, see Bouton, 2004). The term renewal effect refers to the phenomenon that a conditioned behavioral response often recurs after successful “unlearning” of this response (e.g., as a result of extinction or counter-​conditioning; see Bouton, 2002). A central aspect of renewal effects is that they tend to occur in contexts that differ from the one in which the “unlearning” took place. It is common to distinguish between three types of renewal effects (see Table 8.1), which depend on the pattern of contexts during initial learning, subsequent learning, and the observation of an evaluative response. The first type of renewal effect, ABA renewal, refers to cases in which an initial

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 247

Table 8.1 Different Kinds of Renewal Effects and Their Definitions Effect

Description

ABA Renewal

Learning of a particular response in Context A Learning of a new response in Context B Renewal of the initially learned response in the initial Context A

ABC Renewal

Learning of a particular response in Context A Learning of a new response in Context B Renewal of the initially learned response in a novel Context C

AAB Renewal

Learning of a particular response in Context A Learning of a new response in the same Context A Renewal of the initially learned response in a novel Context B

Table adapted from Gawronski and Cesario (2013). Reprinted with permission.

response is acquired in Context A, extinction or counter-​conditioning occurs in another Context B, and the initial response recurs in the initial Context A (e.g., Bouton & Bolles, 1979; Bouton & Peck, 1989). Applied to the current question, perceivers may form an initial negative impression of a new colleague at work, and this impression may be challenged by the positive behavior of that person in a grocery store, but the initial negative impression may still determine responses to the new colleague when this person is encountered in the initial work context. Similarly, the second type of renewal effect, ABC renewal, refers to cases in which an initial response is acquired in Context A, extinction or counter-​conditioning occurs in another Context B, and the initial response recurs in a novel Context C (e.g., Bouton & Bolles, 1979; Bouton & Brooks, 1993). For example, perceivers may form an initial negative impression of a new colleague at work, and this impression may be challenged by the positive behavior of that person in a grocery store, but the initial negative impression may determine responses to the new colleague when this person is encountered in a coffee shop. Finally, AAB renewal refers to cases in which an initial response is acquired in Context A, extinction or counter-​conditioning occurs in the same Context A, and the initial response recurs in a novel Context B (e.g., Bouton & Ricker, 1994; Tamai & Nakajima, 2000). For example, perceivers may form an initial negative impression of a new colleague at work, and this impression may be challenged by the positive behavior of that person in the same work context, but the initial negative impression may still determine responses to the new colleague when this person is encountered in a grocery store. Importantly, the notion of contextual renewal implies that extinction and counter-​conditioning effectively determine responses 248 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

in the context in which extinction and counter-​conditioning occurred. Thus, consistent with the assumptions of the RTCE, the three kinds of renewal effects imply that evaluative responses should reflect the valence of the counter-​attitudinal information only in the context in which this information was acquired, whereas initial attitudinal information should determine evaluative responses in any other context. Although the three kinds of renewal effects are well established in the literature on animal learning, their relevance for understanding the contextualization of social attitudes in humans has been discovered only recently (for a review, see Gawronski & Cesario, 2013). In a first demonstration of ABA renewal and ABC renewal in impression formation, Rydell and Gawronski (2009) presented participants with either positive or negative information about a target person against a meaningless, colored background (e.g., a blue screen). In a subsequent block of the impression formation task, participants were presented with information that was evaluatively opposite to the information provided in the first block, and this information was presented against a different-​colored background (e.g., a yellow screen). After the impression formation task, evaluative responses to the target person were assessed with an affective priming task (Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005) in which the target person was presented against either (1) the background of the first block (Context A), (2) the background of the second block (Context B), or (3) a novel background that was not part of the impression formation task (Context C). Results showed that evaluative responses reflected the valence of the initially acquired information when the target individual was presented against the initial Context A (evidence for ABA renewal). The same was true when the target was presented against the novel Context C, in that evaluative responses reflected the valence of the initially acquired information (evidence for ABC renewal). In contrast, when the target person was presented in Context B, evaluative responses reflected the valence of the subsequently acquired counter-​attitudinal information. These effects were replicated by Gawronski et al. (2010), who also provided evidence for AAB renewal by presenting attitudinal and counter-​ attitudinal information against the same background.

Attention to Context During Encoding A central assumption of the RTCE is that attention to context is typically low during encoding of initial attitudinal information but enhanced by exposure to expectancy-​ violating counter-​ attitudinal information. Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 249

However, deviating from the default scenario proposed by the theory, there may be cases in which (1) attention to context is high during the encoding of initial attitudinal information, and, conversely, (2) attention to context is low during the encoding of expectancy-​violating counter-​attitudinal information. Although these cases deviate from the default scenario postulated by Gawronski et al. (2010), the RTCE includes precise predictions about how various patterns of attention during encoding should influence evaluative responses in different contexts. A first prediction is that ABC renewal and AAB renewal should disappear if attention to context is high during the encoding of initial attitudinal information. In the presumed default scenario, attention to context is assumed to be low during the acquisition of initial attitudinal information and enhanced by exposure to expectancy-​violating counter-​attitudinal information. As a result, contextual information is included in the representation of the counter-​attitudinal information, but not the initial attitudinal information. Yet, when attention to context is high during encoding of both attitudinal and counter-​attitudinal information, the two pieces of information should be stored in two contextualized representations. In such cases, encountering the object in a novel context should activate the two representations to the same extent (or not at all), thereby producing a mixed (or neutral) evaluation rather than a renewal effect. These predictions apply to cases in which attitudinal and counter-​attitudinal information is learned in different contexts (i.e., attenuation of ABC renewal), as well as cases in which attitudinal and counter-​attitudinal information is learned in the same context (i.e., attenuation of AAB renewal). Importantly, enhanced attention to context during the acquisition of initial attitudinal information should not affect the dominance of the initial attitudinal information when the target is encountered in the context in which this information was acquired (i.e., no attenuation of ABA renewal). In line with these assumptions, evaluative responses in this situation should be driven by the contextualized representation of the initial attitudinal information. These predictions were confirmed in a series of studies by Gawronski et  al. (2010), who combined Rydell and Gawronski’s (2009) paradigm with an experimental manipulation to increase participants’ attention to the background color during the presentation of initial attitudinal information. For example, if attention to the context is high when perceivers form an initial negative impression of a new colleague at work, subsequent positive behavior of that person in a grocery store should not qualify the negative response to the new colleague when this person is encountered in the initial work context (i.e., intact ABA renewal). However, the new colleague

250 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

should elicit a mixed (or neutral) response when this person is encountered in a coffee shop (i.e., attenuated ABC renewal). Another implication of Gawronski et al.’s (2010) theory is that renewal effects should disappear entirely when attention to context is low during the encoding of counter-​attitudinal information. In such cases, the counter-​ attitudinal information should be integrated into the initial context-​free representation, which should eliminate context effects altogether. In this case, evaluative responses should reflect a mixture of the available information, regardless of the context in which the target is encountered. In other words, reduced attention to context during the encoding of counter-​ attitudinal information should eliminate ABA renewal, ABC renewal, and AAB renewal, thereby leading to context-​ independent evaluative responses that reflect all available information about the target. These predictions were confirmed by Gawronski et  al. (2010) in a study that combined Rydell and Gawronski’s (2009) paradigm with an experimental manipulation to decrease attention to the background color during the presentation of counter-​attitudinal information. For example, if attention to the context is low when (1) perceivers form an initial negative impression of a new colleague at work, and (2) the initial negative impression is qualified by positive behavior of that person in a grocery store, the new colleague should elicit a mixed (or neutral) response regardless of whether this person is encountered in the initial work context, the grocery store, or a coffee shop.

Cultural Differences in Contextualization The possibility of variations in attention to context has important implications for cultural differences in the contextualization of mental representations and evaluative responses. Resonating with the two scenarios reviewed in the preceding section, research on East–​West differences in social cognition suggests that (1) individuals from East Asian cultures tend to pay more attention to contexts than do individuals from Western cultures (e.g., Miller, 1984; Morris & Peng, 1994; Norenzayan, Choi, & Nisbett, 2002; for reviews, see Choi et  al., 1999), and (2)  individuals from East Asian cultures tend to have a higher tolerance for inconsistency than do individuals from Western cultures (e.g., Peng & Nisbett, 1999; for a review, see Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010). Applied to Gawronski et  al.’s (2010) RTCE, the first line of culture research implies the possibility that East Asians may show higher levels of attention to context

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 251

during the encoding of initial attitudinal information than do Westerners. In contrast, the second line of culture research suggests that East Asians may show lower levels of attention to context during the encoding of counter-​attitudinal information than Westerners do, because East Asians may experience weaker (or no) feelings of dissonance in response to expectancy-​violating counter-​attitudinal information than those experienced by Westerners (cf. Gawronski, Peters, & Strack, 2008).

Enhanced Attention to Context during Attitudinal Learning First, we consider the corpus of culture research that suggests that East Asians should generally show enhanced attention to the context during attitudinal learning. One of the most robust findings in cultural psychology is that, when explaining social events, individuals from East Asian cultures tend to rely more on contextual factors and less on dispositional factors than do individuals from Western cultures (e.g., Miller, 1984; Morris & Peng, 1994; Norenzayan et al., 2002; for reviews, see Choi et al., 1999). More recent studies suggest that cultural differences in causal attribution might have their origins in lower-​level processes of attention (Chua, Boland, & Nisbett, 2005; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Zhou, He, Yang, Lao, & Baumeister, 2012). For example, a study by Masuda and Nisbett (2001) found that Japanese participants showed higher recognition accuracy for previously presented objects when they were shown in their naturally occurring contexts than when they were presented in novel contexts. Recognition accuracy for American participants was unaffected by the context manipulation. Using eye-​tracking to study patterns of visual attention, Chua et al. (2005) found that, when viewing photographs of a focal object against a complex background, American participants fixated more on the focal object than did Chinese participants, whereas Chinese participants fixated more on the background than did American participants. Applied to the proposed contribution of attentional processes to the contextualization of evaluative representations, these findings suggest that East Asians may differ from Westerners by showing higher levels of attention to context during the encoding of initial attitudinal information. As a result, East Asians may integrate conflicting pieces of information in two contextualized representations, one including the initial attitudinal information and the other including the counter-​attitudinal information. Westerners, in contrast, may be more likely to show the default pattern hypothesized by Gawronski et al. (2010), by forming a context-​free representation of the initial attitudinal information and a contextualized representation of the counter-​attitudinal information. 252 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

In line with the experimental evidence for the hypothesized effects of attention to context (Gawronski et  al., 2010), these assumptions imply that East Asians should show ABA renewal, but not ABC renewal and AAB renewal effects. In contrast, Westerners should show all three kinds of renewal effects, as demonstrated by Gawronski et  al. (2010). From this perspective, the most significant difference between East Asians and Westerners with regard to context effects on evaluative responses is that they should show diverging evaluations when an evaluatively ambiguous target object is encountered in a novel context. Whereas Westerners should demonstrate an evaluative response that is line with the valence of the initially acquired attitudinal information (ABC renewal), East Asians should show a mixed (or neutral) response. Yet, the evaluative responses of East Asians and Westerners should be identical when the target object is encountered in the context of the initial attitudinal information or the context of the counter-​attitudinal information. To the extent that attitudinal and counter-​attitudinal information was acquired in different contexts, the target object should elicit an evaluative response reflecting the valence of the initial attitudinal information when it is encountered in the context of the initial attitudinal information. In contrast, the target object should elicit an evaluative response reflecting the valence of the counter-​attitudinal information when it is encountered in the context of the counter-​attitudinal information. Similarly, to the extent that attitudinal and counter-​attitudinal information was acquired in the same context, the target object should elicit an evaluative response reflecting the valence of the counter-​attitudinal information when it is encountered in the context in which the two kinds of information were acquired.

Reduced Attention to Context during Counter-​Attitudinal Learning Next, consider the second line of research that implies that East Asians should show reduced attention to context during counter-​attitudinal learning. A central assumption of Gawronski et al.’s (2010) RTCE is that exposure to expectancy-​ violating counter-​ attitudinal information enhances attention to the context, thereby leading to an integration of the context into the representation of the counter-​attitudinal information. The basic idea underlying this assumption is that exposure to counter-​attitudinal information elicits an aversive feeling of dissonance, which people aim to reduce by resolving the inconsistency between the initial attitudinal and the subsequent counter-​attitudinal information (Festinger, 1957). According to the RTCE, the contextualization of counter-​ attitudinal information Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 253

resolves this inconsistency by storing it as an “exception to the rule” of the initial attitudinal information (Rydell & Gawronski, 2009). From this perspective, the driving force underlying the contextualization of counter-​ attitudinal information is an aversive response to expectancy-​violations. However, there is considerable evidence that East Asians and Westerners show different responses to conflicting information (e.g., Heine & Lehman, 1997; Ng, Hynie, & MacDonald, 2012; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). A substantial body of research suggests that East Asians tend to have a higher tolerance for inconsistency and show less extreme surprise reactions to expectancy-​violations compared to Westerners (for a review, see Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010; see also Chapter 1 in this volume). In a seminal by study by Peng and Nisbett (1999), Chinese and American participants were presented with apparently contradictory propositions and asked to form a personal opinion about the described issue. Whereas American participants tended to develop polarized preferences by taking clear positions, Chinese participants were more likely to find merit and fault on both sides, resulting in ambivalent positions. Similarly, Choi and Nisbett (2000) presented Korean and American participants with expectancy-​ violating information that a target person did not help a victim. The target’s behavior was unexpected for participants, in that it conflicted with previous information suggesting that the target would help the victim. In line with the contention that East Asians tend to have a higher tolerance for inconsistency, Korean participants felt less surprised about the target’s behavior than did American participants. Theorists have attributed these results to different cultural styles of thinking and reasoning (Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2010). Specifically, it has been argued that East Asians are more inclined to think dialectically, whereas Westerns are more inclined to think linearly. As compared to Westerners, East Asians tend to view elements in the world as dynamic and changeable rather than as static and having clear boundaries (Peng, 1997; Peng & Nisbett, 1999), and they are more likely to see the world as being composed of contradictions (Choi, Koo, & Choi, 2007; Nisbett, 2003). These culture-​specific beliefs also may contribute to cultural differences in the reaction to counter-​attitudinal information, by diminishing the elicitation of aversive feelings of dissonance (Gawronski et al., 2008; Lee, Newby-​Clark, & Zanna, 2006). As a result, attention to context in response to expectancy violations may be lower for East Asians than for Westerners, thereby disrupting the proposed contextualization of counter-​ attitudinal information.

254 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Applied to the current question, these considerations lead to the paradoxical, but very interesting, prediction that evaluative responses may be less context-​sensitive for East Asians than Westerners. To the extent that East Asians have a higher tolerance for inconsistency, exposure to counter-​attitudinal information may be less likely to enhance attention to context. As a result, counter-​attitudinal information may simply be added to the context-​free representation of the initial attitudinal information. This should eliminate context effects altogether. In other words, whereas Westerners should show the reviewed patterns of contextual renewal, evaluative responses of East Asians should reflect a mixture of the available information, regardless of the context in which the target is encountered. Thus, counter to the common finding that individuals of East Asian cultures are more sensitive to contextual influences than Westerners, an integration of Gawronski et  al.’s (2010) RTCE with research on dialectical thinking suggests the opposite conclusion for context effects on evaluative responses, such that dialectical thinking (i.e., higher tolerance for inconsistency) prevents, rather than promotes, context effects.

Summary of Predicted Cultural Differences This analysis leads to competing predictions regarding East–​West differences in context effects on evaluative responses. Combined with evidence for higher attention to context among individuals from East Asian cultures, Gawronski et  al.’s (2010) RTCE implies that East Asians may be less likely to show patterns of ABC renewal and AAB renewal than Westerners, with the two cultural groups being equally susceptible to ABA renewal. However, combined with evidence for higher tolerance for inconsistency among individuals from East Asian cultures, Gawronski et al.’s (2010) RTCE implies that, whereas Westerners should show the reviewed patterns of contextual renewal, evaluative responses of East Asians should reflect a mixture of the available information regardless of the context. An empirical test of these competing predictions would provide deeper insights into cultural differences in the contextualization of mental representations and evaluative responses.1

What Is a Context? Despite our concern with context effects, we still have not addressed the critical question of what constitutes a context. What exactly is the nature

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 255

of the contextual information that is stored in contextualized representations? For example, if counter-​attitudinal information is acquired in the context of a lecture room, is the activation of this information limited to this particular lecture room, or will other contexts that are somehow similar to the lecture room have the same effect? If similar contexts can have the same effect, in what particular sense do they have to resemble the context in which the counter-​attitudinal information was acquired? Would any lecture room have the same effect even if it is perceptually dissimilar to the one in which the counter-​attitudinal information was acquired (e.g., a perceptually distinct lecture room in a different building)? Alternatively, would a context that is perceptually similar to the lecture room have the same effect even if it is not a lecture room (e.g., a movie theater that visually resembles the lecture room)? The finding that meaningless visual cues as simple as the background color of a computer screen can modulate evaluative responses is consistent with the assumption that perceptual features of contexts may ultimately determine their modulatory function (e.g., Gawronski et al., 2010; Rydell & Gawronski, 2009). A  similar conclusion may be drawn from studies on renewal effects in animal learning (for a review, see Bouton, 2004). Although some of the animal studies have used manipulations that are ambiguous about the particular features that are relevant for the contextual modulation of conditioned responses (e.g., different cages), there is evidence that relatively simple visual cues can modulate the response that is elicited by a conditioned stimulus (e.g., bright vs. dimmed light). Similar effects are reported in the literature on the extinction of fear responses in humans (for a review, see Vervliet, Baeyens, Van den Bergh, & Hermans, 2013). In an attempt to provide deeper insights into the nature of contextualized representations, Gawronski, Ye, Rydell, and De Houwer (2014) presented participants with either positive or negative information about a target person against a neutral real-​life background (e.g., a sunset). In a subsequent block of the impression formation task, participants were presented with evaluative information of the opposite valence against a different real-​life background (e.g., a row of trees). Afterwards, participants completed a speeded evaluation task in which the two targets were presented against the background of the initial attitudinal information and the background of the counter-​attitudinal information. In addition, the priming task included trials in which the two targets were presented against (1)  a background that was conceptually equivalent, but perceptually dissimilar, to the background in which the counter-​attitudinal information had been presented

256 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

(e.g., a single tree vs. a row of multiple trees), (2) a background that was perceptually similar, but conceptually distinct, to the background in which the counter-​attitudinal information had been presented (e.g., a single tree vs. a single windmill that was perceptually similar in terms of color and spatial structure), and (3)  a background that was both conceptually and perceptually dissimilar to the background in which the counter-​attitudinal information had been presented (e.g., a single tree vs. a row of windmills). Results showed that contexts that were perceptually similar to the context in which counter-​attitudinal information had been acquired led to evaluative responses that were consistent with the valence of the counter-​attitudinal information. The same was true for contexts that were conceptually equivalent to the context in which counter-​attitudinal information had been acquired, which also led to evaluative responses that were consistent with the valence of the counter-​attitudinal information. These results suggest that contextualized representations of counter-​attitudinal information can be activated by contexts that are either perceptually or conceptually similar to the context in which the counter-​attitudinal experience took place. This conclusion has important implications for understanding cultural differences in context effects on evaluative responses, because it suggests that contextual renewal can be driven by basic perceptual processes, as well as conceptual processing of context meaning. We return to this issue at the end of this chapter when we discuss implications of our analysis.

Mere Attention versus Causal Attribution Another central question concerns the processes by which contextual information is integrated into mental representations of evaluative information. According to Gawronski and Cesario (2013), there are at least two possible ways in which attentional processes may contribute to the formation of contextualized representations. First, one could argue that contextual cues are integrated into the representation of counter-​attitudinal information to the extent that these cues “explain” the discrepancy between the initial attitudinal and the subsequent counter-​attitudinal information. This hypothesis resonates with classic theories of causal attribution, according to which unexpected events are attributed to situational factors (Heider, 1958; Jones & Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1973) and these factors are integrated into a contextualized representation of the expectancy-​violating information. Second, it is possible that enhanced attention to contextual cues is sufficient for the integration of these cues in a contextualized representation,

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 257

regardless of whether they do or do not “explain” the deviation from the expected valence. This scenario resonates with attentional accounts of illusory correlation effects (e.g., Hamilton & Gifford, 1976; Sherman et al., 2009), according to which enhanced attention to two co-​occurring stimuli can create a link between these stimuli in memory, even if they lack any objective contingency. An important difference between the two accounts is that, in the former case, the context should be integrated into the representation of counter-​ attitudinal information only when this context differs from the context that was present during the encoding of the initial attitudinal information (i.e., when context “explains” the difference in valence). In the latter case, however, expectancy-​violating counter-​attitudinal information may become contextualized even when there is no objective contingency between context and the valence of an object (i.e., even when context does not “explain” the difference in valence). For example, if perceivers form an initial negative impression of a new colleague at work, and this impression is later challenged by a positive behavior of that person in a coffee shop, the context of the counter-​attitudinal experience may provide a causal explanation for the expectancy-​violating behavior (e.g., the person might be happier and more relaxed in coffee shops). However, the context itself does not provide a causal explanation for the expectancy-​violating behavior when perceivers form an initial negative impression of a new colleague at work and this impression is later challenged by a positive behavior of that person in the same work context. Thus, although causal attribution can account for the emergence of ABA and ABC renewal, it is unable to explain cases of AAB renewal, which do not involve any meaningful relation between valence and context. In AAB renewal, both the initial attitudinal and subsequent counter-​attitudinal information are encountered in the same context, which implies that the context during the encoding of counter-​attitudinal information does not “explain” the observed expectancy-​violation. Although causal attributions might contribute to renewal effects when the contexts of conflicting evaluative information differ, these attributions do not seem necessary. Instead, renewal effects can occur as a result of mere attentional processes, such that enhanced attention to contextual cues may produce contextualized representations regardless of whether these cues do or do not explain the deviation from the expected valence. Applied to the previous example, if perceivers form an initial negative impression of a new colleague at work, and this impression is later challenged by the positive behavior of that person in the same work context, the new colleague may elicit a positive

258 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

response in the work context and a negative response in any other context, although the work context does not provide a meaningful explanation of the expectancy-​violating behavior. This conclusion is important, because it bolsters our earlier claim that contextual renewal can be driven by basic perceptual processes over and above conceptual processing of context meaning.

Implications for Cross-​Cultural Research The main goal of this chapter was to review the core assumption of Gawronski et al.’s (2010) RTCE and analyze its implications for cultural differences in the contextualization of mental representations and evaluative responses. This analysis led to competing predictions about the effects of counter-​attitudinal information on evaluative responses in different contexts. Specifically, we argued that different patterns of attention to context may produce differences in the emergence of ABA renewal, ABC renewal, and AAB renewal among members of East Asian and Western cultures. On the one hand, in light of the evidence that individuals from East Asian cultures tend to pay more attention to contexts than do individuals from Western cultures, the RTCE implies that East Asians may be less likely to show patterns of ABC renewal and AAB renewal than Westerners, while showing no differences in ABA renewal. On the other hand, given the evidence that individuals from East Asian cultures tend to have a higher tolerance for inconsistency than do individuals from Western cultures, the RTCE implies that East Asians, in contrast to Westerners, should not display any pattern of contextual renewal, including ABA renewal, ABC renewal, and AAB renewal. Although these predictions remain to be tested, we believe that Gawronski et al.’s (2010) RTCE provides a valuable framework for studying cultural differences in the contextualization of mental representations and evaluative responses. In addition to offering novel predictions about cultural differences in context effects on evaluative responses, the current analysis highlights the usefulness of adopting a mechanistic perspective on the mental processes underlying cultural differences in overt behavior. Mechanistic theories go beyond causal theories of social psychological phenomena by specifying the mental mechanisms by which different kinds of input stimuli (e.g., people, contextual cues) influence overt behavior (e.g., evaluative responses) (see Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2014). A central question in this analysis was how cultural differences in attention and thinking styles moderate the

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 259

processes by which contextual information is integrated into mental representations of evaluative information. The specificity of our hypotheses regarding the emergence of ABA renewal, ABC renewal, and AAB renewal indicates that a mechanistic perspective can provide much more nuanced predictions, compared to generalized claims that East Asians are simply more context-​sensitive than are Westerners. Considering that research on contextual renewal also has captured the interest of clinical psychologists (for a review, see Vervliet et al., 2013), our analysis suggests interesting new avenues for future research that go far beyond social perception and evaluative responses to other individuals. Another important aspect of our analysis is that it highlights the value of deviating from the traditional emphasis on meaning in cross-​cultural research (cf. Kashima, 2014). Our analysis was based on the premise that information processing is guided by universal principles that are consistent across cultures and species. Yet, the particular outputs of these processes may differ as a function of various factors that moderate the mental translation of inputs into outputs (see also Gawronski et al., 2008). The most central variable in this analysis was attention to context during the encoding of initial attitudinal information and expectancy-​violating counter-​attitudinal information. As we have argued in this chapter, there are empirical reasons to assume that individuals from East Asian and Western cultures differ with regard to either the former or the latter processing stage (or both). However, the moderating role of attention does not imply that the general principles of contextualization are different across cultures. By adopting a mechanistic perspective on presumably universal mental processes, our analysis suggests that the processing of meaningless perceptual features may play an important role for cross-​cultural differences, over and above the well-​established role of cultural differences in the processing of conceptual meaning. This does not imply that cultural differences rooted in meaning are not important; it simply suggests that there may be an additional layer of cultural differences that is even more fundamental than cultural differences in meaning. However, it is important to note that mechanistic research on cultural differences requires much more specificity with regard to the nature of the hypothesized cultural differences. Although we adopted the common practice of distinguishing between “East Asians” and “Westerners,” it is important to specify in which particular sense they are assumed to be different. Research on cultural differences often refers to dichotomous dimensions such as individualistic–​ collectivistic (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998), independent–​ interdependent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991),

260 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

analytic–​holistic (Nisbett, 2003), and linear–​dialectical (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). These dimensions are sometimes used interchangeably, suggesting that they describe a common underlying construct. Although some of these cultural dimensions may be correlated, it is important to realize that they refer to conceptually distinct constructs. For example, although dialectical–​analytic thinking and holistic–​analytic attention are considered to be prevalent among East Asians and Westerners, respectively, thinking styles and visual attention are conceptually distinct aspects of information processing. Moreover, the analysis presented in this chapter suggests that applying different dimensions of cultural differences to the same model of information processing (e.g., the RTCE) may lead to diverging predictions about the behavior in focus (e.g., evaluation). As we argued earlier, applying the cultural differences in holistic versus analytic attention to the RTCE leads to the prediction that East Asians may show ABA renewal, but not ABC renewal and AAB renewal. In contrast, applying the cultural differences in dialectical versus linear thinking to the same theory leads to a different prediction, that East Asians may not display any form of contextual renewal. Hence, it is important to clearly distinguish between different dimensions of cultural differences and their implications for information processing, to achieve a fine-​grained differentiation between conceptually distinct dimensions. Not only is it necessary for mechanistic research on cultural differences, but it also provides deeper insights into cultural differences that are rooted in meaning.

Conclusion At the beginning of this chapter, we described a hypothetical scenario in which a new colleague refused to help a co-​worker, yelling at her in the office. A  few days later, you witness the same colleague administering first aid to an unknown victim of a hit-​and-​run accident. The questions we asked were: How would you feel toward your new colleague the next time you see him in the office? Would your reaction be different if you saw him somewhere on the street? And how would you respond if you saw him in a completely different context, for example, a grocery store? Our analysis suggests that individuals from East Asian and Western cultures may show different evaluative responses to the new colleague, depending on the context in which he is encountered. For Westerners, the available evidence suggests that they may show a positive response when the new colleague is encountered on the street, but a negative response in any other context. For East Asians, however, our analysis led to two

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 261

competing predictions. On the one hand, evidence for cultural differences in holistic versus analytic attention suggests that East Asians may show a positive response when the new colleague is encountered on the street but a negative response when he is encountered in the office. Yet, the new colleague may elicit a mixed (or neutral) response when he is encountered in a novel context. On the other hand, evidence for cultural differences in tolerance for inconsistency suggests that East Asians may show a mixed response to the new colleague regardless of the context. Although these competing predictions remain to be tested, the proposed application of Gawronski et al.’s (2010) RTCE to cultural differences in evaluative responses may provide interesting new avenues for research on cultural differences in social cognition.

Note 1. It is worth noting that the proposed tolerance for inconsistency might be domain-​ specific, such that consistency motives may sometimes “trump” the tolerance for inconsistency provided by dialectical thinking (see Spencer-​Rodgers, Hamilton, Williams, Peng, & Wang, 2007). This issue raises the important question of whether the proposed cultural differences in renewal effects depend on the particular type of target object (e.g., the self, social groups, physical objects).

References ABC News. (2013, April 19). Bombing suspect was ‘easy to joke with,’ teammate recalls [Video file]. Retrieved from http://​abcnews.go.com/​GMA/​video/​ boston-​marathon-​bombing-​suspect-​dzhokhar-​tsarnaev-​easy-​joke-​18998607 Bouton, M. E. (1994). Context, ambiguity, and classical conditioning. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3, 49–​53. Bouton, M. E. (2002). Context, ambiguity, and unlearning:  Sources of relapse after behavioral extinction. Biological Psychiatry, 52, 976–​986. Bouton, M. E. (2004). Context and behavioral processes in extinction. Learning and Memory, 11, 485–​494. Bouton, M. E., & Bolles, R. C. (1979). Contextual control of the extinction of conditioned fear. Learning and Motivation, 10, 445–​466. Bouton, M. E., & Brooks, D. C. (1993). Time and context effects on performance in a Pavlovian discrimination reversal. Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Animal Behavior Processes, 19, 165–​179. Bouton, M. E., & Peck, C. A. (1989). Context effects on conditioning, extinction, and reinstatement in an appetitive conditioning preparation. Animal Learning and Behavior, 17, 188–​198.

262 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Bouton, M. E., & Ricker, S. T. (1994). Renewal of extinguished responding in a second context. Animal Learning and Behavior, 22, 317–​324. Carter, C. J., & Botelho, G. (2013, April 19). ‘CAPTURED!!!’ Boston police announce Boston Marathon bombing suspect in custody. CNN. Retrieved from http://​www. cnn.com/​2013/​04/​19/​us/​boston-​area-​violence/​ Choi, I, Koo, M., & Choi, J. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 691–​705. Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 890–​905. Choi, I., Nisbett, R. E., & Norenzayan, A. (1999). Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 47–​63. Chua, H. F., Boland, J. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (2005). Cultural variation in eye movements during scene perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 12629–​12633. Fazio, R. H. (2007). Attitudes as object-​evaluation associations of varying strength. Social Cognition, 25, 603–​637. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row Peterson. Gawronski, B. (2004). Theory-​based bias correction in dispositional inference:  The fundamental attribution error is dead, long live the correspondence bias. European Review of Social Psychology, 15, 183–​217. Gawronski, B. (2012). Back to the future of dissonance theory: Cognitive consistency as a core motive. Social Cognition, 30, 652–​668. Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2006). Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 692–​731. Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2015). Social-​cognitive theories. In B. Gawronski, & G. V. Bodenhausen (Eds.), Theory and explanation in social psychology (pp. 65–​ 83). New York: Guilford Press. Gawronski, B., & Cesario, J. (2013). Of mice and men: What animal research can tell us about context effects on automatic responses in humans. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17, 187–​215. Gawronski, B., Peters, K. R., & Strack, F. (2008). Cross-​cultural differences vs. universality in cognitive dissonance:  A conceptual reanalysis. In R. M. Sorrentino & S. Yamaguchi (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition across cultures (pp. 297–​ 314). New York: Elsevier. Gawronski, B., Rydell, R. J., Vervliet, B., & De Houwer, J. (2010). Generalization versus contextualization in automatic evaluation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 683–​701. Gawronski, B., & Sritharan, R. (2010). Formation, change, and contextualization of mental associations: Determinants and principles of variations in implicit measures. In B. Gawronski, & B. K. Payne (Eds.), Handbook of implicit social cognition: Measurement, theory, and applications (pp. 216–​240). New York: Guilford Press. Gawronski, B., Ye., Y., Rydell, R. J., & De Houwer, J. (2014). Formation, representation, and activation of contextualized attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 54, 188–​203.

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 263

Gilbert, D. T., & Malone, P. S. (1995). The correspondence bias. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 21–​38. Hamilton, D. L. (1998). Dispositional and attributional inferences in persona perception. In J. M. Darley & J. Cooper (Eds.), Attribution and social interaction:  The legacy of Edward E. Jones (pp. 99–​114).Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Hamilton, D. L., & Gifford, R. K. (1976). Illusory correlation in interpersonal perception:  A cognitive basis of stereotypic judgments. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12, 392–​407. Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley. Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). Culture, dissonance, and self-​ affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 389–​400. Johnson, M. K., Hashtroudi, S., & Lindsay, D. S. (1993). Source monitoring. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 3–​28. Johnson-​Laird, P. N., Girotto, V., & Legrenzi, P. (2004). Reasoning from inconsistency to consistency. Psychological Review, 111, 640–​661. Jones, E. E., & Davis, K. E. (1965). From acts to dispositions: The attribution process in person perception. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 219–​266. Kashima, Y. (2014). Causal and meaning-​ based explanation. In B. Gawronski & G. V. Bodenhausen (Eds.), Theory and explanation in social psychology. New York: Guilford Press. Kelley, H. H. (1973). The process of causal attribution. American Psychologist, 28, 107–​128. Lee, W. B., Newby-​Clark, I. R., & Zanna, M. P. (2006, January). Cross-​cultural differences in the relation between potential and felt ambivalence. Poster presented at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Palm Springs, CA. Lucky, J. T. (2013, April 19). Months before marathon bombing, suspect worked as Harvard lifeguard. Harvard Crimson. Retrieved from http://​www.thecrimson.com/​ article/​2013/​4/​19/​dzhokhar-​tsarnaev-​profile-​classmates/​ Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological review, 98, 224–​253. Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922–​934. Miller, J. G. (1984). Culture and the development of everyday social explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 961–​978. Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 949–​971. National Post Staff, & Goodman, L. (2013, April 19). ‘Suspect in custody’: Teen wanted in Boston bombing captured. National Post. Retrieved from http://​news.nationalpost.com/​ 2013/​04/​19/​watertown-​manhunt-​fbi-​search-​for-​boston-​marathon-​bomber-​suspect-​two/​ Ng, A. H., Hynie, M., & MacDonald, T. K. (2012). Culture moderates the pliability of ambivalent attitudes. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43, 1313-​1324. Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently . . . and why. New York: Free Press. Norenzayan, A., Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (2002). Cultural similarities and differences in social inference: Evidence from behavioral predictions and lay theories of behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 109–​120.

264 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Payne, B. K., Cheng, S. M., Govorun, O., & Stewart, B. D. (2005). An inkblot for attitudes:  Affect misattribution as implicit measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 277–​293. Peng, K. (1997). Naive dialecticism and its effects on reasoning and judgment about contradiction (Doctoral dissertation). University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54, 741–​754. Roese, N. J., & Sherman, J. W. (2007). Expectancies. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology:  Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 91–​115). New York: Guilford Press. Russel, J., Abelson, J., Wen, P., Rezendes, M., and Filipov, D. (2013, April 19). Brother veered violently off track. The Boston Globe. Retrieved from https://​www.bostonglobe.com/​metro/​2013/​04/​19/​relatives-​marathon-​bombing-​suspects-​worried-​that-​ older-​brother-​was-​corrupting-​sweet-​younger-​sibling/​UCYHkiP9nfsjAtMjJPWJJL/​ story.html Rydell, R. J., & Gawronski, B. (2009). I like you, I like you not: Understanding the formation of context-​dependent automatic attitudes. Cognition and Emotion, 23, 1118–​1152. Schuppe, J. (2013, July 1). Brothers’ classic immigrant tale emerges as relatives speak out. NBC Bay Area. Retrieved from http://​www.nbcbayarea.com/​news/​national-​ international/ ​ B oston- ​ B ombing- ​ S uspects- ​ a re- ​ R ussian- ​ B rothers- ​ O fficials- ​ S ay-​ 203757531.html Sherman, J. W., Kruschke, J. K., Sherman, S. J., Percy, E. J., Petrocelli, J. V., & Conrey, F. R. (2009). Attentional processes in stereotype formation: A common model for category accentuation and illusory correlation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 305–​323. Smith, E. R., & Semin, G. R. (2004). Socially situated cognition: Cognition in its social context. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 53–​117. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1416–​1432. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., Hamilton, D. L., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2007). Culture and group perception: Dispositional and stereotypic inferences about novel and national groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 525–​542. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction: A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 296–​312. Tamai, N., & Nakajima, S. (2000). Renewal of formerly conditioned fear in rats after extensive extinction training. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 13, 137–​147. Triandis, H. C., & Gelfand, M. J. (1998). Converging measurement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 118–​128. Vervliet, B., Baeyens, F., Van den Bergh, O., & Hermans, D. (2013). Extinction, generalization, and return of fear:  A critical review of renewal research in humans. Biological Psychology, 92, 51–​58. Zhou, X., He, L., Yang, Q., Lao J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2012). Control deprivation and styles of thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 460–​478.

Culture and Contextualization of Evaluative Responses 

| 265



­C HAPTER 9

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity from Many Perspectives Contradiction and Tension Susannah B. F. Paletz, Kyle Bogue, Ella Miron-​Spektor, and Julie Spencer-​Rodgers

From the existence of the placebo effect to dark matter in space, scientists have struggled with contradiction and anomalies (Brooks, 2005). Acknowledging, addressing, and resolving anomalies are all important in both basic and applied scientific creativity. How the contradictions and anomalies are approached impacts how scientific fields move forward and how phenomena are understood (Trickett, Trafton, & Schunn, 2009; see also Chapter 2 in this volume). How individuals face contradiction is closely related to both dialectical thinking and creativity, as this chapter will discuss. Dialectical thinking has been studied under various guises in relation to creativity, with the general assumption being that dialectical thinking increases creativity. However, this assumption relies on certain conceptualizations of both dialectical thinking and creativity. In this chapter, we present the varying definitions and uses of “dialectical thinking” across theoretical traditions, with a key difference among them being the assumptions they make about how to handle contradiction and the psychological tension that may arise from contradiction. We then discuss how creativity may be differentially affected by these different types of dialectical thinking, describe the relevant differences between cultures in “naïve” or acceptance-​oriented dialectical thinking, describe the relationship between creativity and other constructs related to dialectical thinking, point out gaps in current theory, and recommend areas for future research.

Creativity Defined Creativity is not a simple, one-​dimensional construct. Creativity is typically defined as a person, product, discovery, or process that exhibits both novelty and appropriateness (Amabile, 1983, 1996; Brown, 1989; Guilford, 1950; Mumford, 2001; Plucker, Beghetto, & Dow, 2004). For example, for a new smartphone to be creative, it must fulfill some aspect of appropriateness (e.g., be useful and practical) but also be novel—​different from its predecessors to some degree. For a piece of art to be creative, it will also need to fulfill some aspect of appropriateness (in this case, meet certain aesthetic requirements, such as technical quality) as well as be original. For a person to be creative, that person must generate ideas, products, art, and/​or organizational processes that are both novel and fit the situational constraints appropriately. Creative outputs themselves can be judged on a variety of dimensions, such as fluency (number of ideas), flexibility (number of higher-​level categories), originality/​novelty, and elaboration (detail and richness of the idea; Guilford, 1950; Mumford, 2001; Torrance, 1968). For instance, imagine that a group of students has generated ideas about how to enhance transportation options for a college campus. These ideas can be evaluated on several dimensions of creativity: the sheer number of ideas (fluency); the number of categories into which the ideas cluster (flexibility, e.g., building new parking structures and finding more parking, but also increasing public transportation options, enhancing bicycle sharing, and other types of solutions); the degree of originality (e.g., low would be building new parking structures, whereas high originality would be adding gondolas from nearby high-​rise apartment complexes down toward campus); and elaboration, or the degree to which the ideas are given a lot of detail (e.g., a detailed plan about where parking spaces could be located, based on student need and available space). These dimensions are all measures of divergent creative thinking, such that each element of creativity results in a greater number, amount, or richness of solutions, whereas processes and outcomes related to convergent thinking tend to involve evaluation or the choice of a single right answer (Cropley, 2006). Creativity also consists of many subprocesses and stages, such as preparation, problem finding and problem structuring, insight, recombination, analogy, mental simulation, and evaluation (Reiter-​Palmon, Mumford, O’Connor Boes, & Runco, 1997; Trickett et  al., 2009; Ward, Smith, & Finke, 1999; Ward, Smith, & Vaid, 1997). For instance, recombination (also known as conceptual combination) is a fundamental cognitive process that involves putting together elements from pre-​existing ideas into a

268 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

new, coherent whole (Ward et al., 1997). In combining a phone, a camera, and a small computer, smartphone developers created a novel and useful new product. Problem finding, both a process and an early stage of creativity, entails formulating the problem before even starting to find a creative solution. For example, imagine that you observe a monkey eating dirt (Paletz & Peng, 2009). You could define the problem as a lack of nutrition or illness on the part of the monkey, a special property of the dirt, a rare need on the part of the particular monkey, or as an observational error (i.e., the monkey was actually eating grubs in the dirt). Depending on how the problem is defined, the solution may be more or less creative. Of note are cultural differences and similarities in the definition and measurement of creativity. Creativity itself has slightly different meanings in different cultures (e.g., Niu & Sternberg, 2002), although it has been primarily studied as a psychological construct in the West (Niu & Kaufman, 2013). Several studies suggest that there are cultural differences in implicit theories of creativity (assumptions about creativity), with nuanced differences in what it means to be a creative person or product (e.g., Niu & Sternberg, 2002; Paletz, Peng, & Li, 2011; Rudowicz & Yue, 2000; Runco & Johnson, 2002; Yue & Rudowicz, 2002). Different kinds of creativity are also valued differently in different cultures; for example, verbal creativity is deeply appreciated in Islamic cultures (Khaleefa, Erdos, & Ashria, 1997). Standard creativity tests are often considered biased because of differences in definitions, values, and operationalizations of creativity between not just national cultures but also rural/​agricultural and urban/​industrialized communities (e.g., Ford & Harris, 1992; Khaleefa et al., 1997; Torrance, 1968). Inspired at least obliquely by this research, the psychological concept of creativity has been expanding to encompass a greater diversity of constructs (Niu & Kaufman, 2013). Not only should creativity include the creativity of eminent individuals and everyday creativity, but the construct should also include creativity inherent in the process of learning and the creativity of experts (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). Several theoretical models, drawing on cultural values research (e.g., individualism–​collectivism, power distance), contend that East Asian creativity focuses on appropriateness whereas Western creativity focuses on novelty (e.g., Erez & Nouri, 2010; Lubart, 1999). Empirical results have been mixed: in a survey study in which individuals had to make explicit judgments, this stereotype was confirmed (Nouri, 2014). Explicit judgments involve answering clearly stated questions about a construct, such as rating the degree to which creativity involves novelty (and explicit theories of creativity would be such explicit judgments as described by experts

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 269

within scientific fields). However, in a cross-​cultural scenario study of implicit theories of creativity, or layperson assumptions about a construct, novelty was viewed as equally important to creativity by participants from China, Japan, and the United States. In that study, college students were asked to rate the creativity and desirability of hypothetical products (textbooks and meals) that varied in their underlying novelty and appropriateness. Appropriateness was seen as both more desirable and important to creativity by participants from Japan and the United States than it was by participants from China, and novel products were more appreciated in China than in the other countries (Paletz & Peng, 2008). There were no differences in ratings between the Japanese and American participants, which suggests commonalities in implicit theories of creativity above and beyond possible cross-​cultural differences. Indeed, novelty and appropriateness were both vital to conceptions of creativity in all three countries, thus some fundamental universals may exist (Niu & Kaufman, 2013). This review also discusses innovation, long considered a sibling construct of creativity. Innovation is broader than creativity, additionally including implementation and intentional usefulness (West & Farr, 1990). It is creative to design hardware, a piece of art, or a work process; it is innovative to overcome the practical, societal, physical, and logistical obstacles so that one ends up with a product in hand, art on a wall, or a work process that is used across a company. Creativity, innovation, and the different creative subprocesses may be affected differently by different types of dialectical thinking. Given the importance of creativity and innovation to both successful individual businesses and to a growing economy (Ahlstrom, 2010), it behooves us to not simply accept a link between dialectical thinking and creativity but to understand how different types of dialectical thinking may affect different types of creativity. Even beyond economic issues, creativity and innovation are vital to tackling complex, multidisciplinary global problems, such as the spread of disease, the search for new power sources, climate change, and food production. Next, we review the extant theory and research on dialectical thinking.

Theoretical Approaches to Dialectical Thinking The phrases “dialectical thinking” and “dialectics” have a long history, reaching across eras and cultures (Wong, 2006; see also Chapter 5 in this volume). How they are defined varies greatly. For this review, we focus on dialectical thinking as a cognitive style or frame, although it also means

270 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

a method of argumentation, a stage of cognitive development, and a lay theory of thought (see Table 9.1). This section covers the Western post-​ Hegelian dialectic (e.g., Basseches, 1980)  and East Asian naïve dialecticism, which is contrasted with linear thinking (e.g., Peng & Nisbett, 1999). We later discuss several constructs related to dialectical thinking (Table 9.1). Although other types of dialectical thinking have been described (e.g., Indian and German negative dialectics, Wong, 2006), those will not be covered here. When we discuss research on creativity and dialectical thinking, however, we will expand our review to include related concepts (Table 9.1).

Hegelian and Integrative Dialectical Thinking One of the oldest types of dialectical thinking is the Greek dialectic, which involves a structured, question–​answer form of debate as detailed in the Socratic dialogues by Plato (McCabe, 2008). This method has its contemporary equivalents in the dialogic argumentation approach (e.g., Crowell & Kuhn, 2014), which is not the topic of this chapter. More recent Western philosophy has developed what has been termed the “Hegelian dialectic,” which involves three stages: a thesis, which entails one set of facts supporting a hypothesis; the antithesis, which are opposite facts supporting a contradictory hypothesis; and the synthesis, which unifies and combines the thesis and antithesis (Cosier & Dalton, 1982). Others have noted that it was Fichte, not Hegel, who detailed these terms for the tripartite dialectic (Stepelevich, 1990, as cited in Wong, 2006). Rather than referring to it as quasi-​Hegelian, we will continue to use the phrase Hegelian dialectical thinking. Wong (2006) drew on the philosophical literature to argue that the Hegelian dialectic does not simply proceed linearly through three phases but also includes deeper subtleties and complexities, such as all three phases potentially occurring simultaneously. According to Wong’s (2006) review, the Hegelian dialectic, from its inception, has been broadly applied: it can refer to the development of knowledge and thought within an individual, as well as to the development of scientific knowledge, the material world, humanity, and the spirit. Thus, Hegelian dialectical thinking, as a philosophical construct, has not historically been limited to describing a particular psychological frame of thinking. What the various iterations of Hegelian dialectical thinking have in common, however, whether enacted by an individual, organization, or nation, is that “change occurs through the resolution and confrontation of contradiction, rather than the avoidance of it” (Livingstone, Palich, & Carini, 2002, p. 322). We contend that this element is key to

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 271

Table 9.1 Concepts Related to Dialectical Thinking and Their Definitions Concepts

Definition

Hegelian dialectic thinking

A Western philosophically based theory. Thesis (initial facts), antithesis (opposite facts), and synthesis (combination of thesis and antithesis)

Naïve dialectical thinking

An East Asian lay theory. The three main (but not all) components to naïve dialecticism are the theory of change (reality is a dynamic process), the theory of contradiction (oppositions coexist and are ever-​present), and the theory of holism (everything is interrelated; Peng & Nisbett, 1999)

Linear thinking or analytic cognition

A Western lay theory based on formal logic involving the three principles of identity (a thing is what it is), non-​contradiction (the same thing cannot be true and false at the same time), and the excluded middle (statements are either false or true but not both; Peng & Nisbett, 1999)

Dialectical thinking (developmental psychology)

A postformal stage of cognitive development, a type of thinking that looks for “a developmental transformation (i.e., developmental movement through forms), which occurs via constitutive and interactive relationships” (Basseches, 1980, p. 405). Emphasizes interrelationships, change, holism, and identification of contradiction, and involves 24 schemata (Basseches, 1980)

Integrative complexity

A mode of thinking involving both differentiation and integration (synthesis and/​or comparing/​contrasting) of disparate elements (Suedfeld et al., 1992)

Dialectic inquiry

A method of problem solving where the decision maker generates solutions, makes assumptions explicit, and then comes up with counterarguments based on the negated form of the assumptions (Cosier & Dalton, 1982)

Paradoxical frames

Mental templates that individuals impose on an environment in order to recognize and embrace contradictions (Smith & Tushman, 2005, p. 523)

Adaptive expertise

Learned expertise involving knowing when variations to previous strategies/​heuristics are necessary and how to make changes to those strategies, such that both efficiency and innovation result (Hatano & Inagaki, 1984, 1986)

the difference between Hegelian dialectical thinking and naïve dialectical thinking (see next section). One descendent of Hegelian dialectics in academic psychology is the notion that dialectical thinking is an advanced developmental stage

272 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

of cognitive thought (Basseches, 1980; Wong, 2006). Basseches (1980) extended Piaget’s (1952) theory of cognitive development to propose that dialectical thinking is an adult stage of cognitive development that goes beyond adolescent formal operations. He catalogued 24 different schemata, or “moves in thought,” that reflect dialectical thinking as a postformal operational stage of cognitive organization (Basseches, 1980; Benack, Basseches, & Swan, 1989, p. 200). Examples of schemata include “thesis-​ antithesis-​synthesis movement in thought,” “assertion of internal relations,” “attention to problems of coordinating systems (forms) in relation,” and “assumption of contextual relativism” (Basseches, 1980, p. 408). In other words, an individual who has reached the dialectical stage perceives reality as being composed of elements that are constantly changing, rather than static; emphasizes the whole as more than a sum of its parts; and has a systems view that focuses on relationships rather than separate entities (Benack et al., 1989). Basseches (1980) found through an interview protocol at a small coeducational liberal arts college that professors were more likely to exhibit a broader range of dialectical thinking as categorized by these moves than were senior undergraduates, who, in turn, exhibited more dialectical thinking than freshmen. For example, a biology professor described how arguments and perspectives in the abstract can develop in an explicitly Hegelian manner, mentioning how a new synthesis can arise from a thesis and antithesis. Conceptualized as a developmental stage, the Hegelian theoretical tradition thus emphasizes the integrative aspect of dialectical thinking. The tension that exists between the two opposing elements is generally resolved into a new synthesis, or a creative change (Livingston et al., 2002).

East Asian, Chinese,1 or Naïve Dialectical Thinking So far, we have discussed dialectical thinking as it has been described in Western philosophical and psychological works. Basseches’ (1980) findings give credence to the idea that Hegelian dialectical thinking is learned as one gains more education and/​or is an inevitable later stage of cognitive thought and development (Piaget, 1972). These types of cognitive thought are distinguished from lay, implicit, or folk theories, which involve underlying, shared assumptions that guide thinking (e.g., Kruglanski, 1989; Peng, Ames, & Knowles, 2001). In China, Japan, and Korea, folk theories share assumptions from East Asian philosophical and religious traditions such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism (Peng, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Zhong, 2006). Peng and Nisbett (1999) proposed and provided empirical

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 273

support for a separate, lay or folk (hence “naïve”) East Asian type of dialectical thought. The three components of naïve dialecticism are the theory of change, the theory of contradiction, and the theory of holism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). In the theory of change, much as with postformal dialectical thinking (Basseches, 1980), reality is considered a dynamic process (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Individual elements within the world are not objective or fixed but are subjective and changeable. For example, personality traits are not considered inherent or unchanging but are subject to situational demands and contextual pressures (e.g., Spencer-​Rodgers, Boucher, Mori, Wang, & Peng, 2009). The theory of contradiction, the second component of dialectical thinking, arises from the first. Because aspects of reality are constantly changing, oppositions also coexist and are ever-​present (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). One cannot truly understand one concept (e.g., beauty) without understanding its opposite (e.g., ugliness; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). According to this lay theory, these contradictions need not be resolved—​a key difference from modern Hegelian theory (see next section). The third component of naïve dialectical thinking is the theory of holism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). In this theory, everything is interrelated. Holism is also related to a tendency to focus on the field within which objects are embedded, rather than focusing on objects as independent (Choi & Nisbett, 2000). This theory has similarities to postformal Hegelian thought, which similarly presents a systems, relationship view of the world. Despite being referred to as “Chinese/​East Asian/​naïve” dialectical thinking and “Western/​Hegelian” dialectical thinking, these two modes of cognition are likely present in all humans to some degree. On the one hand, various Western scholars have struggled with contradiction in a way that reflects naïve dialectical thinking (Li, 2014), and Caucasian Americans can be primed with naïve dialectical thinking (e.g., Paletz & Peng, 2009, see more below). For instance, the philosopher Henri Wald (1975) grappled with articulating an extension to formal logic that incorporated dialectical concepts to create a “dialectical logic,” proposing simultaneous contradiction as a new part of the logic system in a way reminiscent of, albeit distinct from, naïve dialectical thinking. As noted previously, the concepts of change, interaction, and holism are a part of Hegelian, Western, or integrative dialectical thinking (e.g., Benack et  al., 1989; Kallio, 2011). Hegel himself referred to Buddhist concepts (see Weiss, 1974, p.  97). Similarly, synthesis is part of the Chinese conception of dialectical thinking, and the psychic tension from simultaneously holding two opposites may give rise to change (Wong, 2006). Although the Social Paradigms

274 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Belief Inventory, which includes a postformal operations dialectical scale, was created in the West, it has acceptable test-​retest reliability (.77) in Taiwan and exhibits convergent validity when compared to a divergent thinking test (Yang, Wan, & Chiou, 2010). In sum, despite mean level cultural differences in habitual thinking styles, Hegelian dialectical thinking certainly exists among East Asians, and naïve dialectical thinking is found among Westerners (Li, 2014). The next section will describe the differences between these two types of dialectical thinking, and a third mode of thought: linear thinking.

Reactions to Contradictory Elements: Hegelian versus Naïve Dialecticism versus Linear Thinking There are two main distinctions between naïve dialecticism and Hegelian dialecticism. The first distinction is one of form rather than content. Naïve dialecticism is a lay theory of thought that draws from a rich and varied philosophical tradition: it is a culturally influenced set of assumptions that are experienced as a cognitive style of approaching information, people, and things. Whereas Hegelian dialecticism has been operationalized in many different forms, it is generally conceptualized as either directly descended from a specific Western philosophical theory and/​or is a postformal (advanced) cognitive stage of development (albeit defined as such by Western scientists). Stages of cognitive development (and their research) seem to be influenced by a combination of implicit cultural norms, explicit educational practices, individual aptitude, and developmental universals (Piaget, 1972). Naïve dialectical thinking is considered to be a culturally based lay theory and perhaps influenced by educational practices, but it is not considered an individual aptitude or universal stage of development. Thus, Hegelian dialectical thinking and naïve dialectical thinking are different forms of cognitive styles. The second distinction, which is most pertinent to the issue of creativity, is between the two in their content, specifically in their approaches to contradiction. Hegelian dialecticism places an emphasis on synthesis and integration, whereas naïve dialecticism emphasizes tolerance and acceptance of contradiction. In East Asian philosophy, contradiction may give rise to a tension that need never be resolved (Paletz & Peng, 2009). Chinese scholars of Buddhism have pointed out that a “middle way” by no means refers to a solution achieved by averaging or mixing. Rather, it is accomplished through “a simultaneous application of the two opposite poles” (Wong,

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 275

2006, p.  246). We consider the main difference between the East Asian naïve dialectic and the Hegelian dialectic to be the affective and cognitive reactions to observing polar opposites and experiencing contradiction. Whereas Chinese dialecticism views concepts/​objects as both perceived to be and being potentially composite (“both/​and”), Hegelian dialecticism views concepts/​objects as being categorical but perceived as combined (“either/​and”; Li, 2014, p.  9). While this particular distinction between these two types of dialectical thinking needs more direct empirical study, prior research suggests that East Asians indeed are more likely to tolerate and accept contradiction without a need for synthesis when compared to North Americans. East Asians are more tolerant of the coexistence of opposing traits, emotions, and attitudes within themselves (e.g., Choi & Choi, 2002; Spencer-​Rodgers, et  al., 2009; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, & Wang, 2010; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004). East Asians are also more likely to tolerate contradictions in others and in the world (Peng & Nisbett, 1999, 2000) and, on average, they are less surprised by contradictory evidence (Choi & Nisbett, 2000). As we will see later, the affective and cognitive reactions to contradiction have direct implications for the effects of dialectical thinking, of either kind, on creativity. Dialectical thinking has been contrasted most dramatically with linear thinking, formal thinking, and analytic cognition (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001; Paletz & Peng, 2009; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Yang et al., 2010). In linear or analytic thought, the focus is on the object rather than the field, dispositional rather than situational attributions, and the lay theories of formal logic dominate (e.g., if A = B and B = C, A = C; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Nisbett et al., 2001). In linear thinking, participants want to choose one of two opposing options. For instance, a linear thinker might view herself as introverted or extraverted, but a dialectical thinker (of either type) might view herself as both. While Hegelian dialectical thinking is thought to be an advanced cognitive stage, linear thinking is a Western lay theory derived more directly from formal logic. Linear thinking is similar to the “formal” stage of cognitive development, whereas Hegelian dialectical thinking is considered postformal (Yang et al., 2010). Indeed, Hegel himself outlines, but moves beyond, simple formal logic: he describes dialectical constructs, such as how Being and Nothing coexist simultaneously in the concepts of Becoming and Beginning (Weiss, 1975, p.  120). Thus, linear thinking, not Hegelian dialectical thinking, is the Western lay theory that parallels and is most different from naïve dialectical thinking. Analytic thinking is more likely to be held in Western cultures such as North America that emphasize stability and coherence in the self,

276 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Contradiction Linear Thinking

Tension, conflict

Solution Resolution: one is right and one is wrong or

Hegelian dialecticism

Naïve dialecticism

Tension, conflict

Resolution: synthesis, removing the tension by integrating the elements

Acceptance, no tension

Resolution: no need to resolve, middle-way (both are right), and/or embeddedness

Figure 9.1  Linear thinking, Hegelian dialecticism, and naïve dialecticism: differences in perceptions of contradiction and solutions.

physical and social objects, and the world (Nisbett et al., 2001). It is this distinction—​between naïve dialectical and analytic/​linear cognition—​that has underlain much of the recent cross-​cultural research on naïve dialectical thinking. Thus, when people are faced with contradiction, different cognitive frames may be used. With the three cognitive styles described here, the contradiction is observed and acknowledged. However, in naïve dialectical thinking, the contradiction is accepted and tolerated, and perhaps no tension is felt (Wonkyong, Newby-​Clark, & Zanna, 2006); in linear thinking, tension is felt and compromise is rejected, with a choice made between the available options; and in Hegelian dialectical thinking, the motive is to resolve the felt tension through integration and synthesis (see Figure 9.1).

Hypotheses Regarding Dialectical Thinking and Creativity Each of these dialectical responses to contradiction has implications for creativity, depending on the type of creativity. We hypothesize that

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 277

Hegelian dialectical thinking would likely be positively associated with divergent and convergent creative processes and outcomes. In particular, Hegelian dialectical thinking should be most closely related to creative processes that involve drawing on contradictory or disparate sources to make something new (e.g., the creative process of recombination). We propose a contradiction–​tension–​resolution–​creativity connection, such that tension or conflict mediates the effect between contradiction and creativity. The attempts to resolve the tension between opposing elements result in a more creative outcome. The creative process of recombination involves taking different elements, which may or may not be in opposition, and combining them into a new, creative outcome (Ward et al., 1997). In support of this premise, recent research has found that reflection on paradoxes and contradictions increased the creativity of Western participants, who are motivated to resolve tensions by finding a synthesis, more than it increased the creativity of East Asians, who accept tensions and search for middle-​way solutions (Leung et al., In press). We propose that naïve dialectical thinking would be unrelated to most types of creativity for individuals from most cultures, as it requires neither choice nor synthesis. Individuals who default to using naïve dialectical thinking may see that there is no tension to be resolved and be less motivated to explore the tension, and thus engage in less integrative processing. If naïve dialectical thinking is related at all to creativity, it may be related to the types of creativity that are associated with steady learning (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009) or incremental improvements (Madjar, Greenberg, & Chen, 2011), as new information can potentially be added into existing knowledge structures without the need to resolve an inherent tension. Furthermore, we suggest that manipulations that hinge on the resolution of contradiction are less likely to lead to greater creativity among naïve dialectical thinkers. In the review that follows, we describe the research evidence on dialectical thinking and creativity. Given that scholars have not yet systematically tested these hypotheses and in only a few cases examine dialectical thinking at all, by necessity we cover the available, related literature as well.

Research on Dialectical Thinking and Creativity Because of the differences between Hegelian dialectical thinking and naïve dialectical thinking, this section is organized by type of dialectical thinking. We also discuss dialectical thinking as it appears in related constructs

278 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

throughout the psychological literature. First, we examine conceptual and empirical work on Hegelian dialectical thinking and creativity.

Hegelian Dialectical Thinking and Creativity Hegelian dialectical thinking has traditionally been viewed as being positively associated with creativity. Conceptual combination, or the bringing together of opposing elements and generating a new and appropriate solution, is one of the core processes of creativity (Ward et  al., 1997). The janusian scientific creative process theory, as proposed by Rothenberg (1995, 1996), is clearly inspired by Hegelian dialecticism. The scientist goes through several phases in creation:  (1) a motivation to create that entails immersion in a field, (2) an identification of unresolved elements in a novel way, (3)  the simultaneous bringing together of the janusian opposition pairs in a creative way, and (4) further construction and testing of the new theory, experiment, or discovery (Rothenberg, 1996). As an example of Phase 3, Rothenberg (1996) cites Einstein’s description of how an observer who is falling from a roof is simultaneously in motion (falling) and at rest. By embracing these simultaneous contradictory elements (rest and motion), Einstein was then able to generate a detailed theory of relativity of motion in Phase 4. Rothenberg (1996) explicitly distinguishes between this third phase and original Hegelian dialectical thinking, contending that in the janusian process, the opposites coexist simultaneously, rather than sequentially, as proposed in Hegel’s original philosophy. “Contradictory elements are not reconciled but remain in conflict; opposites are not combined, and oppositions are not resolved. Antitheses and opposites in the janusian process are held in tense apposition: they operate side by side and, in later phases, generate new and valuable constructions” (Rothenberg, 1996, p.  208). Although this description has elements of naïve dialectical thinking (simultaneous coexistence), the description of tension and eventual resolution in Phase 4 aligns the overall janusian theory with Hegelian dialecticism, rather than with naïve dialectical thinking. The bringing together of contradictory elements also often produces surprise (Rothenberg, 1995). Some research has suggested that surprise mediates the relationship between positive affect (e.g., elation) and creativity, at least in males from a large Western university (Filipowiz, 2006). The janusian theory was derived from accounts of eminent, creative individuals (e.g., Nobel laureates from the United States, Europe, and Japan; Rothberg, 1996), but it needs additional empirical testing.

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 279

Another theory relating Hegelian dialectical thinking to creativity draws on Basseches’ (1980) theory of dialectical thinking as postformal cognitive thought. Benack and colleagues (1989) argued that dialectical thinking should lead to attention to and the synthesis of contradiction, set breaking (i.e., thinking beyond pre-​existing patterns and knowledge), self-​awareness of change, and awareness of both novelty and the complex relationships between elements. On the emotional side, dialectical thinking should encourage tolerance of ambiguity and the ability to identify and hold the tension of noting opposing elements. Benack and colleagues (1989) theorized that these cognitive and emotional abilities of the dialectical thinker would promote creativity. There is also some empirical evidence for the positive connection between Hegelian dialectical thinking and creativity. In a sample of Taiwanese adults aged 23 to 40, Yang and colleagues (2010) tested whether a correlation exists between dialectical postformal attitudes and performance on a divergent thinking task that involved completing drawings. The divergent thinking task was scored on six dimensions, including fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality. The dialectical thinking attitudes scale used forced-​choice items with “formal” and “dialectical” choices, such as “(a) In a war, there is usually a right side and a wrong side. This is because if both sides disagree, logically they couldn’t both be right” (formal); and “(b) In a war, both sides contribute to the problem. This is because they belong to the same world and are part of the problems in that world” (dialectical) (Yang et al., 2010, p. 6). As noted previously, formal thought is similar to Western linear lay theories. The dialectical choices in Yang and colleagues’ (2010) study demonstrate the understanding of holism, change, and simultaneous opposites that are evident in Hegelian dialectical thinking but also in naïve dialectical thinking. This measure resulted in continuous scores for both formal (linear) and dialectical thinking. Yang and colleagues (2010) found positive correlations (Pearson’s r  =  .31 to .38) between the dialectical thinking scale and each of the creativity dimensions, and negative correlations (−​.41 to −​.51) for the formal thinking scale and the creativity dimensions. These general trends were further supported by a multiple discriminant analysis that distinguished between participants categorized as either formal or postformal (dialectical) thinkers. However, these analyses did not seem to control for or test for potential relevant covariates, such as age, education, or disciplinary focus, which other studies suggest may be related to postformal thinking in Americans (e.g., Basseches, 1980).

280 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Arlin (1989) similarly found a positive correlation between dialectical thinking and problem-​finding question quality in a sample of 15-​to 19-​ year-​ old artists and scientists from a medium-​ sized New England town in the United States. She measured dialectical thinking by applying Basseches’ (1980) coding scheme to answers to open-​ended interview questions about how the scientists and artists went about their respective work and creative processes. In a separate study, she also found that problem finding and dialectical thinking statistically loaded on a single factor in a sample of gifted Canadian twelfth graders, suggesting that problem finding and Hegelian dialectical thinking were tapping into a similar construct (Arlin & Levitt, 1998). The implication that problem finding and dialectical thinking are positively related supports Arlin’s (1975) theory that problem finding is, like dialectical thinking, an advanced, postformal stage of cognitive development. Although we conceptualize dialectical thinking and creativity as distinct, Arlin’s findings suggest that dialectical thinking may enable a deeper method of examining the world, which leads to better problem finding, which in turn leads to better creativity. Summary of Research on Hegelian Dialectical Thinking and Creativity Findings

The current literature seems to suggest that taking a Hegelian dialectical mindset is positively associated with creativity—​and this relationship was found for both East Asians and European Americans (e.g., Yang et al., 2010). As suggested by both the janusian theory and the theory of dialectical thinking as a postformal stage of cognitive development, (Hegelian) dialectical thinking presupposes a holistic, nuanced view of the world that enables the identification of contradictory elements and the synthesis and integration of those elements. These cognitive processes are closely related to the creative process of recombination. However, the direct, empirical literature is extremely limited. Toward the end of this chapter, we return to this literature to suggest what studies are needed or could be conducted.

Naïve Dialectical Thinking and Creativity Given the theoretical differences between naïve and Hegelian dialectical thinking, what is the relationship between naïve dialectical thinking and creativity? Assuming that naïve dialectical thinking is different from Hegelian dialectical thinking, mainly in that it does not cause a tension between contradictory elements (and/​or does not require that tension to be resolved), one would expect this association to differ. We propose

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 281

that naïve dialectical thinking is generally unrelated to creativity, with the possible exception of creativity as it relates to learning processes and incremental rather than radical innovation. Research on naïve dialectical thinking and creativity exists, but it is rare. Naïve Dialectical Thinking and Problem Finding

The only published research to date to directly test for a relationship between naïve dialectical thinking and creativity yielded complex results across three studies (Paletz & Peng, 2009). In Study 1, Paletz and Peng (2009) found a negative relationship between originality on a problem restructuring task and self-​ reported dialectical thinking among Caucasian Americans. Naïve dialecticism was assessed with the Dialectical Self Scale (DSS; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2016), which measures self-​reported tolerance of contradiction (e.g., “My world is full of contradictions that cannot be resolved”), perceptions of the self as involving change (e.g., “I am constantly changing and am different from one time to the next”), and behavioral change (e.g., “The way I behave usually has more to do with immediate circumstances than with my personal preferences”), on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale (32 items, 15 reversed). The Asians (e.g., Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese) and Asian Americans in the sample did not show this relationship. This interaction effect for ethnicity is echoed in a study by Lun, Fischer, and Ward (2010). Using the DSS (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2016), Lun and colleagues (2010) found that naïve dialectical thinking was positively associated with critical thinking scores, but only for Asian students and not for those of European ethnicity. In Study 2 of Paletz and Peng (2009), however, there was a small positive association between self-​ reported dialectical thinking (DSS) and originality on a scientific problem-​finding task across the entire sample of Asians, Asian Americans, and Caucasian Americans. In an attempt to resolve the conflicting findings between Studies 1 and 2, Paletz and Peng (2009) conducted a third study, which (a) tested only Caucasian Americans, (b) experimentally manipulated linear and naïve dialectical thinking using a writing prime (asking the participants to write about a personal experience from the past), and (c) presented participants with scientific problem-​ finding tasks with either low or high inherent contradiction. They found an interaction effect between contradiction in the scientific problem-​finding task and primed linear versus dialectical thinking. The linear prime combined with the low contradiction task yielded the highest originality. The other three conditions, being both contradiction conditions with the naïve 282 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

dialectical thinking prime and the linear prime in the high inherent contradiction, were all relatively lower. The high-​contradiction, naïve dialectical thinking condition did not yield significantly higher originality than the low-​contradiction, naïve dialectical thinking condition. Taken together, these findings from the studies described suggest a complex relationship between cultural background, type of task, and naïve dialectical thinking for originality, such that naïve dialectical thinking is not advantageous for Caucasian Americans, particularly for low contradiction tasks. For East Asians, naïve dialectical thinking did not seem meaningfully related to originality. Naïve versus Hegelian Dialectical Thinking and Insight

Paletz and Miron-​Spektor (2010) attempted to replicate Paletz and Peng’s (2009)’s findings for Caucasian Americans on a different creativity task. The sample was 178 North American college students, 147 of whom self-​reported being European American, 15 reported being East Asian, 3 South Asian, 1 Pacific Islander, 12 African American or Black, 2 Native American, 4 Hispanic, and 1 Middle Eastern/​North African (participants could choose more than one ethnicity). Each participant received one of three primes:  a linear thinking prime (Parker-​Tapias & Peng, 2001; Paletz & Peng, 2009), a naïve dialectical thinking prime (Parker-​Tapias & Peng, 2001; Paletz & Peng, 2009), and a “synthesis” dialectical thinking prime created for this study. For the linear thinking prime, the participant was told that teenagers who “think about the world as relatively stable and consistent” were better adjusted socially and emotionally, and that a useful strategy was to “think analytically—​that is, to focus on what the one truth could be and choose the best solution to the problem.” For the naïve dialectical thinking prime, the participant was told that better adjusted teenagers “think about the world as full of change and contradiction” and that a useful strategy was “to think dialectically—​ that is, to accept that there are going to be conflicting perspectives to any problem, including the opposing ones, without trying to reconcile them.” For the synthesis (Hegelian) dialectical thinking prime, the participant was told better adjusted teenagers “think about the world as full of change and contradiction” and that the useful strategy was “to think dialectically—​that is, to think through all the facts and possible perspectives to any problem, including the opposing ones, and come up with the best synthesis.” In each case, the participant was then asked to recall an episode from his or her life that fit this description and to write a brief paragraph about it.

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 283

The dependent variables consisted of a series of creativity insight tasks. Insight tasks are convergent thinking tasks, which tend to have only one correct answer. Insight tasks, in particular, are usually experienced by the problem solver as having the answer suddenly come to him or her in a flash. This study employed 10 remote associate tasks (RAT; e.g., find the word common to envy, golf, and beans; green), 5 math insight tasks, 5 verbal insight tasks (e.g., “Two mothers and two daughters were fishing. They managed to catch one big fish, one small fish, and one fat fish. Since only three fish were caught, how is it possible that each woman had her own fish?”), and 5 spatial insight tasks (e.g., “Show how you can arrange 10 pennies so that you have 5 rows (lines) of 4 pennies in each row”). Insight creativity was measured by the average number of correct responses for each type of insight task. Paletz and Miron-​Spektor (2010) failed to find a significant association between insight creativity and either self-​ reported naïve dialectical thinking as assessed with the DSS or any of the prime manipulations in both the entire sample and among the self-​reported European Americans (n = 147). Thus, for insight creativity, this study failed to replicate Paletz and Peng’s (2009; albeit on a different task) results and found no effect for the synthesis (Hegelian) dialectical thinking prime. These null results comparing naïve dialectical thinking, Hegelian dialectical thinking, and linear thinking are difficult to interpret, and null results must always be interpreted with caution. The manipulation created to prime synthesis-​oriented dialectical thinking may have been too weak or ineffective. It is also possible that neither dialectical thinking nor linear thinking is related to insight-​based convergent creative thinking, and hence the manipulations had no effect. Observing contradiction and choosing one option or either tolerating it or striving to resolve it may have been irrelevant for this task. Future research on this topic should examine different types of creativity tasks and different manipulations of dialectical thinking. For instance, other types of convergent thinking tasks involve choosing a correct answer (i.e., evaluation), rather than generating a single one, and so those may be more likely to be related to linear thinking. Nevertheless, this study is noteworthy for being the only study to date that attempts to compare directly the effects of naïve dialectical thinking, Hegelian dialectical thinking, and linear thinking on the same task. Summary: Naïve Dialectical Thinking and Creativity

Clearly, research on naïve dialectical thinking and creativity is extremely limited and more studies are needed. Whether and how naïve dialectical

284 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

thinking is related to creativity appears to depend on cultural background (i.e., one’s familiarity and prior experience with naïve dialectical thinking), the level of contradiction inherent in the creativity task, and additional potential moderators. The null results from comparing naïve dialectical thinking and Hegelian dialectical thinking on insight tasks suggests that other creativity tasks should be tried in the future.

Concepts Related to Dialectical Thinking So far, this review demonstrates how rare it is for researchers to test the effects of either type of dialectical thinking on any kind of creativity, making it a promising area for future research. However, there exists a wide range of constructs and theories in the psychology and organizational behavior literatures with regard to creativity that deal with contradiction, opposition, and the managing of paradox. These theories and constructs are not often explicitly discussed as descendants of Hegelian or naïve dialectical thinking but nonetheless have enough similarities to be relevant to this discussion. This section covers integrative complexity, the dialectical inquiry method, paradoxical frames, and adaptive expertise (Table 9.1). These constructs are variously located at the individual, team, and organizational levels. Integrative Complexity

Peng and Nisbett (1999) pointed out the resemblance between Hegelian dialectical thinking and the construct of integrative complexity, the latter being a mode of thinking rather than a postformal stage of development or a culturally based folk theory (e.g., Suedfeld, Tetlock, & Streufert, 1992; Tetlock, 1983, 1985). Integrative complexity, as studied by Suedfeld, Tetlock, and others, is a particular information-​processing style that has variously been examined as a trait and a state. To possess a high level of integrative complexity, the person must demonstrate differentiation, or the ability to perceive different perspectives and dimensions as valid within the topic at hand, but also integration, which is “conceptual connections among differentiated dimensions or perspectives” (Suedfeld et al., 1992, p. 393). Integrative complexity research usually involves judging arguments (whether from speeches, text, or elicited from interviews) rather than assessing individuals using self-​ report methods (Suedfeld et al., 1992). For example, in the coding scheme for integrative complexity (Baker-​Brown et  al., 1992), differentiation is described as the author’s use of at least two distinct dimensions of judgment, such as recognizing that there are multiple independent causal factors in determining an outcome (e.g., how the availability of skilled artisans and

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 285

low demand both influence the cost of handcrafted furniture). The highest scores on the integrative complexity coding scheme require both differentiation and integration, whereas middling scores are assigned when only differentiation is identified. Integration can take many forms, such as the participant’s describing a higher-​level superstructure that includes multiple dimensions, or the author’s text revealing an understanding of specific relationships and interactions among differentiated elements (Suedfeld et  al., 1992). For example, an economic argument with high integration, and thus integrative complexity, would describe not only a collection of independent factors (e.g., willingness of artisans to create a product, skill in creating a product, cost the market will bear) but also how these factors interact and change in a dynamic system (e.g., during a recession, demand falls because people also seek out more functional and less attractive furniture, as well as having less money to spend; Baker-​Brown et al., 1992). Working in developmental psychology, Kallio (2011) subsumed Basseches’ idea of a dialectical stage of cognitive operations into a postformal stage called integration (or integrative thinking), which involves the synthesis of opposing systems of knowledge and information into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Integrative complexity is thus similar to Hegelian dialectical thinking in that both entail a deeper examination of information, perspective taking, and a synthesis of possibly contradictory elements. Given these similarities between integrative complexity and Hegelian dialectical thinking, it should be no surprise that there are significant, but modest, positive associations between integrative complexity and creativity (e.g., Charlton & Bakan, 1988–​1989, using male and female American university students; Suedfeld & Coren, 1992, using male and female Canadian first-​year undergraduates). Among biculturals, or individuals who have lived abroad in a country that is different from their country of origin, integrative complexity is related to creativity. Those who identify strongly with both host and home cultures are better able to take into account distinct perspectives and to integrate them, and this integrative complexity mediates the greater ability of biculturals to be creative and succeed at their jobs (Tadmor, Galinsky, & Maddux, 2012). This research suggests that integrative complexity is positively associated with creativity. Dialectical Inquiry Method

Seemingly inspired by both Socratic and Hegelian dialectics, the dialectical inquiry method is designed to encourage and structure interpersonal discussions and problem solving (e.g., Cosier & Dalton, 1982; Valacich

286 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

& Schwenk, 1995). Using this method, the decision maker generates solutions, makes assumptions explicit, and then comes up with counterarguments based on the negated form of the assumptions (Cosier & Dalton, 1982). For example, when trying to figure out how to cross a hypothetical 12-​foot-​wide ravine, a decision maker might suggest jumping over, which assumes that a person can jump 12 feet; the negation of that assumption is that a person cannot jump 12 feet (Cosier & Dalton, 1982). The dialectical inquiry approach to problem solving has historically been contrasted with other approaches, such as the devil’s advocate technique (Cosier & Dalton, 1982; Valacich & Schwenk, 1995). In the devil’s advocate technique, ideas are criticized and argued against by assignment, whereas the dialectical inquiry technique requires the generation of specific alternative solutions by each individual (Katzenstein, 1996). Although some studies have shown that the devil’s advocate approach yields better solutions than the dialectical inquiry approach, particularly for individuals working alone (e.g., Cosier, 1978; Cosier & Dalton, 1982; Valacich & Schwenk, 1995), the findings for groups and teams were mixed (Katzenstein, 1996). One limitation of the majority of these studies was that they did not assess creativity or innovation per se, but rather, participants needed to solve management cases or make predictions based on cues (Katzenstein, 1996). Management case studies are widely used in business schools as rich, problem-​solving exercises based on real-​life organizational examples (e.g., sexual harassment at the CIA, Almon-​Smith, 1998). One small study of 45 business school students did examine the number of recommendations and assumptions generated (Cosier & Dalton, 1982), which are measures of divergent thinking (fluency). However, this study found no difference between the dialectical inquiry approach and simply being told to be open-​minded (the control condition). It also found that the devil’s advocate approach was a superior technique—​a finding in line with other studies comparing dialectical inquiry and the devil’s advocate technique with other dependent variables (e.g., Valacich & Schwenk, 1995). In sum, there is a modest literature on a problem-​solving technique termed “dialectical inquiry,” but it is not obviously better (and likely worse) for creativity than alternative techniques (e.g., devil’s advocate). In addition, the degree to which users of the technique feel tension from or resolve contradiction is unclear and needs further examination. Paradoxical Frames

Organizational scholars have recently applied theory on paradox for managing organizational tensions (Lewis, 2000; Smith & Berg, 1986; Smith

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 287

& Lewis, 2011). Paradox refers to “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time” (Smith & Lewis, 2011, p. 382). Paradoxical frames are “mental templates individuals use to embrace seemingly contradictory statements or dimensions of a task or situation” (Miron-​Spektor, Gino, & Argote, 2011, p. 229). In the context of organizational science, this construct borrows from and overlaps with both types of dialectical thinking (and integrative complexity) without being precisely either (Smith, 2009; see Table 9.1). In managing organizations, contradictions arise between competing and inconsistent needs, values, identities, organizational structures, personalities, and so on (Smith, 2009). There are many ways of managing these organizational paradoxes (Smith, 2009; Smith & Lewis, 2011). Some of these strategies are similar to Hegelian dialectical thinking, involving integration and synthesis of disparate elements (although in a simultaneous manner rather than necessarily sequentially). Another strategy involves splitting the effort such that different needs are handled at different times or by different parts of the organization, thus not integrating at all (Smith, 2009). Some strategies are similar to naïve dialectical thinking, entailing the embracement and acceptance of organizational tensions without attempting to resolve them. For example, often employees experience tension between the need to work fast and be as productive as possible and the need to produce high-​quality solutions and avoid errors. When adopting one type of paradox frame, individuals recognize the tension between quality and speed, but instead of focusing on speed or quality, they acknowledge that speed and quality are interrelated and that both demands should be successfully addressed. Unlike Hegelian dialectical thinking, where the thinker resolves the tension by finding an integrative solution that addresses both demands (e.g., adopting a new technology that improves quality and efficiency), this type of paradox entails accepting tensions and providing managerial strategies that support coexisting tensions (Smith, 2009). However, paradoxical thinking is not quite naïve dialectical thinking, either:  paradoxical thinking is considered such because of the acknowledgment of a tension, contradiction, or inconsistency (Smith & Lewis, 2011), but, as previously discussed, with naïve dialectical thinking the perceiver may not experience tension at all when acknowledging and embracing contradiction. Paradoxical thinking enhances integrative complexity and can elicit the two processes of differentiating and integrating the opposing elements. By setting distinctions between elements, individuals can better understand the requirements needed for achieving each demand without

288 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

compromising. Integrating enables the discovery of new solutions that simultaneously address both demands. Miron-​ Spektor and colleagues (Miron-​Spektor, Gino, & Argote 2008, 2011)  found that a paradoxical frame resulted in greater creativity than alternative frames. These findings were obtained in four different experiments using different cognitive priming manipulations and creativity tasks. The experiments’ participants were 42% European American, 5% African American, 3% Hispanic, 10% East Asian, 38% South Asian, and 4% other. Their fourth study is particularly pertinent for this review, given that it directly manipulated the differentiation and integration thought processes and showed that being able to both differentiate and integrate opposing task demands was particularly beneficial for creativity. In organizational settings, there is often a tension between the needs to be creative and efficient (Lewis, Welsh, Dehler, & Green, 2002). Using this creativity–​efficiency tension, the study employed a 2 × 2 design that manipulated the extent to which the study participants perceived creativity and efficiency demands as contradictory or not (high vs. low differentiation conditions), and the extent to which participants viewed creativity and efficiency as complementary and interrelated or not (high vs. low integration). Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. They read instructions that shaped their cognitive frame and then performed different creativity tasks including insight (the Remote Associates Test [RAT]) and divergent thinking tasks. The findings suggest that both high integration and differentiation enhanced creativity, but the two processes were dependent on each other such that the effect of differentiation on creativity was stronger in the high than in low integration condition. Similarly, integration had a stronger effect on creativity when participants also differentiated the opposing demands. Interestingly, the highest creativity was observed in the high differentiation/​high integration condition, the condition with the greatest perceived tension between creativity and efficiency, but which included the possibility of an integrative solution. Miron-​ Spektor and colleagues’ (2011) study measured constructs related to naïve and Hegelian dialectical thinking. They did not suggest that the contradiction had to be resolved but that, as with the integrative complexity literature, the combination of both differentiation and integration contributed to creativity. Differentiation ensures both elements are addressed successfully without a compromise, whereas integration usually happens at a higher level in which both oppositions can coexist (e.g., within a top management team). Miron-​Spektor and colleagues’ (2011) study, which found less creativity in the high differentiation/​low

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 289

integration condition than in the high differentiation/​high integration condition, implies that outright naïve dialectical thinking, which accepts contradiction and lacks synthesis, is less useful in promoting creativity at least among (mostly) Western participants. Further evidence for this hypothesis comes from a study that examined the effect of reflecting on contradictions and paradoxes on creativity and showed that individual differences in tolerance of contradiction moderate the effect of paradox on performance on an insight task (i.e., the RAT; Eisenberg & Miron-​Spektor, 2014). In this study, participants in the United States (83% European Americans, 6% African Americans, 1% Hispanics, and 3% East Asians) were asked to list either as many paradoxical statements (paradoxical frames condition) or as many interesting statements as possible (control condition). In the paradoxical frames condition, participants received the following clarification: “By ‘paradoxical’ we mean seemingly contradictory but nonetheless possibly true. For instance, one such statement could be ‘it is paradoxical that standing is more tiring than walking’.” In the control condition, participants received the following example: “For instance, one such statement could be ‘people often believe that standing is more tiring than walking’ ” (Miron-​Spektor, et  al., 2011). Then they performed an insight creativity task (the RAT). Prior to the manipulation and performing the creativity task, participants completed the tolerance of contradiction subscale of the DSS, a measure of naïve dialectical thinking in the domain of the self (Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2016). Participants who listed paradoxes solved more RAT problems than those who listed interesting sentences. Tolerance of contradiction was not related to creativity; however, it moderated the effect of the paradox manipulation on creativity. Thinking about paradoxes enhanced creativity, mainly for participants with a low tolerance of contradiction (i.e., low on naïve dialecticism). Individuals high on tolerance of contradiction benefited less from thinking and reflecting on paradoxes, perhaps because individuals high in naïve dialectical thinking are less motivated to resolve contradiction. Another study by Leung and her colleagues (In press) found that reflecting on paradoxes increased the creativity of Western participants but had a weaker effect on the creativity of East Asian participants, who tended to harmonize conflict and endorse the middle-​ground approach to contradictions. When people choose to pursue a middle ground, they may approach contradictions with a mentality to make compromises (De Dreu, Evers, Beersma, Kluwer, & Nauta, 2001), in that they embrace partly the two opposing elements in an attempt to harmonize conflict. Thus, they

290 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

may normalize and harmonize conflict as opposed to optimally reconcile conflict, and they might not engage in deep enough cognitive processing to reveal and clarify the distinctions between contradictory elements and to synthesize these elements. This study used the same paradox manipulations as those used by Miron-​Spektor and her colleagues (2008, 2011) and tested their effect on performance in divergent thinking and insight tasks. The authors identified individual and cultural differences in endorsement of the middle ground as a moderator and showed that the activation of paradoxical frames increased creativity, mainly for individuals who do not endorse the middle ground. Low endorsers of middle ground can harness the creative benefit of paradox because they tend to engage integrative complex thinking when coping with conflict. Taken together, these studies suggest that paradoxical frames and utilizing both differentiation and integration may increase creativity, but not for people who tend to endorse the middle ground and tolerate contradictions. Because naïve dialectical thinkers tend to accept and normalize contradictions and paradoxes, and because they endorse the middle ground, they benefit less from reflecting on paradoxes and contradictions than do Hegelian dialectical thinkers and linear thinkers, at least in Western samples. These findings parallel those of Fong (2006), which showed that when mixed emotions (simultaneous negative and positive emotions) are perceived as unusual, people experience greater insight creativity as measured by the RAT. Fong’s (2006) sample was 138 business school students in a paid subject pool in a university in the western United States. Because naïve dialectical thinkers are less likely to see contradiction as unusual, they may be less influenced by contradiction and paradox priming manipulations and thus benefit less from these strategies. Most of the evidence for this assertion comes from Western samples, and further research is needed on the effects of paradoxical/​contradictory thinking manipulations among East Asians. Because East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc.), on average, are habitual naïve dialectical thinkers, it would be reasonable to expect a weaker association between naïve dialectical thinking (assessed either via manipulations or individual differences variables such as the DSS) and creativity. Adaptive Expertise

The tension between creativity and efficiency in paradoxical frames at the organizational level is echoed by the concept of adaptive expertise at the cognitive level in individuals and teams. Adaptive expertise is a concept

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 291

used to describe a certain type of advanced expert innovation (recall that creativity and, thus, innovation can be expressed by experts, eminent individuals, lay people in their day-​to-​day lives, and individuals as they learn; Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). The concept of adaptive expertise was developed to explain the mixed findings in the individual expertise literature (Hatano & Inagaki, 1984, 1986). The goal of adaptive expertise is to overcome the contradictions inherent in being simultaneously innovative and efficient (Paletz, Kim, Schunn, Tollinger, & Vera, 2013; Schwartz, Bransford, & Sears, 2005). Adaptive expertise is typically contrasted with routine expertise. By “routine,” scholars mean that the task has become automatic, not that it is inherently easy or difficult. Routine expertise can include both simple and complex tasks, such as surgery and medical diagnoses (e.g., Darr, Argote, & Epple, 1995; Reagans, Argote, & Brooks, 2005; Schwartz et al., 2005). In routine expertise, experts become efficient, practicing tasks so that solutions come faster when the experts are later faced with a problem (Schwartz et al., 2005). The development of routine expertise involves learning how to apply domain-​specific strategies quickly (Kozlowski, 1998), but it can fail when problem solvers apply past strategies to new situations when the strategies are inappropriate (Dane, 2010; Lovett & Anderson, 1996). Thus, the construct of adaptive expertise was formulated. Adaptive expertise involves learning and knowing when modifications to previous strategies are necessary and how to make changes to those strategies (Hatano & Inagaki, 1984, 1986). As a result, the goals of efficiency and innovation are combined for adaptive experts (Schwartz et al., 2005). Adaptive expertise is generally conceptualized as a learned ability at the individual level but has also been applied to teams (Kozlowski, 1998; Paletz et  al., 2013). Adaptive expertise is thought to entail practicing a skill in different situations and settings, thus enabling adaptive experts to learn meta-​cognitive skills (Hatano & Inagaki, 1984, 1986). In other words, the individual learns skills in unpredictable and changing environments. Predictable environments are more likely to lead to cognitive entrenchment, which is when individuals lose flexibility and creativity in the service of becoming domain experts (Dane, 2010). For example, an adaptive expert may learn how to perform an appendectomy not only in one type of environment but also in different rooms with different resources (e.g., assisting staff, equipment), with patients with different underlying conditions and complications. The adaptive expert thereby learns meta-​cognitive skills (e.g., when to apply which techniques), thus optimizing both efficiency and innovation.

292 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

The concept of adaptive expertise has parallels with the construct of Hegelian dialectical thinking. Adaptive experts and Hegelian dialectical thinkers both have a deeper awareness of the changeable and dynamic nature of the world, and they are both then better able to resolve the contradictions that inherently arise as they experience them (such as the one between efficiency and innovation). Empirical studies on adaptive expertise are limited. One small study demonstrated that business consultants (general experts, 12 participants), on average, outperformed restaurant managers (domain experts, 12 participants) and college students (novices, 12 participants) when given hypothetical, novel problems involved in running a restaurant (Barnett & Koslowski, 2002). The solutions elicited from the interviews were coded for how optimal they were. The dependent variable was the number of optimal answers minus the number of answers that were the opposite of the optimal answers. Then, using qualitative process analyses, Barnett and Koslowski (2002) found that the business consultants were more likely to use broad abstract concepts in solving problems, whereas the restaurant managers’ domain knowledge did not transfer to novel situations. In a quantitative case study of daily planning among the Mars Exploration Rover scientists (who were Americans and Europeans), Paletz and colleagues (2013) demonstrated that adaptive expertise grew over time and that adaptive expertise was an empirically distinct (statistically unrelated) construct from both novelty and efficiency. However, neither of these studies tested the causes of the development of adaptive expertise, and neither delved into the relationship between adaptive expertise and either dialectical thinking or creativity. Nevertheless, this construct may provide a new way of examining expertise and learning that is related to both dialectical thinking and creativity. Summary of Constructs Related to Dialectical Thinking

When one examines constructs related to dialectical thinking, the literature is extremely diverse, ranging from organizational research on paradoxical frames, to literature on the dialectical inquiry method, to individual and team research on adaptive expertise. A  common theme is the ability to effectively manage the contradiction that underlies the successful integration of efficiency and novelty or, as is even more challenging, efficiency and innovation. Each of these constructs has a somewhat different approach to dealing with and managing contradiction, and each is to some degree aligned with either Hegelian or naïve dialectical thinking.

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 293

Further, each has different findings with regard to creativity, mainly because creativity has been operationalized differently in each study. Integrative complexity, which is the most similar to Hegelian dialectical thinking in its emphasis on integration, shows the most consistent positive relationship with creativity. Paradoxical frames are highly relevant to the dialectical thinking literature, but further research needs to tease apart this construct to determine how closely it matches the two different types of dialectical thinking. In addition, prior research suggests that paradoxical frames enhance creativity, but only among individuals with low levels of naïve dialectical thinking (e.g., Eisenberg & Miron-​Spektor, 2014; Leung et al., In press). Of all of these constructs, the dialectical inquiry method has been the least successful in promoting creativity, but research on it has also primarily involved (non-​creative) decision-​making tasks. The dialectical inquiry method also has the most tenuous connections to either native or Hegelian dialectical thinking, vis-​à-​vis how individuals who use it resolve or accept contradiction. Although still in the early stages, research on paradoxical frames and adaptive expertise suggests that the contradiction–​ tension–​ creativity connection is a likely one, but it questions the degree to which the resolution of contradiction is necessary. The strongest evidence for an association between some type of dialectical thinking and creativity comes from the experimental manipulations conducted by Miron-​Spektor and colleagues (2008, 2011)  and the research on integrative complexity. Although these studies did not precisely prime naïve or Hegelian dialectical thinking, they shed light on the relationship between related constructs and creativity. In sum, with respect to naïve dialectical thinking, the research on related constructs has provided inconclusive evidence regarding its relationship to creativity. Moreover, studies that directly assessed and primed naïve dialectical thinking yielded mixed or null results, lending some credence to the hypothesis that naïve dialectical thinking is unrelated, weakly related, and even, under some circumstances, negatively related to creativity (e.g., Leung et  al., In press; Paletz & Peng, 2009; Paletz & Miron-​Spektor, 2010). With respect to Hegelian dialectical thinking, the research evidence is stronger, suggesting a potential positive relationship with creativity (at least for non-​naïve dialectical individuals and predominantly Western samples), whether the Hegelian dialectical thinking is operationalized as postformal thought, integrative complexity, or paradoxical frames. More research is needed on the association between Hegelian dialectical thinking and creativity in East Asian and other samples.

294 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Areas for Potential Future Research Overall, this review suggests that different types of dialectical thinking may have differential effects on creativity and that there may be an interaction effect between the different types of dialectical thinking. Key leverage points seem to be whether the contradiction is expected or accepted, whether tension arises, and, if tension arises, whether the individual attempts to resolve it by making the contradiction go away via synthesis or integration or by managing it such that the tension is resolved but the contradiction remains. As noted, in naïve dialectical thinking, the tension does not arise. It is not clear whether maintaining a state of contradiction without tension contributes to or decreases creativity. Tension from contradiction, or at least an underlying motivation to resolve contradiction, does seem important to creativity (Leung et al., In press). However, as this review reveals, there is very little empirical research on dialectical thinking and creativity, particularly literature that distinguishes between Hegelian and naïve dialectical thinking, directly tests the importance of felt tension in contradiction, and examines potential additional variables. Specific gaps, along with suggestions for future research, are as follows: the clarification of all the primary constructs; the refinement of measurement techniques; the examination of the relationship between Hegelian and naïve dialectical thinking, as well as that between dialectical thinking and relevant constructs; the addition of the holism and change components of both types of dialectical thinking; and the inclusion of more moderators and mediators through empirical theory-​building.

Clarification of Constructs Conceptual clarity of both dialectical thinking and creativity is necessary before progress can be made in this area. Both constructs could be expanded and more thoroughly studied in future research. Conceptualization of Creativity

As this chapter illustrates, creativity in this area of research was mainly examined through divergent thinking, insight, and problem finding. However, creativity has been conceptualized in many different ways: as a personality trait, as an attribute of a product (Amabile, 1996), as history of lifetime achievements (e.g., Dudek & Hall, 1991), as a process, or even as an environment (Brown, 1989; Mooney, 1963). Even when examined as a process, creativity is reflected in many additional ways, such as recombination, analogy, and conceptual expansion (e.g., Ward

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 295

et  al., 1997). Creativity can be expressed by experts, learners, eminent individuals, and even novices (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). As demonstrated by the research on naïve and Hegelian dialectical thinking insight, the type of creativity task assessed is important. Paradoxical frames can enhance insight creativity, but not in naïve dialectical thinkers. If naïve dialectical thinking is related to creativity, it is most likely to be associated with learning-​related creativity as, theoretically, that is the type where the acceptance of contradiction is most advantageous. In addition, the type of creativity hypothesized to be related most strongly to Hegelian dialectical thinking is recombination. Future research could examine these types of creativity specifically. Furthermore, as noted in the introduction, while there are commonalities in cross-​cultural conceptions of creativity in that different cultural groups view both novelty and appropriateness as important, the degree may differ (Paletz & Peng, 2008). What is considered to be prototypically creative may be different across different cultures, as can the degree to which different creative activities and traits are valued (e.g., Khaleefa et al., 1997; Niu & Sternberg, 2002; Paletz et al., 2011; Rudowicz & Yue, 2000). Thus, the type of creative activity may be an important moderator for any relationship between dialectical thinking (of either type) and creativity. For example, a study could examine the effect of Hegelian dialectical thinking on verbal creativity as assessed by local experts in a culture with a rich tradition of verbal creativity and in a culture where verbal creativity is less emphasized. If an interaction effect were discovered, it would further illuminate the relationship between culture and creativity. Another study could examine whether the type of dialectical thinking that is predominant in a culture is related to the type of creativity that is also most in line with that culture’s conceptions and values. For instance, researchers could examine types of creativity that are particularly valued and prototypical in China (e.g., Yue, 2003; Yue & Rudowicz, 2002), and they could uncover the relationship among naïve dialectical thinking versus Hegelian dialectical thinking on those types of creative activities versus activities that are more valued in other cultures. Conceptualization of Both Types of Dialectical Thinking

While this review distinguished between naïve dialectical thinking and Hegelian dialectical thinking, additional studies could also examine whether historically rooted and culture-​bound types of dialectical thinking

296 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

are still prevalent today in India, Germany, and other nations and examine the extent to which they have spread across nations (Wong, 2006). Wong (2006) has suggested that acceptance and tolerance of contradiction among Chinese could be due in part to the recent sociocultural situation in China, rather than only to ancient philosophy. Current Chinese naïve dialectical thinking may actually be “an interaction between naïve Chinese beliefs and the new forces which the Chinese are encountering in contemporary societies” (Wong, 2006, p. 251). Similarly, Paletz and Peng (2008) offered the post-​hoc explanation for the relative desirability of novelty in China versus Japan and the United States, that Japan and the United States were undergoing recessions during data collection in 2002, whereas Beijing specifically was experiencing an economic boom. In line with other research on promotion/​approach and prevention/​avoidance mindsets and creativity (e.g., Friedman & Forster, 2001, 2002), an economic boom could encourage risk taking and novelty seeking, whereas a recession could encourage risk aversion and security seeking. Researchers can examine the modern expression of naïve dialectical thinking and Hegelian dialectical thinking in different cultures and socioeconomic contexts. Further, the exact affective and cognitive reactions to contradiction should be unpacked. Based on theory and some converging research evidence, we suggest that for naïve dialectical thinking, contradiction does not result in tension, whereas it does for Hegelian dialectical thinking (Leung et al., In press). This claim needs to be tested more explicitly among members of different cultural groups.

Measurement of Dialectical Thinking and Creativity Once the concepts are clarified, there is a need for more measures of the various forms of dialectical thinking and creativity—​specifically, measures that have been cross-​culturally validated. The literature would benefit from more dialectical thinking measures that operationalize both naïve and Hegelian dialectical thinking as traits and states, as well as dialectical thinking manipulations and primes. Each of the ways of conceptualizing creativity listed in this chapter (e.g., personality traits, various processes, etc.) can be measured in a variety of ways, such as self-​report, supervisor ratings of creativity, and various dimensions on outputs from creativity tasks, among others. The literature so far has generally utilized creativity tasks rather than self-​report trait measures (which seems most appropriate in this case), but even the same creative process (e.g., insight) can be measured in more than one way. For example, insight can be measured not

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 297

only by using the Remote Associates Test but also by using mathematical insight tasks. Even more importantly, creativity as a dependent variable should be measured on the basis of specific hypotheses regarding the different types of creative processes, such as by measuring recombination specifically.

Naïve and Hegelian Dialectical Thinking One of the main gaps illustrated in this review is that there are no studies empirically examining the relationship between naïve dialectical thinking and Hegelian dialectical thinking. The simplest way to test whether Hegelian and naïve dialectical thinking are different (or positively or negatively associated with each other) is by comparing responses on different scales (e.g., the DSS and a measure of Hegelian dialectical thinking). More thorough studies could go beyond self-​report Likert scales; other-​ report scales, scenario methods, and discriminant tests based on the coding of archival materials such as speeches, diaries, and/​or blogs could all be utilized. A primary goal would be to determine whether Hegelian and naïve dialectical thinking are truly distinguished by the synthesis versus acceptance of tension and contradiction. Further, are Hegelian and naïve dialecticism always distinct, or within some subcultures, settings, and contexts (e.g., Asian Americans) are they indiscernible? A blended dialectical thinking might entail the recognition and acceptance of contradiction that sometimes, but not always, needs to be or is resolved. Additional research is necessary to determine the prevalence of either type of dialectical thinking in other countries and subcultures, such as Germany, Iran, or Spain, and within different levels of education and types of profession within those countries. More research should also examine possible interaction effects between naïve and Hegelian dialectical thinking.

Concepts Related to Dialectical Thinking As noted in this review, researchers could examine constructs related to naïve and Hegelian dialectical thinking. In addition to further research tying paradoxical frames and adaptive expertise more directly to creativity, East Asian and other non-​Western constructs could be examined. For example, Yao, Yang, Dong, and Wang (2010) tested the relationships between self-​reported Zhong Yong, self-​reported creativity, and supervisor’s perceptions of the employee’s innovativeness in a sample of 273 paired questionnaires from Chinese employees. Zhong Yong is a Chinese

298 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

construct that involves attempting to achieve harmonious social interactions via holism and balancing extremes (Yao et al., 2010). Yao and colleagues (2010) consider it to be different from naïve dialectical thinking and not quite an information-​processing style, although it has elements in common with naïve dialectical thinking, such as the preference for compromise (Peng & Nisbett, 1999) and a middle-​ground tactic (Leung et al., In press). “The harmony of Zhong Yong entails finding the middle position between two opposing ideas,” and is similarly a lay theory, being “a suggested mode of action to be applied in everyday interpersonal interactions” (Yao et  al., 2010, p.  53). Zhong Yong was not correlated with self-​reported creativity, but it did moderate the relationship between creativity and innovation. While there was generally a significant positive relationship between self-​reported creativity and manager-​reported innovation, this relationship was not significant among those with high levels of Zhong Yong. The authors suggest that people who endorse Zhong Yong will seek compromises and not advocate for their own ideas. More research is needed on East Asian (and other) indigenous constructs that may be related to both dialectical thinking and creativity.

Change and Holism Another topic for examination is how other aspects of dialecticism—​ namely, change and holism—​might be related to creativity. So far, the theories and empirical studies of creativity and dialectical thinking have mainly focused on reactions to contradiction. But both Hegelian and naïve dialectical thinking also involve holism, or the perception of interconnections and relationships such that the whole is greater than the sum of parts, and change, such that the system (world, self, and others) under examination is assumed to always be in a state of flux. An acknowledgment that the world and the self are prone to change may be positively related to creativity in that exploration, as opposed to exploitation, seems more closely related to radical creativity. There is some empirical evidence to support this hypothesis. In one study, the change elements of naïve dialectical thinking (as measured by the change subscale of the DSS) were related to a commitment to organizational change among Chinese employees (Chen, Wang, Huang, & Spencer-​Rodgers, 2012). Likewise, holism may be positively related to forming connections between elements and expanding concepts, which are both creative processes (Ward et  al., 1997). Both an awareness of interrelations between components (holism) and the expectation of change should promote set

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 299

breaking (i.e., move away from past ways of thinking; Benack et  al., 1989). However, the finding that self-​reported naïve dialectical thinking (DSS) was negatively related to creativity on low contradiction tasks for Caucasian Americans in Paletz and Peng’s work (2009; Study 1) seemed to be driven by responses on the behavioral change subscale. This finding suggests that a preference for change may depend on the type of creativity task, at least for Caucasians and European Americans. Thus, any studies focusing on the impact of the change and holism dimensions of dialectical thinking on creativity should take into account potential interaction effects with cultural background and the type of task.

Additional Mediators and Moderators: Creating Theory Research on dialectical thinking and creativity has been guided by various theories, but the literature lacks a coherent structure. Some scholars state that Hegelian dialectical thinking is creativity (Yan & Arlin, 1999), while others examine dialectical thinking as an independent variable affecting creativity (e.g., Paletz & Peng, 2009). Whenever a simple independent/​ dependent variable pair is presented, one must consider alternative causal combinations, such as bidirectionality and third variables. Could creativity as a personality trait, environment, or experience (e.g., working on a creative product) influence dialectical thinking, thus switching the initially proposed causal direction? Could a third variable, such as integrative complexity, affect both variables and account for the relationship between them? Could the different aspects of the different types of dialectical thinking (e.g., tolerance of contradiction and the middle-​ground approach versus a motivation to resolve tension) have interactive effects on creativity? Ultimately, more conceptual development and empirical data are required before a coherent theory beyond the simple connections noted here can be generated. Further, there is a need for additional research on moderators and mediators. For example, in addition to Asian versus European cultural background (Paletz & Peng, 2009), other demographic moderators may be important, particularly educational level. Developmental psychologists propose that dialectical thinking is a level of postformal thinking, suggesting that advanced academics and older adults, compared to other professions and age groups, may be more likely to think dialectically (see Chapter  5 in this volume). A  possible interaction between culture and education may also be important: just as Hegelian dialectical thinking may increase with education in Americans (e.g., Basseches, 1980), naïve dialectical thinking may decrease with education among Chinese, as

300 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

college students in China are taught formal logic/​linear thinking, as well as Hegelian dialectics (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). One gap in the literature is the identification of specific mechanisms linking dialectical thinking (Hegelian or naïve) and creativity. In particular, the presence and experience of tension or lack thereof seems to be a potential key mediator. More studies, ideally experimental, are needed to test the effects of dialectical thinking on tension, and then of tension on expressed creativity. Another potential mediator is the emotion of surprise, which has been found to mediate the association between positive affect and creativity (Filipowicz, 2006). Surprise is also potentially key to synthesizing contradiction (Rothenberg, 1995). Depending on culture, the presence of threat or conflict might also affect the relationship between dialectical thinking and creativity as a mediator or a moderator (Paletz, Miron-​Spektor, & Lin, 2013). Lastly, a theory of creativity and dialectical thinking (Hegelian and/​ or naïve) needs to explicitly note the level of analysis of all variables. Confusing different levels of analysis can create biases and inaccurate findings, such as a mismatch between the level that is conceptualized and the level that is measured, inappropriate aggregation, and overlooking potential cross-​level effects (e.g., Rousseau, 1985). Creativity can occur at different levels of analysis, be it at the individual, team, organization, or disciplinary level (e.g., global aeronautics development). The relationship between the multitude of levels of dialectical thinking and the levels where creativity and innovation arise is an open question. Mediators and moderators may be at the same level, such as when the contradiction inherent in a creativity task (individual level) moderates the effect between naïve or Hegelian dialectical thinking (individual level) and people’s performance on a creativity task (individual level). However, these effects may also cross levels, such as when, hypothetically, organizational climate regarding how to deal with contradiction (organization level) impacts individual Hegelian dialectical thinking and creativity (individual level). Another cross-​level study could involve examining how the effects of team composition with regard to both ethnicity and the average endorsement of naïve and Hegelian dialectical thinking (team level) affect individual and organizational creativity. Any of these examples would make for fruitful future studies. Furthermore, any multilevel theory of Hegelian and naïve dialectical thinking on creativity may include feedback loops between variables and levels. For instance, being in a setting where a lot of creative ideas are generated may have an impact on which dialectical thinking styles are encouraged, learned, and expressed.

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 301

Conclusion The literature on dialectical thinking and creativity is diverse and does not generally communicate across subdisciplines (e.g., organizational science, cross-​cultural psychology). Each of the disciplines and traditions reviewed in this chapter has different emphases and ways of defining and measuring both dialectical thinking and creativity. By leveraging research both within and across disciplines and cultures, we have the potential to understand the myriad relationships between different types of dialectical thinking and creativity. This area of research has important implications. Innovation and creativity are not only necessary for economic growth and prosperity (e.g., Ahlstrom, 2010), they are also vital to solving some of the world’s most complex, intractable problems. By deconstructing and uncovering the relationship between different types of dialectical thinking and creativity, we can make practical suggestions for organizational work processes, training, and education.

Acknowledgments This research was supported, in part, by the United States National Science Foundation Grant #SBE-​1064083 through the Science of Science and Innovation Policy Program to S. B. F. Paletz when she was at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

Note 1. While Peng and Nisbett (1999) and colleagues (e.g., Peng, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Zhong, 2006) refer to naïve dialecticism as originating in China and then extending across East Asia, Wong (2006) calls it Chinese dialectical thinking. Thus, we use both terms.

References Ahlstrom, D. (2010). Innovation and growth:  How business contributes to society. Academy of Management Perspectives, 24, 11–​24. Almon-​Smith, L. (1998). Instructor’s resource manual: Organizational behavior, Stephen P. Robbins. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 45(2), 357–​376. Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

302 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Arlin, P. K. (1975). Cognitive development in adulthood: A fifth stage? Developmental Psychology, 11, 602–​606. Arlin, P. K. (1989). Problem solving and problem finding in young artists and young scientists. In M. L. Commons, J. D. Sinnott, F. A. Richards, & C. Amon (Eds.), Adult development volume 1: Comparisons and applications of developmental models (pp. 197–​216). New York: Praeger. Arlin, P. K., & Levitt, L. (1998). A developmental perspective on giftedness. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 347–​355. Baker-​Brown, G., Ballard, E. J., Bluck, S., de Vries, B., Suedfeld, P., & Tetlock, P. E. (1992). The conceptual/​integrative complexity scoring manual. In C. P. Smith, J. W. Atkinson, D. C. McClelland, & J. Veroff (Eds.), Motivation and personality: Handbook of thematic content analysis (pp. 401–​418). New York: Cambridge University Press. Barnett, S. M., & Koslowski, S. M. (2002). Adaptive expertise: Effects of type of experience and the level of theoretical understanding it generates. Thinking and Reasoning, 8, 237–​267. Basseches, M. (1980). Dialectical schemata: A framework for the empirical study of the development of dialectical thinking. Human Development, 23, 400–​421. Benack, S., Basseches, M., & Swan, T. (1989). Dialectical thinking and adult creativity. In J. A. Glover, R. R. Ronning, & C. R. Reynolds (Eds.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 199–​208). New York: Plenum Press. Brooks, M. (2005). 13 things that do not make sense. New Scientist, 2491. Retrieved May 31, 2013, from http://​www.newscientist.com/​article/​mg18524911.600-​13-​things-​ that-​do-​not-​make-​sense.html?full=true&print=true. Brown, R. T. (1989). Creativity: What are we to measure? In J. A. Glover, R. R. Ronning, & C. R. Reynolds (Eds.), Handbook of Creativity (pp. 3–​32). New York: Plenum Press. Charlton, S., & Bakan, P. (1988–​1989). Cognitive complexity and creativity. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 8, 315–​322. Chen, J., Wang, L., Huang, M., & Spencer-​Rodgers, J. (2012). Naïve dialecticism and Chinese employees’ commitment to change. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 27, 48–​70. Choi, I., & Choi, Y. (2002). Culture and self-​concept flexibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1508–​1517. Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. (2000). Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 890–​905. Cosier, R. A. (1978). The effects of three potential aids for making strategic decisions on prediction accuracy. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 22, 295–​306. Cosier, R. A., & Dalton, D. R. (1982). Advice for promoting creative thought: An analysis of the dialectic. Journal of Creative Behavior, 16(3), 176–​184. Cropley, A. (2006). In praise of convergent thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 18, 391–​404. Crowell, A., & Kuhn, D. (2014). Developing dialogic argumentation skills:  A three-​ year intervention study. Journal of Cognition and Development, 15(2), 363–​381. doi:10.1080/​15248372.2012.725187 Dane, E. (2010). Reconsidering the trade-​off between expertise and flexibility: A cognitive entrenchment perspective. Academy of Management Review, 35, 579–​603.

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 303

Darr, E., Argote, L., & Epple, D. (1995). The acquisition, transfer, and depreciation of knowledge in service organizations: Productivity in franchises. Management Science, 41, 1750–​1762. De Dreu, C. K., Evers, A., Beersma, B., Kluwer, E. S., & Nauta, A. (2001). A theory-​ based measure of conflict management strategies in the workplace. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22(6), 645–​668. Dudek, S. Z., & Hall, W. B. (1991). Personality consistency: Eminent architects 25 years later. Creativity Research Journal, 4(3), 213–​231. Eisenberg, R., & Miron-​Spektor, E. (2014). Unpacking the effect of paradoxical frames on creativity: The importance of recognizing and embracing contradictions (Working paper). Technion-​Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. Erez, M., & Nouri, R. (2010). Creativity:  The influence of cultural, social, and work contexts. Management and Organization Review, 6, 351–​370. Filipowicz, A. (2006). From positive affect to creativity: The surprising role of surprise. Creativity Research Journal, 18(2), 141–​152. Fong, C. T. (2006). The effects of emotional ambivalence on creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 1016–​1030. Ford, D. Y., & Harris, J. J., III. (1992). The elusive definition of creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior, 26, 186–​198. Friedman, R. S., & Forster, J. (2001). The effects of promotion and prevention cues on creativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1001–​1013. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.81.6.1001 Friedman, R. S., & Forster, J. (2002). The influence of approach and avoidance motor actions on creative cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 41–​55. doi:10.1006/​jesp.2001.1488 Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5, 444–​454. Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1984). Two courses of expertise. Research and Clinical Center for Child Development Annual Report, 6, 27–​36. Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1986). Two courses of expertise. In H. Stevenson, H. Azuma, & K. Hakuta (Eds.), Child Development and Education in Japan (pp. 262–​272). New York: Freeman. Kallio, E. (2011). Integrative thinking is the key: An evaluation of current research into the development of adult thinking. Theory & Psychology, 21, 785–​801. Katzenstein, G. (1996). The debate on structure debate:  Toward a unified theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 66, 316–​332. Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four C model of creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13, 1–​12. Khaleefa, O. H., Erdos, G., & Ashria, I. H. (1997). Traditional education and creativity in an Afro-​Arab Islamic culture: the case of Sudan. Journal of Creative Behavior, 31, 201–​211. Kozlowski, S. W. J. (1998). Training and developing adaptive teams: Theory, principles, and research. In J. A. Cannon-​Bowers & E. Salas (Eds.), Making decisions under stress:  Implications for individual and team training (pp. 115–​153). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Kruglanski, A. H. (1989). Lay epistemics and human knowledge. New York: Plenum. Leung, A., Liou, S. Miron-​Spektor, E., Koh, B., Chan, D., Eisenberg, R., & Schneider, I. (In press). Middle ground approach to paradox: Within-​and between-​culture examination of the creative benefits of paradoxical frames. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

304 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Lewis, M. W. (2000). Exploring paradox: Toward a more comprehensive guide. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 760–​776. Lewis, M., Welsh, M. A., Dehler, G. E., & Green, S. G. (2002). Product development tensions: Exploring contrasting style of project management. Academy of Management Journal, 4(3), 546–​564. Li, X. (2014). Can ying-​ yang guide Chinese indigenous management research? Management and Organization Review, 10, 7–​27. Livingstone, L. P., Palich, L. E., & Carini, G. R. (2002). Promoting creativity through the logic of contradiction. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23(3), 321–​326. Lovett, M. C., & Anderson, J. R. (1996). History of success and current context in problem solving. Cognitive Psychology, 31, 168–​217. Lubart, T. I. (1999). Creativity across cultures. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 339–​350). New York: Cambridge University Press. Lun, V. M.-​C., Fischer, R., & Ward, C. (2010). Exploring cultural differences in critical thinking:  Is it about my thinking style or the language I  speak? Learning and Individual Differences, 20, 604–​616. Madjar, N., Greenberg, E., & Chen, Z. (2011) Factors for radical creativity, incremental creativity and routine, noncreative performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 730–​743. McCabe, M. M. (2008). Plato’s ways of writing. In G. Fine (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of Plato (pp. 88–​113). New York: Oxford. Miron-​Spektor, E., Gino, F., & Argote, L. (2008). The effect of paradoxical cognition on individual and team innovation. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2008, 1–​6 (AN 33718126). Miron-​ Spektor, E., Gino, F., & Argote, L. (2011). Paradoxical frames and creative sparks:  Enhancing individual creativity through conflict and integration. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 116, 229–​240. Mooney, R. L. (1963). A conceptual model for integrating four approaches to the identification of creative talent. In C. W. Taylor, & F. Barron (Eds.), Scientific creativity: Its recognition and development (pp. 331–​340). New York: Wiley. Mumford, M. M. (2001). Something old, something new: Revisiting Guilford’s conception of creative problem solving. Creativity Research Journal, 13, 267–​276. Nisbett, R., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and system of thoughts: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291–​310. Niu, W., & Kaufman, J. C. (2013). Creativity of Chinese and American cultures: A synthetic analysis. Journal of Creative Behavior, 47, 77–​87. Niu, W., & Sternberg, R. (2002). Contemporary studies on the concept of creativity: The East and the West. Journal of Creative Behavior, 36, 269–​288. Nouri, R. (2014). Creativity across the universe:  The influence of cultural, social and work contexts on creativity (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Technion–​Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv, Israel. Paletz, S. B. F., Kim, K. H., Schunn, C. D., Tollinger, I., & Vera, A. (2013). Reuse and recycle: The development of adaptive expertise, routine expertise, and novelty in a large research team. Applied Cognitive Psychology. doi:10.1002/​acp.2928 Paletz, S. B. F., & Miron-​Spektor, E. (2010). [Creativity insight tasks and naïve dialectical thinking, synthesis dialectical thinking, and linear thinking primes] (Unpublished raw data).

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 305

Paletz, S. B. F., Miron-​Spektor, E., & Lin, C. (2013). A dynamic constructivist model of the effects of conflict on creativity in multicultural environments (Paper under review). Paletz, S. B. F., & Peng, K. (2008). Implicit theories of creativity across cultures: Novelty and appropriateness from two product domains. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 39, 286–​302. Paletz, S. B. F., & Peng, K. (2009). Problem finding and contradiction: Examining the relationship between naïve dialectical thinking, ethnicity, and creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 21, 139–​151. Paletz, S. B. F., Peng, K., & Li, S.-​Y. (2011). In the world or in the head; External and internal implicit theories of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 23, 83–​98. Parker-​Tapias, M., & Peng, K. (2001, August). Locating cultures in the theory of planned behavior. Paper presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention, San Francisco, CA. Peng, K., Ames, D., & Knowles, E. (2001). Culture and human inference: Perspectives from three traditions. In D. Matsumoto (Ed.), Handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 245–​264). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54, 741–​754. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. (2000). Dialectical responses to questions on dialectical thinking. American Psychologist, 55, 1067–​1068. Peng, K., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Zhong, N. (2006). Naïve dialecticism and the Tao of Chinese thought. In U. Kim, K. S. Yang, & G. Huang (Eds.), The handbook of indigenous and cultural psychology (pp. 247–​262). Boston: Blackwell. Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York: Norton. Piaget, J. (1972). Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Human Development, 15, 1–​12. Plucker, J. A., Beghetto, R. A., & Dow, G. T. (2004). Why isn’t creativity more important to educational psychologists? Potentials, pitfalls, and future direction in creativity research. Educational Psychologist, 39, 83–​96. Reagans, R., Argote, L., & Brooks, D. (2005). Individual experience and experience working together:  Predicting learning rates from knowing who knows what and knowing how to work together. Management Science, 51, 869–​881. Reiter-​Palmon, R., Mumford, M. D., O’Connor Boes, J., & Runco, M. A. (1997). Problem construction and creativity: The role of ability, cue consistency and active processing. Creativity Research Journal, 10, 9–​23. Rothenberg, A. (1995). Creative cognitive processes in Kekule’s discovery of the structure of the benzene molecule. American Journal of Psychology, 108(3), 419–​438. Rothenberg, A. (1996). The Janusian process in scientific creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 9(2-​3), 207–​231. Rousseau, D. M. (1985). Issues of level in organizational research: Multi-​level and cross-​ level perspectives. Research in Organizational Behavior, 7(1), 1–​37. Rudowicz, E., & Yue, X.-​D. (2000). Concepts of creativity: Similarities and differences among mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese Chinese. Journal of Creative Behavior, 34, 175–​192. Runco, M. A., & Johnson, D. J. (2002). Parents’ and teachers’ implicit theories of children’s creativity:  A cross-​ cultural perspective. Creativity Research Journal, 14, 427–​438.

306 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Schwartz, D. L., Bransford, J. D., & Sears, D. (2005). Efficiency and innovation in transfer. In J. Mestre (Ed.), Transfer of learning from a modern multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 1–​51). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Smith, K., & Berg, D. 1987. Paradoxes of group life. San Francisco: Josey-​Bass. Smith, W. K. (2009). A dynamic approach to managing contradictions. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2, 338–​342. Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. (2011). Towards a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 381–​403. Smith, W. K., & Tushman, M. L. (2005). Managing strategic contradictions: A top management model for managing innovation streams. Organization Science, 16(5), 522–​536. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H., Mori, S. C., Wang, L., & Peng, K. (2009). The dialectical self-​concept:  Contradiction, change, and holism in East Asian cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 29–​44. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2010). Dialecticism and the co-​occurrence of positive and negative emotions across cultures. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 41, 109–​115. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1416–​1432. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Srivastava, S., Boucher, H. C., English, T., Paletz, S. B., & Peng, K. (2016). The Dialectical Self Scale (Unpublished data). Stepelevich, L. S. (1990). Editor’s introduction. In L. S. Stepelevich (Ed.), Preface and introduction to the phenomenology of mind (pp. 1–​20). New York: Macmillan. Suedfeld, P., & Coren, S. (1992). Cognitive correlates on conceptual complexity. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 1193–​1199. Suedfeld, P., Tetlock, P. E., & Streufert, S. (1992). Conceptual/​ integrative complexity. In C. P. Smith, J. W. Atkinson, D. C. McClelland, & J. Veroff (Eds.), Motivation and personality: Handbook of thematic content analysis (pp. 393–​400). New York: Cambridge University Press. Tadmor, C. T., Galinsky, A. D., & Maddux, W. W. (2012). Getting the most out of living abroad: Biculturalism and integrative complexity as key drivers of creative and professional success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 520–​542. Tetlock, P. E. (1983). Accountability and complexity of thought. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 74–​83. Tetlock, P. E. (1985). Integrative complexity of American and Soviet foreign policy rhetoric: A time-​series analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1565–​1585. Torrance, E. P. (1968). Testing the educational and psychological development of students from other cultures and subcultures. Review of Educational Research, 38, 71–​76. Trickett, S. B., Trafton, J. G., & Schunn, C. D. (2009). How do scientists respond to anomalies? Different strategies used in basic and applied science. Topics in Cognitive Science, 1, 711–​729. Valacich, J. S., & Schwenk, C. (1995). Devil’s advocate and dialectical inquiry effects on face-​ to-​ face and computer-​ mediated group decision making. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 63(2), 158–​173. Wald, H. (1975). Introduction to dialectical logic. Amsterdam: Gruner. Ward, T. B., Smith, S. M., & Finke, R. A. (1999). Creative cognition. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 189–​212). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Dialectical Thinking and Creativity 

| 307

Ward, T. B., Smith, S. M., & Vaid, J. (Eds.) (1997). Creative thought: An investigation of conceptual structures and processes. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Weiss, F. G. (Ed.). (1974). Hegel: The essential writings. New York: Harper Torchbooks. West, M. A., & Farr, J. L. (1990). Innovation at work. In M. A. West & J. L. Farr (Eds.), Innovation and creativity at work: Psychological and organizational strategies (pp. 3–​13). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Wong, W.-​C. (2006). Understanding dialectical thinking from a cultural-​historical perspective. Philosophical Psychology, 19, 239–​260. Wonkyong, B. L., Newby-​Clark, I., & Zanna, M. P. (2006). Cross-​cultural differences in the relation between potential and felt ambivalence. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Palm Springs, CA. Yan, B., & Arlin, P. (1999). Dialectical thinking:  Implications for creativity. In M. A. Runco & S. R. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of creativity (vol. 1, pp. 547–​552). London: Academic Press. Yang, C.-​C., Wan, C.-​S., & Chiou, W.-​B. (2010). Dialectical thinking and creativity among young adults: A postformal operations perspective. Psychological Reports, 106, 1–​14. Yao, X., Yang, Q., Dong, N., & Wang, L. (2010). Moderating effect of Zhong Yong on the relationship between creativity and innovation behaviour. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 13, 53–​57. Yue, X. D. (2003). Meritorious evaluation bias: How Chinese undergraduates perceive and evaluate Chinese and foreign creators. Journal of Creative Behavior, 37, 151–​177. Yue, X. D., & Rudowicz, E. (2002). Perception of the most creative Chinese by undergraduates in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Journal of Creative Behavior, 36, 88–​104.

308 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

­C HAPTER 10 Dialectical Thinking and Its Influence in the World A New Perspective on East Asians’ Control Orientations Joonha Park, Susumu Yamaguchi, Takafumi Sawaumi, and Hiroaki Morio

Influencing the world with personal will and adjusting the self to the world are both important capacities that people develop and experience throughout everyday life. In psychological literature, these capacities have been mainly framed within a two-​process model of primary and secondary control (Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982). Although the terms vary (e.g., influence and adjustment, assimilation and accommodation; Morling, Kitayama, & Miyamato, 2003; Rothbaum et al., 1982), the essential theme distinguishing the two aspects is whether one “attempts to change the world so that it fits the self’s needs” or “attempts to fit in with the world and to flow with the current” (Rothbaum et al., 1982, p. 8). In this chapter, we use the original terms, primary and secondary control, in support of the universal primacy of the former over the latter (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995). The concept of control often has been perceived as being comparable to personal control in which the self is always the agent (Skinner, 1996; Yamaguchi, 2001). The basic meaning of control is to cause an intended event (Weisz, Rothbaum, & Blackburn, 1984); however, the agent is not always limited to the self. Rather, someone else can influence events on behalf of the person. Furthermore, even social groups, just like individuals, appear to be seen as real entities that exert agency (Kashima et  al., 2005) and thus are perceived as real agents who exert control in the world. In this sense, we consider possible agents of control as not limited to the

self but also inclusive of related others and the collectives to which the person belongs. The two-​process model has enlightened our understanding of different patterns of control across cultures. Western individualistic cultures (e.g., the United States) emphasize individual achievement and independence of action, whereas East Asian collectivistic cultures emphasize flexibly and adaptively accepting external realities in order to maintain interpersonal harmony (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Accordingly, Western individualists are more inclined to exert primary control, whereas East Asian collectivists are encouraged to exert secondary control in their everyday life (Weisz et al., 1984). To illustrate, Americans, if they were in some uncomfortable situations, would try to improve the situations by taking some effective actions, whereas Japanese, even if they felt extremely uncomfortable, would rather accommodate to the situation as it is for the sake of harmony with others in the situation. However, some scholars have questioned this dichotomy and have argued for the universal primacy of primary control (e.g., Azuma, 1984; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995). In an attempt to resolve these contrasting arguments, Yamaguchi (2001) revised the original framework of primary control (Rothbaum et  al., 1982)  by suggesting that people engage in nuanced strategies to influence the environment. For illustration, we take an example from Morling’s (2000) study about students who are experiencing difficulty with the moves in their aerobics class. In our interpretation, participants’ motivations to express to the instructor that the moves are difficult would not be dramatically different across cultures. However, East Asians (e.g., Japanese), compared with Westerners (e.g., Americans), would be more likely to employ subtle, indirect ways of communicating with the instructor, for example, by showing certain facial expressions or gestures implying difficulty, talking to the manager (i.e., a proxy) after the class, or speaking to the instructor together with other students. All of these are not direct strategies to influence the other (i.e., the aerobics instructor), but the underlying motivation is not different from that of direct control (i.e., letting the instructor know about the difficulty of the moves and asking him or her to decrease the difficulty level). In this sense, Yamaguchi (2001) argues that there may be strategies other than the direct one that help people to achieve the universal need for primary control in culturally acceptable manners. From a different but related angle, Kurman, Hui, and Dan’s (2012) recent approach reconsiders the dichotomy of the standard model (Rothbaum

310 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

et al., 1982) and adds another pathway, involving both characteristics of primary and secondary control, such that one seeks to change existing reality by improving one’s abilities. In their view, this intermediate process is more relevant for East Asians than for Westerners. Both Yamaguchi’s and Kurman et al.’s approaches have improved our understanding and emphasize a more dynamic picture of control orientations than was previously assumed. Based on these extended models of control orientations, we propose a theoretical link between control orientations and naïve dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2005). This chapter discusses recent theories and empirical research on control orientations and the ways in which people attempt to either influence or adjust in everyday life, and it investigates the theoretical relationships between control experiences and naïve dialecticism. We first review the two-​process model of control orientations (Rothbaum et al., 1982), as well as some of the empirical work that shows cultural differences in control experiences (e.g., Morling, 2000). Whereas most research has emphasized systematic cultural differences, we highlight the universal need to exercise primary control (influence) over secondary control (adjustment), as with other fundamental human motives. Having presented the revised models of control orientations (Kurman et al., 2012; Yamaguchi, 2001), we explain the relatively higher acceptance of the nuanced form of exercising primary control in East Asia with naïve dialecticism, the typical East Asian epistemology or “way of knowing about the world” (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2005). Our proposal also is inspired by earlier concerns about the dichotomous view of control regarding culturally different conceptions of the relationship between the self and environment (Azuma, 1984; Kojima, 1984). Together with collectivism (Triandis, 1995)  and interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), the message of this chapter is that dialecticism can provide a meaningful key to understanding the complexity of East Asians’ exertion of control. From the outset, we propose that naïve dialecticism would be linked with (a) acceptance of various ways of influencing circumstances, (b) tendencies to employ indirect control strategies in interpersonal relations, (c) tolerance of contradiction between speech and underlying intentions, and (d)  preference for intermediate approaches between primary and secondary control. After reviewing theories in control orientations, we explore those links between dialecticism and various control orientations in East Asia.

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 311

Control Orientations in Cultural Psychology Rothbaum et al. (1982) proposed a two-​process model of control exertion. Control can be recognized in both its primary and secondary forms. It is primary that people choose to influence their social and physical environments (primary control), but also at times when they flexibly adjust themselves to fit in with existing realities (secondary control). Rothbaum et al.’s original article has guided psychological research in various fields, including lifespan development, health and well-​ being, and achievement (for reviews, see Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Morling & Evered, 2006). For example, Hall’s (2008) study about control shift in academic performance showed that individuals tend to shift toward primary control after success, and toward secondary control following failure. Relevantly, Heckhausen and Schulz’s (1995) exhaustive review suggests that even in the loss of primary control, secondary control plays a compensatory role by not only contributing to protecting emotional well-​being and self-​ esteem but also preserving and rekindling the individual’s motivational resources for maintaining and enhancing primary control in the future. Rothbaum et  al.’s model also has been influential in cultural psychology. Many researchers have attempted to examine cultural differences in the dominance of primary versus secondary control, within the context of the cultural model of individualism and collectivism (Triandis, 1995) and independence and interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). It has been suggested that Western and East Asian cultures emphasize different processes, primary and secondary control, respectively. The suggested difference is attributed to different cultural emphases: individual agency and clear personal goals in the West, and interpersonal harmony and shared group goals in East Asia. Thus, East Asians, compared to Westerners, are thought to employ secondary control (i.e., accommodating themselves to fit with the circumstances) more than primary control (i.e., changing the existing circumstances to one’s liking) (Weisz et al., 1984). Despite some criticisms (e.g., Azuma, 1984; Kojima, 1984), this cultural relativism has served as a basic tool to understand culturally divergent forms of control orientations. Morling and colleagues’ studies provide empirical support for this notion. Across diverse domains and samples (e.g., aerobics participants in Morling, 2000; pregnant women in Morling et al., 2003), the authors have found systematic cultural differences between the United States and Japan in most cases (c.f., Morling, et al., 2003). For example, Americans were more likely to choose aerobics classes on the basis of convenience and to change to a different class when the moves were too difficult (i.e.,

312 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

they changed the environment to suit themselves), whereas Japanese were more likely to choose classes on the basis of their ability level and they worked harder when the moves were too difficult (i.e., they adjusted to the environment). These are thought to be examples of primary and secondary control, respectively, and indicate differences in the dominant preference for control orientations between the two cultures. Likewise, Morling et al. (2002) found that Americans, compared with Japanese, have more frequent and psychologically more potent opportunities to influence their surroundings in everyday situations. It has been suggested that the two types of control, primary and secondary, are valued and experienced to different degrees between the East and the West. Consistent with the culturally different emphases on individual agency and interpersonal harmony, primary control tends to be more prevalent in the West, whereas secondary control is more common in East Asia. These analyses, however, tend to rely entirely on a dichotomy between primary and secondary control and overlook the functional value of primary control in all societies (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995). The long-​supported concept of “primary control” itself may not be sufficient to explain East Asians’ underlying control motives. Furthermore, some studies indicate few or no cultural differences in secondary control (e.g., Flammer et al., 1995; McCarty et al., 1999; Morling et al., 2003), which calls for the need to clarify the concept (Morling & Evered, 2006). In this sense, it seems necessary to further examine the characteristics of each type of control and seek alternative explanations beyond the basic framework.

Achieving the Universal Motive with Different Strategies We maintain that the primacy of primary control is universal, although strategies to achieve it may vary across cultures. According to Heckhausen and Schulz’s (1995) lifespan theory of development, primary control takes a primary value by enabling individuals to shape their environment to fit their particular needs and developmental potential, whereas secondary control takes a compensatory role by minimizing losses and maintaining and expanding existing levels of primary control. Importantly, they claim that although cultures vary widely in the extent to which they promote or reinforce aspirations for primary control (Weisz et al., 1984), this does not argue against “an underlying preference for primary control” (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995, p. 286). This also may be the case in East Asia. Rapid development of social structures, industry, and technology in the cultural region casts doubt on a

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 313

chronic resistance to exercise primary control. It would be impossible to achieve such developments within only a few decades without individuals’ motivations to influence and alter the environment. As Heckhausen and Schulz (1995) have speculated, primary control, regardless of cultural boundaries, may develop prior to secondary control in the lifespan, being attempted and exercised before the latter is learned. The strategies for secondary control appear in later development and assume only a complementary role (for a hypothesis about a similar hierarchy of self-​construal, see Sedikides, Gaertner, & O’Mara, 2011). There is no reason to expect East Asians to be exceptional in this regard; the need to fit the environment to the self’s needs is an underlying motive in general. However, East Asians are likely to be reluctant to exercise overt influence on the external world, because individual autonomy and agency are culturally less valued than interpersonal harmony and collective agency (Yamaguchi, 2001; Yamaguchi, Gelfand, Ohashi, & Zemba, 2005). To achieve the primary motive then, they would need to generate alternative strategies that would be less offensive to cultural expectations. Before discussing control orientations, it would be worthwhile to revisit some of the research that reflects the universality of human motives. Empirical evidence in recent years has begun to suggest that people are in many ways more similar than different, even across cultural boundaries. For example, people, regardless of cultural boundaries, tend to have a motive for high self-​esteem (Sedikides & Gregg, 2008); they prioritize the individual self over the relational and collective self (Gaertner et al., 2012; Sedikides et al., 2011); they maintain a need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995); and they perceive the need to be the core of human nature (Park, Haslam, & Kashima, 2012). As implied in conflicting results between explicit and implicit levels of positive self-​ evaluation (e.g., Kitayama & Uchida, 2005; Yamaguchi et al., 2007), the human motives underlying explicit attitudes seem to be more or less similar across cultures. In The Cultural Animal, Baumeister (2005) illustrates how similar all human cultures are, beneath surface differences: When you go to live in a different culture, you are at first overwhelmed by all of the differences. They use a different kind of money, and the bills are a different color from those in your native culture. They speak a different language. They may drive on the other side of the road . . . . After a while, however, you begin to recognize that these large differences conceal underlying similarities. The color or name of the money does not matter so much as the fact of having common money, which enables the people of the

314 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

culture to trade with each other. The same goes for language: What matters is having a common language so that people can communicate. Language, like money, serves essentially the same function in every culture. (p. 22)

In our understanding, the key message here is not to deny cultural diversity or overlook cultural influences on psychology but to point out the significant role of human cognition for cultural diversity (as different from animal societies). Indeed, Baumeister later summarizes his argument with the phrase “nature shaped us for culture” (p.  29). Despite the universal motives, cultures are inclined to adopt different strategies or tactics to be consistent with their salient norms. We posit that the most fascinating and important endeavor in the study of culture and psychology may be to discover the culture-​specific strategies employed in achieving universal human motives. Bringing this general idea to bear on the current issue, just like having different kinds of money and languages, people from different cultures employ different strategies in attempting to influence the world (the primary motive). Thus, what needs to be explored is the way in which cultural groups adopt different strategies, regardless of the same motivation, and the reasons why different strategies gain the most efficiency across cultures. In the present case, the answer may lie in culture-​specific embedded modes of thinking (i.e., synthesis-​oriented or “linear” thinking versus dialectical thinking). In the following section, we review specific control strategies that have not been examined in the original theory of primary control (Rothbaum et al., 1982).

Variations of Control Experiences In this section, we review various forms of control suggested by Yamaguchi (2001) and Kurman et al. (2012). While Yamaguchi’s framework mainly refines the theory of primary control, Kurman et  al.’s approach adds an intermediate mechanism of control to the two-​process model. Both views agree that the original model is a systematic and thus convenient approach to investigating individuals’ experiences of control, but that this simplified approach may distort or blur the real picture of everyday psychology, where various factors and strategies are involved in the exercise of control. According to Yamaguchi (2001), primary control in the original model is limited to explaining a direct aspect of control. Following the literature, we present primary control in Rothbaum et al.’s term as direct personal control (see also Yamaguchi, Sawaumi, & Park, 2017). Primary control

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 315

is a more fundamental approach than secondary control in East Asia as well; however, because cultural norms and values emphasize interpersonal harmony over individual agency, primary control may be exercised in somewhat different ways than in the Western process (direct personal control). Of course, strategies other than the original may exist in any culture. For example, people employ proxies as mediators to solve problems or improve their circumstances in everyday life. Consider a student experiencing academic problems in a class. An American student can talk to a teaching assistant, instead of the instructor directly, when he or she cannot keep up with the curriculum. However, these types of less direct strategies can be more useful tools for East Asians than Westerners, especially when personal goals are in conflict with others’ needs and the shared norms within the group.

Primary Control via Proxies Some strategies require others’ roles, in addition to the self, to achieve the primary goal of influence. In Yamaguchi’s (2001) framework, there are two such types: proxy control and collective control. They are similar to each other in that other people (a proxy or a group of people) are involved in adjusting the environment, but different depending on whether or not the self is directly involved and taking a tangible role in controlling the environment. Proxy control is exerted by someone else for the benefit of the person. In this type of control, the person’s agency for controlling the environment is veiled, as it is transferred to a proxy other (intermediary). To borrow a case in Morling’s (2000) study, an aerobics student who has difficulty following some of the moves of the instructor could ask a studio staff member (proxy) to talk to the instructor on his or her behalf. Proxy control is useful particularly for those who are weaker or lower in social status (e.g., children, subordinates in an organization, etc.) because they can obtain support from those in more powerful or higher status positions to achieve their goal of control. In this sense, this type of primary control can be particularly relevant in cultures characterized by vertical collectivism, such as East Asia, where group hierarchy is salient (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). In collective control, one attempts to influence existing reality together with others as a group or collective. Personal agency is dispersed to other members, as the goal is shared within the group; hence, one can preserve ingroup harmony. For example, when moves are too difficult in aerobics class, the person, together with other students in the same position, may

316 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

request the instructor to decrease the difficulty level of the moves. In the sense that the external world is influenced by a group of people, this kind of control strategy is related to one’s tendency to attribute agency and autonomy to groups rather than to isolated individuals, which is more prevalent in East Asia than in the West (Menon, Morris, Chiu, & Hong, 1999). In fact, this type of control also was prevalent in Morling et al.’s (2003) longitudinal study and termed various control. Japanese pregnant women benefited from social support, whereas their American counterparts did not. Morling et al. categorized secondary control into two aspects: acceptance and vicarious control. Acceptance of stressful events referred to the belief that one has accepted the reality that the event has happened, and vicarious control referred to a secondary control strategy whereby people aligned with others who could control important outcomes. Although Morling and colleagues categorized receiving social support as vicarious secondary control in contrast to personal influence (i.e., primary control), this behavior reflects a type of collective control, because the women coped with their problems by influencing the environment but were supported by other group members. In fact, the study seems not to support culturally systematic differences in control preference, because not only the Japanese but also the American women responded that they received more benefits from acceptance (i.e., secondary control) than from primary control, thus indicating a preference for secondary control over primary control. Interestingly, Morling (2000) reported similar findings in the aerobics class study. American participants, just like Japanese, preferred to use secondary control over primary control. These findings question the common assumption that primary control is the most favored and exercised form of control in Western cultures. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss this topic further; nevertheless, Morling et al.’s (2003) study suggests that East Asians tend to favor collective agency (“social assurance”) in dealing with external circumstances. In our theoretical conceptualization, this kind of control is understood to be an alternative form of direct personal control. Consistent with our proposition, these summarized findings reflect one of the specific and widespread characteristics of primary control strategies among East Asians. In summary, in our theoretical perspective, both proxy and collective control are categorized as primary control strategies in that their goals are to influence the environment rather than to adjust the self to fit with the environment. Given the dominant cultural norms in East Asia (i.e., ingroup harmony and collective agency), these strategies play a functionally

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 317

adaptive role in everyday control exertion. In the next section, we examine indirect personal control. This kind of strategy is subtle but appears to be very significant in influencing external realities without threating interpersonal harmony, thus it is widely used, especially in East Asian cultures.

Indirect Personal Control Some strategies used to influence the world are more implicit and subtle. For example, when a team member does not do his or her best for a joint project, people can influence the person to work harder, by asking, “Are you very busy these days?” rather than directly pushing him or her to work more. Some strategies can even be contradictory depending on the context. With indirect person control, the agent tentatively encourages the target person by reminding the person of the things he or she needs to do or improve and commitment or desire to do them. Indirect personal control tends to be especially suitable for interpersonal communication settings, because one needs a target person who can interpret the genuine intention hidden in the indirect, sometimes even contradictory, words. The importance of indirect control in East Asia was mentioned in the early work of Kojima (1984). Commenting on Weisz et al.’s (1984) discussion of control orientations in the United States and Japan, the author argued that what is actually different between the two cultures is “not only the ratio of primary to secondary control, but also the nature of socially accepted modes of primary control, that is, direct versus indirect” (p. 972). So far, we have reviewed three types of control strategies—​proxy control, collective control, and indirect personal control. Although the processes are slightly different across strategies, they are not characteristic of secondary control, defined as “attempts to fit in the world and to flow with the current” (Rothbaum et al., 1982, p. 8; see also Morling & Evered, 2006). Rather, they all reflect primary control strategies in that the main goal is to influence and alter the existing situations (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Kojima, 1984). Yamaguchi (2001) suggests that these strategies are common in East Asia and are efficient tools to achieve the primary goal.

Control via Self-​Improvement Kurman et al.’s (2012) recent work adds another dimension to the primary–​ secondary control dichotomy. Control via self-​improvement is an intermediate category that includes characteristics of both primary and secondary control strategies. This strategy is basically aimed at changing external

318 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

realities (the superordinate goal) in the long run, but doing so via improving the self (the subordinate goal). One should note that, unlike other strategies that mainly consider immediate control (irrespective of whether the person changes reality or accepts it and changes the self now), control via self-​improvement involves consideration of future conditions as well as present circumstances (i.e., whether or not the self can be changed and improved, in order to change reality in the future). The temporal theme emphasized in this strategy makes it distinct from the traditional model of primary and secondary control. A few examples are presented in Kurman et al.’s original article: for example, after failing a test, a person works harder to retake and pass it; after rejection at a job interview, a person tries to upgrade his or her qualifications and tries to get the offer again. All of these attempts look like secondary control at first glance, but in the long run, they reflect primary control in that one aims to influence existing circumstances at some point, rather than accepting reality as it is. Importantly, this type of control is argued to be more important in East Asia than in the West, as it should be more adaptive than direct personal control in influencing the world in cultures where individual agency is relatively less encouraged. Kuman et  al. (2012) tested the significance of control via self-​ improvement in Israel, a Westernized country, and Hong Kong, a part of China in East Asia, and found cultural differences as expected. Participants in each country were asked to describe what they would do if faced with a set of five hypothetical situations. This open-​ended study reported results supporting their arguments. The frequency of control via self-​improvement was substantial in both countries. For the two-​process comparison, primary control was more frequent in Israel than in Hong Kong, whereas secondary control was more frequent in Hong Kong than in Israel. Control via self-​improvement, as hypothesized, tended to be preferred among Hong Kong participants, relative to the Israelis. In sum, their study supported control via self-​improvement as a distinct strategy in control orientations where the ingredients of both types of control are involved on the basis of long-​term perspectives, and it supported the notion that the strategy would be more relevant in East Asian than in Western contexts. Taken together, the two control studies extend and provide complementary ideas regarding the two-​process model. Limiting the original concept of primary control to direct personal control, Yamaguchi’s (2001) analysis uncovered other meaningful forms of exerting primary control in principle. Questioning the dichotomy of the standard model, Kurman et al. (2012) explored a third dimension that is intermediate between and

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 319

distinct from primary and secondary control. All of these findings suggest that an examination of specific dimensions of control can shed light on individuals’ everyday experiences of control and that this approach is particularly important in capturing East Asians’ complex orientations of control over the world and the self.

Dialectical Thinking in Control Orientations Northeast Asians see problems as much more complex and interrelated, requiring a greater understanding of, and emphasis on, the collective rather than a focus on individual parts. (McDaniel, Samovar, & Porter, 2012, p. 15)

In this section, we argue that naïve dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, & Wang, 2010) is an important element in cultural differences in control orientations, and we examine the potential influence of dialectical thinking on control strategies. The opening quotation of this section implies that East Asians are more likely than Westerners to see the relationship between agent and control target or environment, and the relationship between control processes and outcomes, as more complex and interrelated. Peng and Nisbett (1999) defined naïve dialecticism as a culture-​specific, East Asian mode of cognition that emphasizes the principles of contradiction, change, and holism. This mode of thinking or set of lay theories influences how East Asians view and understand the world, including the self and others, as well as physical objects and events surrounding them over time. The basic them of the principle of contradiction is that the world is simply a single entity, with opposites integrated instead of continually competing against each other. According to the founder of the Taoist school in ancient China, “the two sides of any contradiction exist in the active harmony, opposed but connected and mutually controlling” (Peng & Nisbett, 1999, p.  743). Because East Asians tend to tolerate contradiction (rather than seeking a single truth or answer), they are more inclined to resolve conflict through compromise, preferring a neutral or “middle of the road” approach. For example, they could understand a positive response “yes” as meaning “no,” depending on contexts in interpersonal communications, and they could actually use such contradictory strategies in everyday coping. According to the principle of change, reality does not stand still but is in constant flux as a dynamic process. Thus, the concepts that reflect

320 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

reality are also active, changeable, and subjective rather than being objective, fixed, and identifiable entities, and all natural and social phenomena are understood to be changing across time. Such tolerance for change may help an agent to not lose a sense of control over reality, even if it takes a little time to see the situation improved for the self. According to the principle of holism, everything exists in the mystical integration of yin and yang, entities that are opposed to one another and yet also are connected in time and space as a whole. Also, the self and others are perceived as connected, rather than as isolated individuals, thus especially close other(s) can often serve as a proxy for one’s coping with everyday challenges. Naïve dialecticism can be distinguished from other cultural dimensions that are characteristic of East Asian cultures (Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2005). This particular mode of thinking is not necessarily observed in other collectivistic cultures (e.g., Latin Americans). Moreover, it is not limited to the interdependence of self and others, as with independent–​ interdependent self-​construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), but rather includes the perceived connectedness of the self with others, living things, nonliving things, and intangible phenomena. As reviewed in the earlier section of this chapter, in East Asian cultures, the importance of indirect primary control may be associated with the cultural emphasis on interpersonal harmony (Yamaguchi, 2001), and the importance of intermediate control (i.e., control via self-​improvement; Kurman et al., 2012) may be related to the preference for self-​improvement to achieve primary goals (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999). Complementing the interdependent/​collectivist tendency to desire interpersonal harmony, dialectical thinking may have additive or interactive effects on control experiences. With this view of naïve dialecticism in mind, we argue that there are four main theoretical points linking dialecticism and control orientations in East Asian contexts: 1. Dialectical thinking is related to flexible views of control experiences and the flexible use of control strategies. 2. Dialectical thinking, especially holism, is related to the prevalence and efficiency of indirect control strategies in interpersonal relations. 3. Dialectical thinking is related to tolerance of contradiction between speech and underlying intentions. 4. Dialectical thinking may blur the boundary between primary and secondary control and encourage the agent to choose a neutral or “middle of the road” approach.

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 321

1. Flexible Views and Use of Control Strategies We propose that the basic principles of dialectical thinking are well integrated in East Asians’ preference for using various strategies for the ultimate goal of influencing the world. That is, the flexible views of the agent(s), interpersonal relations, the focus problem(s), and their relationship with each other enable people to be open to rather implicit, and sometimes seemingly contradictory, approaches to improve reality instead of sticking to direct forms of control, be it to change the world or change the self (Rothbaum et al., 1982). The idea that all entities coexist in harmony should lead people to be more flexible in their use of different control strategies in general (for a similar argument regarding dialectical thinking and flexible coping strategies, see Chapter  6 in this volume). The following sections outline more specific links between different control strategies and the principles of dialectical thinking.

2. Influence of the Dialectical Principle of Holism A standard view of primary control (i.e., direct personal control) is that the self attempts to deal with reality. Although implicit in this view, agency is entirely bestowed on the single individual. For dialectical thinkers, however, the possible agent is not necessarily limited to the self. In the holistic view, the world is ordered such that everything is assumed to be connected to everything else (Peng & Nisbett, 1999), which also is significant in the perception of the self and others (Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2005). In some contexts, dialectical thinkers may attribute agency not only to the self but also to relevant others, thus they are seen as connected and influential in controlling the given situation (see also Chapter 20 in this volume). Hence, depending on the context and relations with the self, others can be important mediators between the self and the external world, permitting one to exercise primary control efficiently in a culturally suitable manner (see Figure 10.1). Holism in control orientations is well reflected in collective control and proxy control in Yamaguchi’s (2001) study, as well as in social assurance or vicarious control in Morling et al.’s (2003) study. As reviewed earlier, East Asians’ preference for these strategies is likely partly due to the fact that they are culturally acceptable by securing interpersonal harmony. Another important explanation is that East Asians perceive groups or collectives as autonomous agents (Menon et al., 1999) and likely attribute locus of control to the group, rather than to the individual (Cheng, Cheung, Chio,

322 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Agency

Others Environment

Self

Figure 10.1  Holistic attribution of agency to self and ingroup others in control experiences.

& Chan, 2013). One may find a relation between these attributional tendencies and interdependent self-​construals. In fact, the interdependent-​self perspective can be regarded as “one (more limited) aspect of the broader principle of holism” (Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2005, p. 230). The relationship between holism and interdependence may also be related to one’s tendency to regard close others as possible proxies for the self in control orientations. It is hypothesized that both holism and interdependence have additive and interactive effects in both domains of interpersonal perception and control orientations.

3. Tolerance for Contradiction between Speech and Underlying Intentions Compared with Westerners, East Asians tend to show inconsistency between attitudes and behaviors (Choi & Nisbett, 1998; Kashima, Siegel, Tanaka, & Kashima, 1992). This inconsistency can be extended to incongruence between goals and their visible behaviors to reach the goals (Kashima et  al., 1992). Indirect personal control may be relevant here, which is usually employed in interpersonal communication settings (McDaniel et al., 2012). As an example, suppose that you are invited to your friend’s house. After spending some time there, you are kindly asked, “Would you like some soup?” As a guest, how would you respond to the offer? Many of you, especially if you are a rationalist with good manners, would say, “Thank you. That’d be nice!” In some cultures, however, such a favorable response can be undesirable, because the hidden meaning of the offer is actually something totally opposite. Indeed, this exemplifies a typical strategy in Kyoto, a part of Japan. In that province, “Would you like to eat bubuzuke (a Japanese dish with green tea)?” is used as a polite expression when guests have overstayed their welcome (Kyoto Tourism Council, 2007; see also Nishimura, Nevgi, & Tella, 2009). Hence, a socially appropriate answer would be, “No, thanks. Oh, it’s time to go home already.”

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 323

Linked to control orientations, the host exercises control to influence the existing reality (i.e., having the guest leave soon) by employing a contradictory strategy (i.e., showing intention to serve food). Of course, this is such an extreme case that many Japanese people, upon hearing this for the first time, would not immediately get the hidden meaning.1 Nevertheless, it implies the prevalence of such indirect, even contradictory, meanings and intentions observed in Japanese conversations and perhaps across other East Asian cultures. One should also note that this kind of implicit strategy works only when the target person is aware of the meaning of the strategy. That is, individuals need to have shared understandings about the apparent contradiction between one’s behavior and one’s true intention. In the case of offering bubuzuke in Kyoto, the target person would misunderstand the real intention of the host unless he or she is familiar with the strategy. Without shared dialecticism, this type of implicit control strategy would not work effectively. Of course, indirect control exists in the West as well; it can be used to help avoid undesirable disharmony in interpersonal relations. Similar to the Kyoto example, when Westerners want their guests to leave, they may show the sign of fatigue (e.g., yawning) or say that they are tired, which serves as an indirect indicator of their intention. Thus, it would not be appropriate to say that indirect strategies or the need for interpersonal harmony is exclusive to East Asians. Nevertheless, it appears to be used more often and efficiently in East Asia, where the context in communications, rather than the exact content, is more important (i.e., high-​context communication; Gudykunst, 1993; Triandis, 1994). Indeed, Gudykunst et al. (1996) argue that high-​context communication involves the use of “implicit and indirect messages in which meanings are embedded in the person or in the sociocultural context,” in contrast to low-​context communication, characterized by “the use of explicit and direct messages in which meanings are contained mainly in the transmitted messages” (p. 511; see also, Hall, 1976). Accordingly, it is consistent with our view that indirect strategies for primary control are more characteristic of East Asians, the representative high-​context culture. As yet, little attention has been paid to the possible relationship between culturally different thinking styles and communication styles in psychological or communication research. Future research could shed light on this topic by investigating the association between dialecticism and the characteristics of high-​context communication. We hypothesize that East Asians’ tolerance for contradiction in social events and environment, as well as

324 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

their holistic views concerning contextual meaning, engenders their use and understanding of the implicit and often contradictory signs in interpersonal communications. The agent (speaker) is likely to employ an implicit strategy to influence the circumstance, and the target other (listener) is able to discern the opposite, genuine intention veiled in the agent’s favor or praise. In doing so, the listener would have to gauge whether his or her behavior is contextually inappropriate. This kind of communication style is illustrated in Figure 10.2. Additionally, we speculate that cultural differences may exist in institutional systems that individuals face in dealing with everyday issues. It is possible that Western systems are more amenable to those who approach direct control than indirect control, so that when having difficulty or maladjustment, the agent is usually expected to choose a direct approach to solve it—​for example, by talking to the person in charge directly. East Asian systems, by contrast, may be made more favorable or conducive to those who exercise somewhat indirect control, thus people are encouraged to solve social or psychological issues by using implicit methods, by asking for help from reliable close others instead, or by seeking a solution together with others. Because of the less straightforward social structures and systems in this culture, some Western residents in East Asia might complain that there are no explicit rules or even that the systems and the people are just “inscrutable” or “devious” (Weisz et  al., 1984). By the same token, Asian immigrants in Western countries could experience difficulty in adjusting to the straightforward systems in managing everyday social and personal issues and perceive Western people as “pushy” or “selfish” (Weisz et al., 1984). To our knowledge, no one has directly investigated societal-​level differences in terms of availability of indirect Indirect personal control and contradiction in communication. Speaker

Listener

Explicit speech

Direct listening

Genuine meaning

Secondary interpretation

Figure 10.2  Indirect personal control and contradiction in communication. The dimension above the dotted line refers to explicit communication, whereas the dimension below the line refers to implicit communication between individuals.

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 325

control strategies relative to direct strategies. Presumably, social structures and systems in the West and East Asia are constructed differently, in favor of direct-​and indirect-​strategy users, respectively. Given the increasing globalization and multiculturalism in the current society, this is certainly an intriguing topic for future research. Dialecticism and the prevalence of indirect control in East Asia may be correlational rather than causal in that they have ongoing interactions. On the one hand, the cognitive mode of contradiction enhances individuals’ experiences of indirect control strategies either as an agent or target person in social interactions. On the other hand, these experiences maintain and develop tolerance for contradiction in the social world. That is, they may be mutually constituted.

4. Intermediate Choice between Primary and Secondary Control The previous three sections explored dialecticism embedded in multiple forms of primary control. We explained that East Asians’ preference for less explicit ways of primary control is due to their holistic view of the agent(s) in controlling the given circumstances, as well as tolerance for contradiction in employing and understanding strategies in pursuit of primary goals. In fact, compared to the notion of direct personal control in Rothbaum et al.’s (1982) theory, these alternative forms may not be regarded by scholars as primary control, and some may locate them between primary and secondary control, or even classify them as secondary control (e.g., Morling & Evered, 2006). Given the nature of their underlying motivations (i.e., to alter existing reality), however, we claim that it is more appropriate to categorize them as primary control. Moreover, dialectical thinkers would likely adopt intermediate forms between the two poles (primary and secondary) in coping with existing realities. The original two-​process model is built on the assumption that individuals are very clear in choosing either form of control across daily events. Although different forms of secondary control are acknowledged (e.g., Morling & Evered, 2006; Rothbaum et al., 1982), it is hypothesized that the basic motivation is simply two-​fold, either to change the world or change the self (“A or B”). This is inconsistent with dialectical thinkers’ chronic preference to find a “middle way” (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Rather than engaging in a linear search for one absolute solution, they may favor a compromise approach in tolerance of psychological contradiction, by thinking that adjusting the self to the world will eventually turn out to

326 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

be changing the world or vice versa (Cheng, 2009; Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2005, see also Chapter 20 in this book). As Azuma (1984) criticized, the primary–​secondary dichotomy would be “in itself quite American” (p. 971), lacking a dialectical perspective on the self and environment. Control via self-​improvement is a good example reflecting a middle path between the two poles of control (Kurman et  al., 2012). The core theme, perception about temporal change (i.e., a belief that an unsatisfying outcome or situation can be improved by working harder so that the individual, through self-​improvement, can influence the external reality in the long run), may be closely associated with dialecticism. This third process would be particularly attuned to those who perceive high probabilities of changing the self, as well as the surrounding environment, over time. First, self-​improvement is based on one’s belief that the self can be changed (improved). Second, one can pursue the primary goal (i.e., influencing the world) in the belief that the state of the world is always going up and down, so that it will provide the chance to achieve the goal at some point (although not permanently so). Of course, it is universal to some extent that people, unlike other animals, can think about the future and make flexible, individually tailored plans to improve it (Baumeister, 2005). Nevertheless, it would be more likely in East Asia, where the default belief system is acceptance of contradiction and inconsistencies in the self, others, and the surrounding environment. Hofstede’s (2001) national-​level analysis of long-​term orientation supports this idea. Long-​term orientation encourages thrift, savings, perseverance toward results, and a willingness to subordinate oneself to a certain purpose, whereas short-​term orientation is consistent with spending to keep up with social pressure, fewer savings, and a preference for quick results (Jandt, 2007). According to Hofstede’s report, five Asian countries (i.e., China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea) are the top five countries in terms of long-​term orientation among 23 countries. Linked to dialecticism, these social characteristics may be strongly related to individuals’ exertion of control via self-​improvement.

Future Directions The proposal presented here is exploratory and awaits future empirical investigation. Multiple forms of primary control and control via self-​ improvement are relatively new approaches in the control orientation research. Our research team has only recently obtained empirical evidence of East Asians’ preference for variations in primary control over the

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 327

predominant form of direct personal control (e.g. Sawaumi, Yamaguchi, Park, & Robinson, 2015). Moreover, we have been developing cross-​ cultural studies based on an integrative framework of primary, secondary, and intermediate control (i.e., control via self-​improvement). East Asians’ dialecticism can serve as a relevant, useful tool for developing research and understanding culturally different preferred forms of control. For example, the main points elaborated in this chapter could be tested by measuring stable/​chronic dialectical thinking with standard self-​report scales (e.g., Dialectical Self Scale, Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2017), as well as by priming dialectical thinking (e.g., Study 4, Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang & Hou, 2004; for a review, see Chapter 1 in this volume). In addition, we suggest that dialecticism is relevant to two promising areas in control research.

Psychological Well-​Being and Control Orientations The relationship between dialecticism and well-​being has received growing attention in social and cultural psychology. For example, Spencer-​Rodgers et al. (2004) suggest that East Asians’ self-​reported lower well-​being and self-​esteem in fact reflects their dialectical responses (tolerance of contradiction) on measures of self-​evaluation and psychological adjustment (see also Hamamura, Heine, & Paulus, 2008). Control orientations can play a meaningful role in this relationship. Cheng et al.’s (2013) meta-​analysis found that the link between external locus of control (LOC) and psychological symptoms (depression and anxiety) are weaker in East Asian countries than in Western countries. This suggests that dialectical thinkers (East Asians), compared with non-​dialectical thinkers (Westerners), are less likely to emphasize agentic goals and show higher endorsement of external LOC. To link this to control strategies, possessing an external LOC may be closely related to the acceptance of important others (proxies or ingroup collectives) in influencing the external world. In this regard, it would be reasonable to assume that, in East Asian contexts, those who are better able to employ proxy or collective control would be relatively less susceptible to psychological distress. We also suppose that the less clear boundary between the two poles of control and the greater acceptance of intermediate approaches would be more strongly associated with well-​being among East Asians. This style of control exertion appears to be related to a functional flexible pattern in Cheng’s (2009) categorization of coping patterns in that the flexible pattern refers to active variation in choosing between a primary or a

328 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

secondary approach, which has a similar meaning to primary and secondary control, in dealing with stressful situations depending on the perceived controllability of the situation. Individuals who are more flexible at coping appear to have better mental health, such as lower anxiety levels, lower levels of depression, fewer psychosomatic symptoms, and fewer stress-​ related symptoms (e.g., Cheng, Hui, & Lam, 1999). Related to dialectical thinking, the positive effects of intermediate approaches on psychological well-​being are considered to reflect tolerance for contradiction in which seemingly contradictory propositions can coexist in a balanced and harmonious manner (Cheng, 2009). Likewise, the middle-​way approaches between the two poles of control may be well suited to the idea of harmony between self and the world. In fact, a few researchers have suggested that the middle-​way approach, with coordination of primary and secondary control, would be the most desirable condition for well-​being (e.g., Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Rothbaum et al., 1982; Weisz et al., 1984). In this sense, the proposed alternative strategies for primary control and dialecticism are both crucial elements in exploring East Asians’ well-​being. Of course, we do not argue that East Asians are happier than other people in the world because they are dialectical. There are other important factors, mediators, and individual differences in predicting East Asians’ well-​being, such as emotional experiences and the provision of social support (Novin, Tso & Konrath, 2014) and aging (Karasawa et al., 2011). Nevertheless, the general relationship assumed between flexible approaches in influencing the world and well-​being gives support to the importance of the various control strategies in the cultural milieu.

Dialectical Thinking in Secondary Control Although our main focus in this chapter is the multiple aspects of primary control, as reflected in the chapter title, “Dialectical Thinking and Its Influence in the World,” we acknowledge the importance of secondary control in East Asia. Independent of the primary-​control issue, secondary control is also significant in everyday psychology and perhaps more so in East Asia than in the West, as implied by the documented literature (e.g., Morling et al., 2002; Weisz et al., 1984). As a few researchers have argued (Morling & Evered, 2006; Rothbaum et al., 1982), this type of control may involve multiple dimensions in motivation and strategies, too. Future research on the cultural nuances of secondary control, as well as research linking dialectical thinking to secondary control, would be beneficial.

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 329

A possible link between secondary control and mental health, mediated by dialecticism, is another promising topic for future research. To dialectical thinkers, everything is changing; thus, a present unsatisfactory situation will not last long. Then people can willingly wait until things change for the better, without attempting to influence immediate reality. That is, East Asians can afford to exert secondary control, expecting a brighter future: let’s go with the flow, which can take us to better situations. This logic partly overlaps with control via self-​improvement, except that secondary control does not entail explicit efforts for self-​improvement but rather positive beliefs about the self and reality. In other words, dialectical thinkers can afford to go with the flow, which will presumably change in the future. Previous research suggests that age-​related factors influence experiences of secondary control and well-​being such that individuals, as they grow older, tend to compensate for losses in primary control by more often relying on secondary-​control strategies (e.g., Wrosch, Heckhausen, & Lachman, 2000). Dialecticism could be an additional, influential factor here as well, in that it can serve to justify accepting the undesirable current reality and assist one to perceive control over reality as it changes over time.

Conclusion We propose a theoretical link between dialecticism and various forms of control employed in everyday life. Exertion of primary control is a universal human motivation in any culture (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995). East Asians, whose cultural orientation de-​emphasizes individual agency in the service of interpersonal harmony, prefer rather subtle or intermediate ways of exerting control to using explicit and direct forms. Naïve dialecticism likely plays an important role in the process of (a) adopting flexible views of control strategies in influencing the world, (b) perceiving the self and others as connected agents and employing multiple forms of control, (c)  employing and understanding contradictory expressions and veiled meanings in interpersonal communications, and (d)  taking a long-​term view in achieving the ultimate, primary goal (changing external reality). The relationship between control orientations and dialecticism is likely bi-​directional, such that they are mutually constituted in East Asian societies and cultures. These exploratory propositions await empirical investigation. We hope that this chapter can provide a useful and comprehensive framework for broadening our understanding of everyday control experiences across cultures.

330 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Note 1. We asked a social psychologist born and raised in Kyoto about this. According to him, this strategy is not currently practiced in Kyoto (Nakahara, personal communication).

References Azuma, H. (1984). Secondary control as a heterogeneous category. American Psychologist, 39, 970–​971. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.39.9.970 Baumeister, R. F. (2005). The cultural animal: Human nature, meaning, and social life. New York: Oxford University Press. Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497–​ 529. doi:10.1037/​0033-​2909.117.3.497 Cheng, C. (2009). Dialectical thinking and coping flexibility: A multimethod approach. Journal of Personality, 77, 471–​494. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​6494.2008.00555.x Cheng, C., Cheung, S., Chio, J. H., & Chan, M. S. (2013). Cultural meaning of perceived control: A metal-​analysis of locus of control and psychological symptoms across 18 cultural regions. Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), 152–​188. doi:10.1037/​ a0028596 Cheng, C., Hui, W., & Lam, S. (1999). Coping style of individuals with functional dyspepsia. Psychosomatic Medicine, 61, 789–​795. doi:10.1097/​00006842-​199911000-​00011 Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and the actor-​observer bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 949–​960. doi:10.1177/​0146167298249003 Flammer, A., Ito, T., Luthi, R., Plaschy, N., Reber, R., Zurbriggen, L., & Sugimine, H. (1995). Coping with control–​failure in Japanese and Swiss adolescents. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 54, 277–​288. Gaertner, L., Sedikides, C., Luke, M., O’Mara, E., Iuzzini, J., Jackson, L. E., Cai, H. & Wu, Q. (2012). A motivational hierarchy within: Primacy of the individual self, relational self, or collective self? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 997–​1013. doi:10.1016/​j.jesp.2012.03.009 Gudykunst, W. (1993). Communication in Japan and the United States. Albany:  State University of New York Press. Gudykunst, W. B., Matsumoto, Y., Ting-​Toomey, S., Nishida, T., Kim, K., & Heyman, S. (1996). The influence of cultural individualism-​collectivism, self-​construals, and individual values on communication styles across cultures. Human Communication Research, 22(4), 510–​543. doi:10.1111/​j.1468-​2958.1996.tb00377.x Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. New York: Doubleday. Hall, N. C. (2008). Self-​regulation of primary and secondary control in achievement settings: A process model. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 27(10), 1126–​ 1164. doi:10.1521/​jscp.2008.27.10.1126 Hamamura, T., Heine, S. J., & Paulus, D. L. (2008). Cultural differences in response styles: The role of dialectical thinking. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 932–​942. doi:10.1016/​j.paid.2007.10.034

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 331

Heckhausen, J., & Schulz, R. (1995). A life-​span theory of control. Psychological Review, 102, 284–​304. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.102.2.284 Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-​regard? Psychological Review, 106, 766–​794. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.106.4.766 Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nation (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Jandt, F. E. (2007). An introduction to intercultural communication: Identities in a global community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Karasawa, M., Curhan, K. B., Markus, H. R., Kitayama, S. S., Love, G. D., Radler, B. T., & Ryff, C. D. (2011). Cultural perspectives on aging and well-​being:  A comparison of Japan and the United States. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 73(1), 73–​98. doi:10.2190/​AG.73.1.d Kashima, Y., Kashima, E., Chiu, C-​Y., Farsides, T., Gelfand, M., Hong, Y-​Y., . . . Yzerbyt, V. (2005). Culture, essentialism, and agency:  Are individuals universally believed to be more real entities than groups? European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 147–​169. doi:10.1002/​ejsp.237 Kashima, Y., Siegel, M., Tanaka, K., & Kashima, E. (1992). Do people believe behaviors are consistent with attitudes? Towards a cultural psychology of attribution processes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 111–​124. doi:10.1111/​j.2044-​8309.1992.tb00959.x Kitayama, S., & Uchida, Y. (2003). When implicit and explicit self-​evaluations fail to converge: Evaluating self and friend in two cultures. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 476–​482. doi:10.1016/​S0022-​1031(03)00026-​X Kojima, H. (1984). A significant stride toward the comparative study of control. American Psychologist, 39, 972–​973. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.39.9.972 Kurman, J., Hui, C. M., & Dan, O. (2012). Changing the world through changing the self: Understanding a new control strategy through self-​reported coping plans in two cultures. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43, 15–​22. doi:10.1177/​0022022110388565 Kyoto Tourism Council (2007). Kyoto Travel Guide. Retrieved from http://​www.kyoto. travel/​dining/​bubuduke.html. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self:  Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–​253. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.98.2.224 McCarty, C. A., Weisz, J. R., Wanitromanee, K., Eastman, K. L., Suwanlert, S., Chaiyasit, W., et al. (1999). Culture, coping, and context: Primary and secondary control among Thai and American youth. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, 40, 809–​818. doi:10.1111/​1469-​7610.00496 McDaniel, E. R., Samovar, L. A., & Porter, R. E. (2012). Using intercultural communication: The building blocks. In L. A. Samovar, R. E. Porter, & E. R. McDaniel (Eds.), Intercultural communication (pp. 4–​18). Boston: Cengage Learning. Menon, T., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C. Y., & Hong, Y. Y. (1999). Culture and the construal of agency: Attribution to individual versus group dispositions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 701–​717. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.76.5.701 Morling, B. (2000). “Taking” an aerobics class in the U.S. and “entering” an aerobics class in Japan: Primary and secondary control in a fitness context. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 3, 73–​85. doi:10.1111/​1467-​839X.00055

332 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Morling, B., & Evered, S. (2006). Secondary control reviewed and defined. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 269–​296. doi:10.1037/​0033-​2909.132.2.269 Morling, B., Kitayama, S., & Miyamoto, Y. (2002). Cultural practices emphasize influence in the United States and adjustment in Japan. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 311–​323. doi:10.1177/​0146167202286003 Morling, B., Kitayama, S., & Miyamoto, Y. (2003). American and Japanese women use different coping strategies during normal pregnancy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1533–​1546. doi:10.1177/​0146167203256878 Nishimura, S., Nevgi, A., & Tella, S. (2009, November 29). Communication style and cultural features in high/​ low context communication cultures:  A case study of Finland, Japan and India. StudyMode.com. Retrieved from http://​www.studymode. com/​essays/​Communication-​Style-​And-​Cultural-​Features-​In-​259790.html Novin, S., Tso, I. F., & Konrath, S. H. (2014). Self-​related and other-​related pathways to subjective well-​being in Japan and the United States. Journal of Happiness Study, 15(5), 995–​1014. Park, J., Haslam, N., & Kashima, Y. (2012). Relational to the core:  Lay theories of humanness in Australia, Japan, and Korea. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43, 774–​783. doi:10.1177/​0022022111414417 Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54, 741–​754. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.54.9.741 Rothbaum, F., Weisz, J. R., & Snyder, S. S. (1982). Changing the world and changing the self: A two-​process model of perceived control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 5–​37. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.42.1.5 Sawaumi, T., Yamaguchi, S., Park, J., & Robinson, A. (2015). Japanese preference for primary control over secondary control:  Evidence based on extended conceptual framework. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 46, 2, 252–​268. Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & O’Mara, E. M. (2011). Individual self, relational self, collective self: Hierarchical ordering of the tripartite self. Psychological Studies, 56(1), 98–​107. doi:10.1007/​s12646-​011-​0059-​0 Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2008). Self-​enhancement: Food for thought. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 102–​116. doi:10.1111/​j.1745-​6916.2008.00068.x Skinner, E.A. (1996). A guide to constructs of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 549-​570. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2005). The dialectical self: Contradiction, change, and holism in the East Asian self-​concept. In R. M. Sorrentino, D. Cohen, J. M. Olsen, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Culture and social behavior: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 10, pp. 227–​249). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2010). Dialecticism and the co-​occurrence of positive and negative affect across cultures. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 41, 109–​115. doi:10.1177/​0022022109349508 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1416–​1432. doi:10.1177/​0146167204264243 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Srivastava, S., Boucher, H. C., English, T., Paletz, S. B., Wang, L., et  al. (2017). Dialectical Self Scale (Unpublished manuscript). University of California, Santa Barbara.

Dialectical Thinking and Control Orientations 

| 333

Triandis, H. C. (1994). Culture and social behavior. New York: McGraw-​Hill. Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Triandis, H. C., & Gelfand, M. J. (1998). Converging measurement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 118–​128. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.74.1.118 Weisz, J. R., Rothbaum, F. M., & Blackburn, T. C. (1984). Standing out and standing in:  The psychology of control in America and Japan. American Psychologist, 39, 955–​969. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.39.9.974 Wrosch, C., Heckhausen, J., & Lachman, M. E. (2000). Primary and secondary control strategies for managing health and financial stress across adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 15(3), 387–​399. doi:10.1037/​0882-​7974.15.3.387 Yamaguchi, S. (2001). Culture and control orientations. In D. Matsumoto (Ed.), The handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 223–​243). New York: Oxford University Press. Yamaguchi, S., Gelfand, M., Ohashi, M. M., & Zemba, Y. (2005). The cultural psychology of control:  Illusions of personal versus collective control in the United States and Japan. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 36, 750–​ 761. doi:10.1177/​ 0022022105280513 Yamaguchi, S., Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. B., Murakami, F., Chen, D., Shiomura, K.,  .  .  .  Krendl, A. (2007). Apparent universality of positive implicit self-​esteem. Psychological Science, 18, 498–​500. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2007.01928.x Yamaguchi, S., Sawaumi, T., & Park, J. (2017). Toward a culturally nuanced psychology of control orientation. Unpublished manuscript.

334 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

­C HAPTER 11 Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups across Cultures Saori Tsukamoto, Yoshihisa Kashima, Nick Haslam, Elise Holland, and Minoru Karasawa

Individuals and groups are two of the fundamental object types in the human social world. Although there is no dispute that all humans universally recognize individuals and groups (e.g., Geertz, 1972), it is well accepted that culture informs people’s conceptions of both (Morris, Menon, & Ames, 2001). The voluminous literature on individualism and collectivism is a testimony to this assertion, as this literature is largely about cultural differences in conceptions of the individual, groups, and their relationships (e.g., Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002; Triandis, 1995). Decades of work have shown that there are systematic cultural differences in these conceptions. Of all these cultural differences, the most fundamental may be about the cultural ontology of individuals and groups—​that is, whether individuals and groups are construed to exist as entities or not. Campbell’s (1958) notion of entitativity, which he defined as “the degree of having the nature of an entity, of having real existence” (p. 17), is best suited to frame this question. In this chapter, the critical question addressed is how cultures differ in the extent to which they perceive individuals and groups as entities. Approaching the perception of entitativity from a perspective of cognition called naïve dialecticism, Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, and colleagues have provided intriguing empirical findings (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010). Their research suggests that naïve dialecticism is a lay ontology that is more prevalent in East Asian than in Western-​European-​based cultures, and that those who endorse

naïve dialecticism tend to regard social objects as less entitative than those who do not. This is because dialectic thinking encourages tolerance of contradiction and the expectation of inconsistency and change. Dialectical thinking and entitative thinking appear to be in direct opposition to each other. In this context, the entitativity of an object is understood to mean the extent to which the object’s attributes or its parts are in some sense consistent or coherent with each other. So, if an object is entitative, given that it has a certain attribute A, it should not have an attribute that is contradictory to or inconsistent with A. In contrast, naïve dialecticism means that an object is seen to be made up of a multitude of often contradictory forces that dynamically influence each other. Thus, dialectic thinkers are likely to regard an object as having both an attribute A and an attribute that is contradictory to A. Consequently, dialectic thinkers should regard social objects as less entitative than those who do not endorse naïve dialecticism. And yet empirical findings suggest that, although Westerners regard individuals, especially their own selves, as more entitative than do their East Asian counterparts, as might be expected, East Asians regard groups as more entitative than their Western counterparts (Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, Hamilton, Peng, & Wang, 2007). This poses an intriguing puzzle. If East Asians are dialectical thinkers, why should they be so for individual selves, but not for groups? The aim of this chapter is to explore how the frameworks of individualism and collectivism, as well as naïve dialecticism, can solve this puzzle. We will argue that one way of addressing this issue is to relinquish an oft-​made assumption that the psychological constructs used to describe cultural differences are domain-​general but are perhaps instead domain-​ specific (for a similar argument, see Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2012). We develop our argument step by step. First, we review the empirical literature on social perception of individuals and groups and how these differ across cultures. We then discuss whether the theoretical frameworks of individualism, collectivism, and naïve dialecticism can offer plausible explanations for these cultural differences.

Cultural Conceptions of Individuals and Groups Perceptions of Individuals Across Cultures Cross-​situational, internal, and temporal consistencies are assumed when people perceive individuals, especially in Western cultures (Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2007). The perceived

336 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

entitativity of individuals is a “fundamental postulate,” which is characterized by several principles, such as the expectations of unity, consistency, coherence, and a core set of personality characteristics (Hamilton & Sherman, 1996). However, cultural differences are found in the degree to which people perceive entitativity in individuals. Kashima and colleagues (2004) found that the tendency to perceive cross-​situational consistency in individuals was more pronounced among Western (Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom) than Japanese participants. In parallel fashion, the tendency is reflected in the preference for dispositional explanations over situational explanations of behavior, namely the “dispositionist” tendency. Behaviors of individuals are typically explained using personality traits (Chiu, Morris, Hong, & Menon, 2000; Menon, Morris, Chiu, & Hong, 1999; Morris et al., 2001), and this dispositionism was found to be stronger among Americans than people in Hong Kong. Dispositionism also has been observed in language use (Kashima, Kashima, Kim, & Gelfand, 2006; Maass, Karasawa, Politi, & Suga, 2006; Morris & Peng, 1994). Objectifying descriptions (i.e., preference for nouns and adjectives) about individuals were found to be more prevalent among Westerners than among East Asian people. For example, English-​speaking individuals use a trait “friendly” instead of “brings cakes to my family on festival days,” the latter description expressed by East Asians (Kashima et al., 2005). This use of non-​objectifying descriptions indicates that East Asians are less likely than Westerners to perceive individual characteristics as entitative. The apparent cross-​cultural difference in the perceived entitativity in individuals is also observed in the perception of selves. Selves are often regarded as cross-​situationally consistent entities, or entitative. But this lay belief in the core consistency of the self may be a fundamental Western assumption. Theories and empirical studies have suggested some differences between Eastern and Western cultural perceptions about self-​consistency and the context in which these take place (for a comprehensive review, see Chapter  14 in this volume). Campbell et  al. (1996) and Suh (2002) demonstrated that East Asians (i.e., Japanese and Koreans) are less likely than North Americans (i.e., Canadians and Americans) to perceive the self as a clear, consistent, stable, and confidently defined entity (i.e., as possessing self-​concept clarity: Campbell, 1990; Campbell & Lavalee, 1993). Japanese perceive their own behaviors and characteristics as malleable and changeable depending on the social context (also see Kanagawa et al., 2001; Suh, 2002).

Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups 

| 337

Differences in self-​descriptions across cultures are well characterized in Spencer-​Rodgers, Boucher, Mori, Wang, and Peng’s (2009) research on self-​concept malleability judgments. They demonstrated that mainland Chinese and Japanese were less likely than Americans to maintain coherent self-​conceptions. That is, Chinese participants listed (Study 1), accessed (Study 2), and remembered (Study 3) contradictory words about themselves more than American participants did. This cultural difference remained even after controlling for the potential confounding tendency to self-​criticize (i.e., to endorse negative and contradictory self descriptions). In a parallel manner, Kashima et al. (2005) suggested that individuals from English-​speaking countries such as the United States, Great Britain, and Canada perceive the self as a more goal-​directed agent and consistent in attitude than do those in non-​English speaking countries. In sum, East Asians and Westerners possess different lay theories with varying views about the entitative self. This evidence indicates that the tendency to perceive individual selves as consistent and stable entities is more apparent in Western cultures than in East Asia. The degree to which people perceive consistency in their personality characteristics differs and has different implications across cultures. Perceived self-​consistency has important ramifications for one’s mental health, at least in Western cultural contexts. Westerners experience anxiety and depression when they have mixed positive and negative feelings, as well as when they act in opposition to their values (Higgins, 1987; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Given that inconsistency is not a normative self-​ state for Westerners, inconsistency in self-​characteristics and/​or emotions may relate to negative psychological states such as distress and neuroticism (Thompson, Zannam & Griffin, 1995). One study found that perceived self-​consistency predicted subjective well-​being more strongly for American subjects than for Koreans (Suh, 2002), and a similar cultural pattern has been observed between self-​concept clarity and self-​esteem (Campbell et al., 1996). An ambivalent self-​state may not cause psychological discomfort for East Asian individuals, arguably because they have a more malleable and dialectic lay theory about themselves. Taken together, these findings suggest that individuals as social targets are perceived to have agency and some underlying stable core (or essence). However, this perceived entitativity in individuals may not be observed to the same degree across cultures:  Westerners tend to view individuals as more autonomous and entitative, whereas East Asians may view them as more malleable and context dependent. These cultural differences are even more pronounced when comparing perceptions of the self. The self

338 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

is considered to have more consistent characteristics by Western perceivers than by East Asians, and this may affect cross-​cultural differences in maintenance of self-​esteem.

Perceptions of Groups Across Cultures Groups are certainly less entitative than individuals (Hamilton & Sherman, 1996). In comparing a human individual, who has a solid and distinguishable body, to groups without such observable boundaries, it is easy to imagine how groups are comparatively less entitative (Kashima et  al., 2005). However, studies show that certain social aggregates are considered to be entitative—​namely, unified groups, not mere collections of individuals (Campbell, 1958; Hamilton, Sherman, & Castelli, 2002; Yzerbyt, Judd, & Corneille, 2004). Like beliefs about the coherent and entitative self, people’s understandings of groups are based on lay theories. One of these lay theories is psychological essentialism (Medin & Ortony, 1989). People tend to assume that there is some underlying essence that makes a social category what it is and unifies its occurrences (i.e., the individuals in a group; Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000; Yzerbyt, Rogier, & Fiske, 1998). Given this belief in a categorical essence, category members are expected to exhibit similar patterns of behavior (Kashima et al., 2005). Some studies examining the perception of entitativity in group characteristics suggest that East Asians are more likely than Westerners to expect consistency and agency in groups. For example, Menon et  al.’s (1999) preliminary study suggested that American participants believe in the autonomy or agency of individuals more than that of collectives, whereas Singaporeans show the opposite pattern. In their main study, Menon et al. examined the extent to which group and individual attributions differed across cultures. Their findings revealed that Japanese newspapers, relative to American newspapers, assigned culpability more to organizations and less to individuals when explaining the same type of scandals. In order to measure these attributional tendencies more directly, they examined American and Hong Kong Chinese undergraduates’ dispositional attributions for individuals and groups. Participants were presented with a series of scenarios presenting negative events. American participants tended to make more individual than group dispositional attributions, whereas Hong Kong Chinese showed the reverse pattern. Similar results in support of Americans’ inclination toward conceptions of individual agency versus the Chinese inclination toward group agency were found in Morris and Peng’s (1994) study. These findings indicate that the tendency to perceive

Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups 

| 339

individuals as more entitative than groups is more apparent in Western countries than in East Asian countries, with the opposite pattern holding for perceptions of group entitativity. Likewise, a study by Chiu et al. (2000) indicated that Chinese people have a stronger tendency than Americans to make group dispositional attributions and to perceive trait-​like consistent characteristics in groups. Further, using novel groups and existing outgroup ethnicities, Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al. (2007) found that, compared to American participants, Chinese participants showed a greater tendency to perceive entitativity and consistency in group characteristics. The authors argued that the strength of entitativity beliefs mediated the influence of culture on consistency judgments. Spencer-​Rodgers et al.’s findings suggest that Chinese have a stronger tendency to use stereotypes than Americans do, and this can be explained by the belief in group entitativity. More recently, to test the entitativity perceptions of groups and individuals more directly, we conducted a study to compare Australian and Japanese perceptions of the self and of ingroup national groups (Tsukamoto, Holland, Haslam, Karasawa, & Kashima, 2015). Australians and Japanese were compared in terms of the extent to which they essentialize the self and their ingroup. Essentialist beliefs about the self and the respective ingroups were measured by asking the degree to which participants agree with essentialist beliefs such as “My personality characteristics are rather innate than acquired,” “Japanese [Australians] share a common underlying essence that cannot be altered by human interventions.” As would be expected among Westerners, the tendency to essentialize the self more than the ingroup was observed among Australians; however, Japanese participants did not show this tendency. Rather, Japanese essentialized their ingroup more than the self. Nevertheless, it is important to note that there is some complexity in the literature. First of all, there is some evidence that East Asians and North Americans do not differ in their perception of individuals per se unless individual perceptions are explicitly contrasted to group perceptions (Chao, Zhang, & Chiu, 2008; Zemba, 2006). In other words, the cultural differences in entitativity perception can be observed more clearly when comparing individuals and groups. Second, the concept of entitativity is not unitary and is likely to have different bases (e.g., Brewer, Hong, & Li, 2004), and different types of group properties are taken into consideration when discussing the perceived entitativity of groups (Denson, Lickel, Curtis, Stenstrom, & Ames, 2006; Kashima et al., 2005). Perceived entitativity can be understood not in terms of perceived consistency of characteristics as

340 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

we discussed earlier, but in terms of other characteristics, such as perceived “groupiness” or autonomy. In other words, one can conceptualize entitativity without referring to the characteristics of category members. When the concept of entitativity is understood more broadly, there is some evidence that East Asians do not always regard groups as more entitative than Westerners. For example, Kurebayashi, Hoffman, Ryan, and Murayama (2012) examined American and Japanese perceptions of essence (i.e., similarity in background), entitativity (i.e., overall “groupiness” /​cohesive /​ whole), dynamic group properties (i.e., goal orientation /​dependence on each other), and autonomy (i.e., taking control of the situation), and found that Americans perceived greater entitativity and autonomy in the groups than did Japanese, especially in intimacy groups (e.g., family and friends) and social categories (e.g., women and teachers). Likewise, Japanese perceived greater homogeneity than Americans when the target group was a country, but not when it was a small group (Yuki, 2003). In addition, the basis of the perceived group entitativity may differ across cultures. That is, Americans may consider an unchanging essence as the cause of entitativity, whereas Japanese may emphasize dynamic group properties or the perceived agency as the basis of perceived group entitativity. Kurebayashi et al.’s (2012) findings suggest that perceptions of entitativity in group characteristics are complex in their content and properties across different cultures. Similar evidence was found by Yuki (2003) that Japanese regarded dynamic intragroup relationships as an important characteristic of groupiness, whereas Americans regarded a group essence as a determining characteristic. These results suggest that different social groups may be perceived to be entitative, but for different reasons across cultures. Nevertheless, these findings generally suggest that culture may influence perceptions of individuals and groups. As a more causal test of the effect of culture, Hong and colleagues conducted a priming study. For bicultural individuals in the United States, perceptual focus between individuals and groups shifted when participants were primed with cultural icons (Hong, Benet-​Martinez, Chiu, & Morris, 2003). Chinese-​American biculturals exhibited less group-​based attributions than individual-​based attributions when primed with American individualistic cultural values.

Summary All in all, the preponderance of evidence suggests that when entitativity is understood in terms of consistency of characteristics, Westerners regard

Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups 

| 341

individuals as more entitative than do East Asians, but East Asians regard groups as more entitative than do Westerners. Westerners are more likely than East Asians to expect individuals to possess trait-​like dispositions, to exhibit greater behavioral consistency across situations, and to be responsible for outcomes of behaviors. In contrast, East Asians are more likely than Westerners to exhibit these tendencies for groups. The evidence presents an intriguing pattern of findings that require a theoretical explanation.

How Do We Explain Cultural Conceptions of Individuals and Groups? How can these cultural differences be explained? In this section, we first review two frameworks, individualism/​collectivism and naïve dialecticism, and then apply them to the findings about cultural conceptions of individuals and groups.

Theories of Cultural Variability Culture is typically understood as a collection of meanings or information, which is non-​genetically transmitted from person to person, shared within a population, and persists across generations. Individualism and collectivism represent one such collection of meanings, which are the most studied dimensions among different cultural values (Brewer & Chen, 2007). Individualism is characterized by the prevalence of meanings that prioritize or value individuals; collectivism signals the prevalence of information that prioritizes or values groups. East Asian cultures, most notably China and Japan, were found to share collectivistic values, whereas Western cultures such as the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom were shown to be individualistic (Hofstede, 1980). Collectivism is defined as a tendency for people to regard individuals as parts of collectives (e.g., family, nation, school), whereas individualism is a tendency for people to see individuals as separate from collectives and as independent agentic entities (Triandis, 1995). Consequently, collectivism promotes context dependency while individualism promotes perceptions that are independent from social contexts (Oyserman et al., 2002). For example, people in collectivist cultures expected their behaviors to be related and adaptive to situations, whereas those in individualistic cultures were more likely to expect their behaviors to be consistent across situations (Choi & Choi, 2002; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Suh, 2002).

342 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Similarly comparing East Asians and Westerners, but focusing on cognitive tendency, Peng and Nisbett (1999) presented a theoretical framework of naïve dialecticism, which describes a lay theory that reflects the acceptance of change and tolerance of contradiction, ambiguity, and ambivalence (for a comprehensive review, see Chapter 1 of this volume; Spencer-​Rodger et al., 2010). In this view, the truth is in the middle (i.e., the doctrine of the mean) (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010) and all objects and events in the world, including the self, are understood to be contradictory, changeable, and interconnected (Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2009). In contrast, non-​dialectical or linear thinking adopts the “law of the excluded middle” and tends to seek to resolve contradiction in perceptions and interpretations of the social and physical world. Naïve dialecticism is more prevalent in East Asia than in Western-​European based societies, such as the United States, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom. As noted earlier, if naïve dialecticism is taken to be a domain-​general lay ontology prevalent in East Asia (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2012, have suggested the possibility of its domain-​specificity; we will discuss this implication later), any object should be conceptualized as less entitative in East Asia than in Western-​European-​based countries (but see Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2012; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004). This is because the entitativity of an object is typically evaluated in terms of the consistency of characteristics exhibited by its components or parts (Campbell, 1958; Hamilton & Sherman, 1996). Dialectical thinking encourages people to attend to and to accept inconsistencies in the self, others, and social objects. Consequently, East Asians should view objects as less cohesive and less entitative. And yet, this expectation is violated for social perceptions of groups, in that East Asians tend to regard groups as more entitative than do Westerners. This apparent contradiction is puzzling. We propose that this puzzle can be explained and resolved in at least three different ways.

The Operationalization of Group and Individual Entitativity A first possible solution to this puzzle is that the apparent contradiction may stem from a critical difference in how the perceived entitativity of individuals and groups has been operationalized. On the one hand, cultural differences in perceived group entitativity have been inferred by examining how group categories are used in stereotyping processes (Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2007). East Asians have been argued to perceive groups as more entitative than do Westerners on the basis that East Asians are more

Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups 

| 343

likely to “stereotype” (e.g., Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2007; but see Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2010). It was surmised that if people believe that the characteristics of a person are more likely to depend on the characteristics of the group to which the person belongs, they regard the group as more entitative. In addition, group entitativity was also measured by examining the extent to which contradictory characteristics (e.g., organized vs. disorganized) were ascribed to a group (Spencer Rodgers et al., 2007). To the extent that contradictory characteristics were attributed to a group, lower levels of group entitativity were inferred. On the other hand, studies regarding perceptions of personal characteristics have often examined consistency and coherence of personality characteristics within individuals as measures of entitativity. In some cases, measures similar to that for group entitativity (i.e., attribution of contradictory characteristics) were used. The more consistent and unambiguous, the more entitative the target individual is inferred to be (e.g., Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2004). However, in other cases, the extent to which an individual exhibits different characteristics in different situations (i.e., cross-​situational variability) was used as a measure of entitativity (e.g., Kashima et al., 2005). Arguably, the diverse methods used for measuring entitativity may not be equivalent. One possible interpretation is that stereotyping may not be reliable or sufficient evidence for perceived group entitativity. East Asians may make more stereotypical inferences on the basis of group dispositions, but they may not necessarily perceive greater entitativity in the group. Another possible interpretation is that cross-​situational consistency of the target characteristics is not the only way to measure entitativity. Entitativity can be perceived and measured on the basis of factors other than situational consistency such as perceived common fate and actions towards goals (Campbell, 1958), and it can be measured without referring to situational consistency (e.g., Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2009). Indeed, perceptions of individual entitativity are often measured and discussed with multiple operationalizations; similarly, this view would suggest that perceptions of group entitativity should also be operationalized using more diverse methods, especially when making cross-​cultural comparisons. All in all, due to the differences in the operationalization of “entitativity” for groups and individuals, it may be difficult to compare the empirical findings and conclude that the current set of findings in fact constitute a contradiction. In this view, the literature on cultural differences in individual perceptions and that on cultural differences in group perceptions should be treated largely independent of each other.

344 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

The Presence of Self Involvement and Ingroup/​Outgroup Distinctions A second possible solution to the puzzle is that the apparent contradiction is due to the somewhat unbalanced empirical evidence about target types. Studies about perceptions of individuals often involve perceptions of the self. Spencer-​Rodgers et  al. (2004, 2009)  examined cultural differences in self-​esteem and self-​concept. The dialecticism literature and much of the interdependent–​independent self-​construal have focused on self-​perceptions. By contrast, cross-​cultural studies about group perceptions are often concerned about outgroup targets instead of ingroups. For example, Spencer-​Rodgers et  al. (2007) examined the extent to which outgroups and their members were stereotyped as an index of perceived entitativity. Similarly, Menon et al. (1999) asked participants to evaluate a company to which they did not belong (i.e., an outgroup) in terms of the extent to which it was responsible for wrongdoing. In short, research on perceived entitativity has focused more on outgroups than on ingroups, but more on “in-​persons” (the self) over “out-​persons” (others). The involvement of the self in social perceptions is important because the self is often understood differently than other people (e.g., Kashima et  al., 2006; Vazire, 2010). For example, frequencies of contextually qualified statements about the self did not differ between Australian and Korean participants, but contextually qualified statements about others were more frequent in Korean samples than Australian samples (Kashima et al., 2006). Moreover, ingroups are suggested to be understood differently from outgroups. For example, outgroup homogeneity biases (Park & Judd, 1990; but see Kelly, 1989) suggest that outgroups are perceived as more homogeneous and more consistent than ingroups. In other words, East Asian dialecticism may apply to perceptions of the self and ingroups (Ma-​Kellams, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng, 2011) but may not apply to perceptions of others and outgroups, at least with respect to perceptions of entitativity (for a discussion of the influence of dialecticism on attitudes toward ingroups and outgroups, see Chapter 13 in this volume). East Asians may, in fact, regard their ingroups more dialectically and less entitatively than Westerners do (Ma-​Kellams et al., 2011), although Tsukamoto et al.’s (2015) results showed the reverse pattern.

Naïve Dialecticism as a Domain-​Specific Construct The final solution to the puzzle is to argue that naïve dialecticism is domain-​ specific, rather than domain-​general. That is to say, East Asian naïve dialecticism may apply to the domain of individual perception but not to

Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups 

| 345

the domain of group perception. This would be consistent with Spencer-​ Rodgers et al.’s (2012) recent revision of naïve dialecticism theory. Indeed, naïve dialecticism can be manipulated experimentally (e.g., Alter & Kwan, 2009; Ma-​Kellams et  al., 2011; Spencer-​Rodger et  al., 2004). For instance, Ma-​Kellams et al. (2011) had Chinese and European American university students in California read a fake scientific report that argues for the veracity of either dialectic or linear thinking and then examined their ingroup favoritism. They found that students of both ethnicities decreased their ingroup favoring perception more after reading an article that favors dialectical thinking than after reading an article that favors linear thinking. The fact that it can be situationally manipulated suggests that native dialecticism is flexibly deployed depending on the context (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2012). More generally, as Kashima (2009) argues, culture is not always internalized or stored in one’s head as a domain-​general naïve theory that is invariably used regardless of context. According to this semiotic view, even though a construct used to explain cultural differences (e.g., individualism, holism) is potentially a domain-​general construct, it may enter into causal processes of cultural dynamics only in certain domains and not in others (Morling & Masuda, 2012). The application of a culturally unique lay theory depends on accessibility and applicability (Hong et al., 2003). For example, bicultural individuals of American and Chinese cultures switch their attribution tendencies between individuals and groups, only if the targets are made salient in the situation. It is possible that naïve dialecticism is one such domain-​specific construct. The ontology of naïve dialecticism may be distributed to different degrees in Eastern and Western countries and be relatively prominent in perceptions of individuals among East Asians. However, to say that naïve dialecticism is domain-​specific begs a question. Why is it used in some domains, but not in others? An answer to this question may be provided by the theory of individualism and collectivism (Triandis, 1995). Individualism can be construed as a naïve ontology that regards the individual person as having a primary ontological existence, or as the primary entity on which all other social entities are based. In this sense, the individual is regarded as the bedrock of the social world. It is the entity that is indivisible, coherent, and consistent, and whose essence does not change in different contexts. If this naïve ontology is indeed prevalent in Western cultures, it is easy to see that naïve dialecticism would be antithetical in the domain of personal perception. If individualism is a foundational ontology in the West, it would trump naïve dialecticism. In contrast, collectivism may be regarded as a naïve ontology that regards the

346 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

collective as having a primary existence. If collectivism is a foundational ontology in East Asia, it may trump naïve dialecticism in the domain of group perception—​in Eastern cultures, then, the domain of group perceptions is less likely influenced by naïve dialecticism. This line of reasoning is roughly consistent with the following set of hypotheses about naïve ontology: 1. There are at least two states of being in naïve ontology: one is characterized by entitative things and the other is characterized by dialectic forces. 2. There are persons and groups, but one of them may be regarded as a foundational entity. a. In individualism, persons are foundational entities, and groups are made up of persons. b. In collectivism, groups are foundational entities, and persons are parts of or different instantiations of a group. Therefore, groups may be more entitatively and less dialectically construed in East Asia than in the West, but individuals may be more entitatively and less dialectically construed in the West than in East Asia. In this view, naïve dialecticism is one component of a naïve ontology that complements the notion of entitativity; dialecticism and entitativity make up a whole in their dialectic opposition.

Limitations and Conclusions At this point in the investigation, it is difficult to conclude which of these three possible “solutions” is most plausible; more research is needed to draw conclusions. Methodological issues come to mind. First, it is important to develop operationalizations of entitativity and dialecticism that are comparable across the levels of individuals and groups. Although there have been some attempts to do so (e.g., Kashima et al., 2005; Menon et al., 1999), they are not perfect. Further conceptual and methodological investigations are needed. Second, it is important to examine perceptions and social inferences about the self and others at the individual level, as well as ingroups and outgroups at the group level. Whether one is construing oneself and one’s ingroup from a first-​person perspective or others and outgroups from a third-​person lens, perspectives can make significant differences in social perception (Kashima et al., 2006). Third, different levels and methods of analyses should be considered when comparing self and

Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups 

| 347

group perceptions across cultures. For example, whether entitativity perception is observed at an unconscious/​automatic or conscious/​controlled level may further lead to discussion about the purposes of the perceptions. The methodological limitations of the current literature need to be addressed in future work. There are other important omissions that need to be acknowledged in this discussion. Throughout the discussion in this chapter, we have largely disregarded individual differences within a population, although this is in fact an essential aspect of culture (e.g., Kashima, 2009). One aspect of individual differences is the extent to which an individual identifies with the cultural pattern that he or she perceives to be prevalent in the ingroup, as Jetten, Postmes, and McAuliffe (2002) have argued. They suggested that people who identify more strongly with their ingroup show a greater assimilation of the perceived group norms than those who weakly identify with their ingroup (see also Smeekes, Verkuyten, & Poppe, 2012). Therefore, people who strongly identify with their own cultural group may adopt the type of thinking more prevalent in their ingroup. Studies on perceptions of individuals (especially the self) and groups have illustrated the East Asian tendency to perceive greater entitativity and coherence in groups but not in the self, and the Western tendency to perceive greater entitativity, autonomy, and agency in the self but not in groups. These seemingly contradictory cultural patterns may be explicated by investigating the interplay between culturally informed lay theories.

Acknowledgments The preparation of this manuscript was partially supported by a Bilateral Joint Projects/​Seminars program (60-​G-​G0011) by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and by an Australian Research Council grant (DP1095323) awarded to Y. Kashima, N. Haslam, and M. Karasawa.

References Alter, A. L., & Kwan, V. S. Y. (2009). Cultural sharing in a global village: Evidence for extracultural cognition in European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 742–​760. Brewer, M. B., Hong, Y. –​Y., & Li, Q. (2004). Dynamic entitativity: Perceiving groups as actors. In V. Yzerbyt, C. M. Judd, & O. Corneille (Eds.), The psychology of group perception:  Perceived variability, entitativity, and essentialism (pp. 25–​38). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

348 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Brewer, M. B., & Chen, Y.-​R. (2007). Where (who) are collectives in collectivism? Toward conceptual clarification of individualism and collectivism. Psychological Review, 114, 133–​151. Campbell, D. T. (1958). Common fate, similarity, and other indices of the status of aggregates of persons as social entities. Behavioral Science, 3, 14–​25. Campbell, J. D. (1990). Self-​esteem and clarity of the self-​concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 473–​505. Campbell, J. D., & Lavalee, L. F. (1993). Who am I?: The role of self-​concept confusion in understanding the behavior of people with low self-​esteem. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Self-​esteem: The puzzle of low self-​regard (pp. 3–​20). New York: Plenum. Campbell, J. D., Trapnell, P. D., Heine, S. J., Katz, I. M., Lavallee, L. F., & Lehman, D. R. (1996). Self-​concept clarity:  Measurement, personality correlates, and cultural boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 141–​156. Chao, M. M., Zhang, Z. –​X., & Chiu, C.–​Y. (2008). Personal and collective culpability judgment: A functional analysis of East Asian–​North American differences. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 39, 703–​744. Chiu, C., Morris, M. W., Hong, Y., & Menon, T. (2000). Motivated cultural cognition: The impact of implicit cultural theories on dispositional attribution varies as a function of need for closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 1508–​1517. Choi, I., & Choi, Y. (2002). Culture and self-​concept flexibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1508–​1517. Denson, T. F., Lickel, B., Curtis, M., Stenstrom, D. M., & Ames, D. R. (2006). The role of entitativity and essentiality in judgments of collective responsibility. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 43–​61. Geertz, C. (1972). Deep play: Notes on the Balinese cockfight. Daedalus, 101, 1–​37. Hamilton, D. L., & Sherman, S. J. (1996). Perceiving persons and groups. Psychological Review, 103, 336–​355. Hamilton, D. L., Sherman, S. L., & Castelli, L. (2002). A group by any other name: The role of entitativity in group perception. European Review of Social Psychology 12, 139–​166. Haslam, N., Rothschild, L., & Ernst, D. (2000). Essentialist beliefs about social categories. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 113–​127. Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-​discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–​340. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-​related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Hong, Y.–​Y., Benet-​Martinez, V., Chiu, C.–​Y., & Morris, M. W. (2003). Boundaries of cultural influence:  Construct activation as a mechanism for cultural differences in social perception. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 34, 435–​464. Jetten, J., Postmes, T., & McAuliffe, B. J. (2002). ‘We’re all individuals’: Group norms of individualism and collectivism, levels of identification and identity threat. European Journal of Social Psychology, 32, 189–​207. Kanagawa, C., Cross, S. E., & Markus, H. R. (2001). “Who am I?” The cultural psychology of the conceptual self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 90–​103. Kashima, Y. (2009). Culture comparison and culture priming: A critical analysis. In R. S. Wyer, C. Chiu, & Y. Hong (Eds.), Understanding culture: Theory, research, and application (pp. 53–​77). New York: Psychology Press.

Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups 

| 349

Kashima, Y., Kashima, E., Chiu, C.-​Y., Farsides, T., Gelfand, M., Hong, Y.–​Y., . . .Yzerbyt, V. (2005). Culture, essentialism, and agency: Are individuals universally believed to be more real entities than groups? European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 147–​169. Kashima, Y., Kashima, E., Farsides, T., Kim, U., Strack, F., Werth, L., & Yuki, M. (2004). Culture and context-​sensitive self: The amount and meaning of context-​sensitivity of phenomenal self differ across cultures. Self and Identity, 3, 125–​141. Kashima, Y., Kashima, E. S., Kim, U., & Gelfand, M. (2006). Describing the social world:  How is a person, a group, and a relationship described in the East and the West? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 388–​396. Kelly, C. (1989). Political identity and perceived intragroup homogeneity. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 239–​250. Kurebayashi, K., Hoffman, L., Ryan, C. S., & Murayama, A. (2012). Japanese and American perceptions of group entitativity and autonomy:  A multilevel analysis. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43, 349–​364. Maass, A., Karasawa, M., Politi, F., & Suga, S. (2006). Do verbs and adjectives play different roles in different cultures? A cross-​linguistic analysis of person representation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 734–​750. Ma-​Kellams, C., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2011). I am against you? Unpacking cultural differences in ingroup favoritism via dialecticism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 15–​27. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–​253. Medin, D. L., & Ortony, A. (1989). Psychological essentialism. In S. Vosniadou & A. Ortony (Eds.), Similarity and analogical reasoning (pp. 179–​ 195). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Menon, T., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C.–​Y., & Hong, Y.–​Y. (1999). Culture and the construal of agency: Attribution to individual versus group dispositions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 701–​717. Morling, B., & Masuda, T. (2012). Social cognition in real worlds: Cultural psychology and social cognition. In S. T. Fiske & C. N. Macrae (Eds.), The Sage handbook of social cognition (pp. 429–​450). London: Sage Publications. Morris, M. W., Menon, T., & Ames, D. R. (2001). Culturally conferred conceptions of agency: A key to social perception of persons, groups, and other actors. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 169–​192. Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 949–​971. Oyserman, D., Coon, H., M., & Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-​analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 3–​72. Park, B., & Judd, C. M. (1990). Measures and models of perceived group variability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 173–​191. Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54, 741–​754. Smeekes, A., Verkuyten, M., & Poppe, E. (2012). How a tolerant past affects the present: Historical tolerance and the acceptance of Muslim expressive rights. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 1410–​1422.

350 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Mori, S. C., Wang, L., & Peng, K. (2009). The dialectical self-​ concept:  Contradiction, change, holism, in East Asian cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 29–​44. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1416–​1432. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., Hamilton, D. L., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2007). Culture and group perception: Dispositional and stereotypic inferences about novel and national groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 525–​543. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction: A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13, 296–​312. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2012). Culturally based lay beliefs as a tool for understanding intergroup and intercultural relations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36, 169–​178. Suh, E. M. (2002). Culture, identity consistency, and subjective well-​being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1378–​1391. Taylor, S., & Brown, J. (1988). Illusion and positive well-​being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193–​210. Thompson, M., Zanna, M., & Griffin, D. (1995). Let’s not be indifferent about (attitudinal) ambivalence. In R. Petty & J. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 361–​386). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Tsukamoto, S., Holland, E., Haslam, N., Karasawa, M., & Kashima, Y. (2015). Cultural differences in perceived coherence of the self and ingroup: A Japan–​Australia comparison. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 83–​89. Vazire, S. (2010). Who knows what about a person? The self–​other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 281–​300. Yuki, M. (2003). Intergroup comparison versus intragroup relationships: A cross-​cultural examination of social identity theory in North American and East Asian cultural contexts. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66, 166–​183. Yzerbyt, V. Y., Judd, C., & Corneille, O. (2004). The psychology of group perception; Perceived variability, entitativity, and essentialism. New York: Psychology Press. Yzerbyt, V. Y., Rogier, & Fiske, S.T. (1998). Group entitativity and social attribution: On translating situational constrains into stereotypes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 1089–​1103. Zemba, Y. (2006). Responses to organizational harm:  Mechanism of blaming managers as proxies for a culpable organization. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 9, 184–​194.

Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups 

| 351

­C HAPTER 12 Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage Susan E. Cross and Ben C. P. Lam

The field of psychology has exploded in the past two decades with research focused on the ways culture shapes cognitive processes, emotional processes, and many aspects of social behavior. For example, comparisons of the conceptualizations of the self in Western and East Asian contexts have led to important advances in theories of the self and behavior in both contexts (Cross, Hardin, & Gercek-​Swing, 2011; Spencer-​Rogers, Williams, & Peng, 2010). Considerable research has shown that the focus on independence in the West and the focus on interdependence with others in East Asian contexts influence many psychological phenomena (for a review, see Kitayama, Duffy, & Uchida, 2007; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). The domain of close relationships and marriage, however, has received scant attention from cross-​cultural psychologists. Relationships researchers have also seldom considered cultural differences in the processes of relationship development and maintenance. Most theories of the development and maintenance of close relationships and marriage assume Western ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. In this chapter, we will explore how East Asian patterns of thinking and feeling may influence close relationship processes. In specific, we will focus on how dialectical ways of thinking and perceiving the world can be applied to research on the development and maintenance of romantic relationships and marriage.

Dialectical Thinking in Close Relationship Contexts To be bent is to become straight; to be empty is to be full. To be worn out is to be renewed; to have little is to possess much. —​Translated by P. Wang (1979)

This classical quote from the Tao Te Ching reflects the importance of contradiction in Chinese thinking. Acceptance of and expectation of contradiction is one component of what Peng and Nisbett (1999) identified as dialectical thinking. This way of thinking and understanding the world assumes that (a) the world is composed of opposites that work together in harmony (termed tolerance of contradiction); (b) the world is constantly changing, and the change is bidirectional—​both good and bad, forward and backward, and so on (termed expectation of change); and (c) all parts of the world are connected, and people or events cannot be understood in isolation from their context (termed holism). This view of the world is quite different from the dominant Western view, where contradictions must be resolved in favor of one side or the other, where the world is assumed to be relatively static, and where people and events are typically viewed as separate from their environment (see Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010; and Chapter 1 in this volume for more description of these differences). Although cross-​cultural work on dialectical cognitive processes and the self is accumulating (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010), few studies have attempted to apply the framework in the area of close relationships and marriage. Consider the following Chinese proverb about love: Fighting is petting; nagging is loving. Yang (2012)

This kick-​me-​so-​that-​I-​know-​you-​love-​me notion may seem weird in a Western context. An American may say: “If I love someone, I would not fight with them.” To many Chinese people, however, love sometimes can be comprised of contradictory components. For example, a couple fights and argues with each other because they still care about each other; if they did not care at all, they would do nothing, as if they did not know each other. In the next section, we articulate predictions and provide preliminary findings to demonstrate that dialecticism can help understand some cross-​cultural differences in relationship processes—​namely, ambivalent views of close others, motivations to adjust and fit into the relationship, emotional complexity, and relationship cognitions.

Ambivalent Views of Close Others One interesting theme identified in Chinese metaphors of marriage is the notion that marriage can be both “sweet and bitter” at the same time (Rosenblatt & Li, 2012). For instance, “marriage is like tea” is used to

354 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

describe the dialectical experience in Chinese marriage: it is bitter at first, but an underlying sweetness will emerge subsequently. Marriage is hence perceived as difficult but at the same time pleasant. In contrast, marriage in the Western context is usually perceived as either positive or negative. That is, relationships are usually either described as “sweet” or “bitter,” lacking the notion of these qualities’ coexistence. Indeed, in a society in which the value of an experience or decision is often based on whether it “feels good” (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985), a relationship that involves bitter or negative feelings may be construed as tainted or dissatisfying. A central component of dialectical thinking is the tendency to recognize contradiction and to view the world as composed of opposites that work together in balance (as represented in the yin-​yang symbol; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004). In contrast, Western, non-​dialectical thinking seeks to resolve contradictions; inconsistencies create tension or anxiety, which is relieved when the inconsistency is resolved (Festinger, 1957). Research has demonstrated that East Asians tend to acknowledge both the positive and negative dimensions of themselves (Hamamura, Heine, & Paulhus, 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). Moreover, cultural differences usually arise owing to East Asians’ tendency to “see the bad in the good.” For instance, when asked to spontaneously describe themselves, Japanese college women reported many more negative attributes than did European American college women (Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001). In a similar vein, East Asians experience more unpleasant emotions than North Americans in positive situations, but not in negative or mixed situations (Leu et al., 2010). If East Asians are more likely to accept contradictions and so are more critical of the self, are they also more likely to acknowledge the positive and negative attributes of close others? A study of ingroup favoritism demonstrated that Chinese were more likely to view the ingroup (e.g., family members, ethnic group) negatively than were European Americans (Ma-​Kellams, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng, 2011). This was explained by dialectical lay beliefs: when Chinese participants were primed to think dialectically, they showed less favoritism toward their ingroup. We investigated whether this tendency is evident in perceptions of close relationships as well. We conducted a study among married couples in the United States and Hong Kong in which we asked the couples to rate themselves and their partners (Lam, Cross, Chen, & Lau, 2013b). We sought to extend the previous findings from the self and ingroups to the perceptions and evaluations of a close other (i.e., one’s spouse). We predicted

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 355

that Chinese would be more dialectical in their descriptions of themselves and their partners than would European Americans. In other words, we expected Chinese to be more likely than European Americans to describe themselves and their partners in both positive and negative terms. We also examined whether cross-​cultural differences, if observed, could be explained by dialectical lay beliefs. We asked European American and Chinese couples to complete a measure of self-​esteem (the Rosenberg Self-​Esteem Scale; Rosenberg, 1965)  and rate the extent to which the statements described themselves and their spouses on 5-​point scales. For partner ratings, the items were reframed to indicate the rater’s evaluation of the partner globally (e.g., “I feel that my spouse has a number of good qualities”; see Neff & Karney, 2002, for similar use). We computed the ambivalence indices for self-​and partner-​ratings using the Conflicting Reactions Model (CRM; Kaplan, 1972), the Similarity-​Intensity Model (SIM; Thompson, Zanna, & Griffin, 1995), and the Gradual Threshold Model (GRM; Priester & Petty, 1996), following previous practice (see Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004, for detailed descriptions). Higher scores indicate greater ambivalence in the rating. We also assessed dialectical self-​conceptions with the Dialectical Self Scale (DSS; Spencer-​Rodgers, Srivastava, et al., 2015). The measure includes items such as “I sometimes believe two things that contradict each other” that tap the extent to which people view the self as inconsistent and changeable over time and situations. We conducted the analysis separately for self-​and partner-​ratings. Because individuals are nested within couples in these data, multilevel modeling was employed to account for non-​independence of the data. First, Chinese rated themselves lower in global self-​esteem and were more ambivalent in their self-​esteem ratings than were European Americans. The measure of dialectical self fully mediated this cross-​cultural difference in self-​evaluative ambivalence (following the Preacher, Zyphur, & Zhang, 2010, approach). This finding is consistent with the previous literature (e.g., Hamamura et al., 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). In addition, Chinese participants rated their partners lower in global qualities than did European Americans, and, more importantly, Chinese rated their partners more ambivalently than did European Americans. Dialectical self-​conceptions partially mediated the observed cross-​cultural difference in ambivalence toward partners.1 Table 12.1 displays the means and standard deviations of the self-​and partner-​ratings, as well as the ambivalence indices. Consistent with our prediction, Chinese people’s ambivalent view of the self extended to their perceptions of close others, and they perceived their

356 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Table 12.1 Means and Standard Deviations of Self-​Esteem Ratings and Ambivalence Indices* Chinese Measure

Wives

Husbands

European Americans Wives

Husbands

Global self-​esteem Global evaluations of partners

3.73 (0.60) 3.76 (0.47) 3.96 (0.60) 3.88 (0.52) 3.97 (0.55) 4.48 (0.51)

3.90 (0.72) 4.58 (0.47)

Self-​evaluative ambivalence CRM SIM GTM

4.65 (1.15) 4.69 (1.01) 4.39 (1.43) 2.98 (1.96) 3.13 (1.85) 2.38 (2.44) 7.42 (0.99) 7.48 (0.85) 7.13 (1.27)

4.46 (1.75) 2.54 (2.97) 7.13 (1.57)

Evaluative ambivalence toward partners CRM 4.50 (0.98) 4.36 (1.04) 3.32 (1.31) 3.00 (1.17) SIM 2.62 (1.73) 2.34 (1.96) 0.34 (2.24) –​0.16 (2.06) GTM 7.31 (0.85) 7.17 (0.91) 6.08 (1.27) 5.76 (1.18) * Standard deviations are in parentheses. Global evaluation ratings were made on a 1-​to 5-​point scale. CRM  =  Conflicting Reactions Model; SIM  =  Similarity-​ Intensity Model; GTM  =  Gradual Threshold Model.

partners to have both good and bad attributes at the same time. Dialectical self-​conceptions partially mediated the cultural differences in ambivalent perceptions of close others. Given the partial mediation, we think there may be additional explanatory variables that tap ambivalent perceptions of others, such as some specific dyadic and relationship factors. For instance, Chinese couples who have known each other for a longer period of time may be more likely to rate their partners ambivalently, perhaps because they have had more chances to observe both good and bad dimensions of their partners. This analysis highlights the notion that European American couples view their partners more positively than do Chinese. Indeed, relationship research in Western cultural contexts consistently shows that couples are motivated to systematically view their partners in a positive light (Murray & Holmes, 1997; Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 1996a, 1996b). Murray and colleagues (1996a, 1996b) found that European Americans tended to evaluate their partners more positively than the partners evaluated themselves (which they termed “positive bias or distortion”). This tendency to positively distort perceptions of their partners, in turn, predicted better relationship quality and psychological functioning. That is, couples are happiest when they idealize their partners. Thus, non-​dialectical thinking has positive associations with relationship quality in Western cultural contexts.

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 357

Do Chinese also evaluate their partners in more positive ways than the partners evaluate themselves? If the answer is yes, do Chinese show this positive bias to the same extent as European Americans? We examined this question using the cross-​cultural couples sample described earlier (Lam, Cross, Chen, et al., 2013b). We operationalized positive distortion as higher ratings of global perceptions of one’s partner, as compared to the mean of the partner’s global self-​perceptions. We conducted a mixed-​ design ANOVA using couple as the level of analysis.2 We expected an interaction between culture and target of rating (self vs. partner), such that Hong Kong Chinese would positively distort their perceptions of their partners less than European Americans would. In general, perceptions of partners (M  =  4.24) were more favorable than self-​perceptions (M = 3.84). This main effect was further characterized by a significant interaction with culture (see Table 12.1 for descriptives), although no gender difference was observed. The interaction is depicted in Figure 12.1. Among European Americans, individuals saw their partners in the best possible light (M = 4.53), even more positively than their partners’ own self-​ratings (M  =  3.92). On the other hand, Chinese people’s views of their partners (M = 3.93) were close to their partners’ views of themselves (M = 3.75), although the difference was significant. Whereas 77% of the American participants showed some tendency toward positive distortion (i.e., rating their partner more positively than the partner rated him-​or herself), only 61% of their Chinese counterparts did so (a chi-​square test revealed a significant difference across culture).

5

Global Evaluation

* *

4

3

Self Partner

2

1 US

HK

Figure 12.1  Global evaluation of self and partner by participant culture. * Indicates significant group difference. US = European Americans; HK = Hong Kong Chinese.

358 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Taken together, the results of ambivalent partner-​ratings and positive distortion reveal a consistent picture. Chinese people view their partners in a less positive light than do European Americans, potentially caused by their dialectical tendency to recognize both the positive and negative aspects of their partners. One question, which was not addressed in our study, still remains: How are these perceptions related to relationship quality? Previous research with Western populations has shown that seeing partners in a more positive light buffers the negative impact of relationship conflict on relationship stability, although only among husbands (Murray et  al., 1996b). For East Asians, however, an ambivalent view of one’s partner may buffer relationships from negative events. Indeed, Chinese people are more likely to recognize both the positive and negative sides of adverse events (Ji, Zhang, Usborne, & Guan, 2004)  and hence may be better able to cope with those events (for a review of dialecticism and coping, see Chapter 20 in this volume). In times of relationship conflict, dialectical thinkers who have a realistic rather than illusory understanding of their partners may be more likely to work through the problems and accept adversity as a way to maintain the relationship. Some research suggests this may be true for European American couples as well (Neff & Karney, 2005). In summary, Hong Kong Chinese couples demonstrate dialectical thinking about their relationship partners and evaluate their partners in a more ambivalent and less positively distorted way, compared to European Americans. Further research is needed to examine the functions of these relational perceptions across cultural contexts, for instance, in other dialectical (e.g., Japan, Korea) and non-​ dialectical (e.g., Latin America) cultures.

Malleability, Adjustment, and Change in Close Relationships Marriage is not 1 + 1 = 2, but 0.5 + 0.5 = 1

To Chinese people, this statement indicates that, in a marriage, the two parties should only be “half” of themselves and should try to fit with each other in order to achieve interpersonal harmony. It implies that each member of the pair must give up something of themselves so that, as a couple, they can become one unit. This quote was mentioned in Chinese websites more than three million times in a Google search. Cross-​cultural research also shows that changing oneself and adjusting to situations is central to many East Asians’ lives and is viewed as an effective and often preferred means of coping. For instance, situations related to adjustment are more

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 359

common in Japan than in the United States; in situations that require adjustment, Japanese perceive and experience interpersonal closeness with others (Morling, Kitayama, & Miyamoto, 2002). In addition, secondary control, defined as changing oneself to adjust to the environment, is a more common strategy for coping with interpersonal stress among people of East Asian heritage than among European Americans (Lam & Zane, 2004; for a review of dialecticism and control orientation, see Chapter 10 in this volume). East Asians’ self-​perceptions also are more likely to change depending on different situations and roles than are those of people from non-​ dialectical cultures (Boucher, 2010; Church et al., 2012; English & Chen, 2007; Kanagawa et al., 2001). Similarly, East Asians are more likely than European Americans to think that people, like other parts of the world, are flexible and malleable (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997). As a result, relationship success among Chinese couples, at least in part, is likely due to the two partners’ willingness to change themselves and to adjust to fit together (Epstein, Chen, & Beyder-​Kamjou, 2005; Morling et al., 2002). Westerners, in contrast, view individuals as relatively stable and fixed (Chiu et al., 1997; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010). Consequently, Westerners may think that people cannot (or should not) change themselves in a relationship. Indeed, some Western scholars have suggested that the ability to be one’s true self (and therefore to not have to change for the partner) is necessary for individuals to be able to truly love another (Bellah et al., 1985; Jack, 1991). Malleability or Similarity in Mate Selection

One consequence of these divergent views of the malleability of the self is that cultural groups may develop different approaches to mate selection. From a Western perspective, where the self is viewed as largely fixed and ideally consistent across situations, the ideal relationship is one that “fits” the self (Wu, Cross, Tey, Ma, & Wu, 2011). In cultures where people have plenty of chances to form new relationships, people are enjoined to seek out someone with similar interests and values, with whom they share common attributes, and for whom little change is required (Yuki et al., 2007). From this viewpoint, relationships succeed because a person has found the “right” person, like finding a missing piece of a puzzle. In contrast, in cultures where relationships are viewed as relatively stable, the self is construed as malleable, and change is viewed as inevitable (Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et  al., 2010; Yuki et  al., 2007); personal change is expected in close relationships, especially in committed relationships such

360 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

as marriage. The goal of mate selection from an East Asian viewpoint may not be to find someone who fits with the self but rather to find someone who has other good qualities with whom one can forge a new relational unit (Wu et al., 2011). In this view of marriage, each person certainly has his or her own personality, concerns, and values, but these are malleable and are subordinated to the primary goal of forming a new family and continuing the family line. As expressed in the Chinese phrase mo he, a couple is like new gears in a machine that need to be ground down to fit together. In short, the two individuals can, with hard work and effort, change to fit each other and their new social context. Whereas previous research has highlighted the importance of perceived similarity in North American compared to East Asian friendships (Heine & Renshaw, 2002; Schug, Yuki, Horikawa, & Takemura, 2009), we examined cultural differences in the importance of perceived similarity in romantic relationships. In a study of college students, European Americans were more likely than Hong Kong Chinese to value personality similarity for success in a romantic relationship (Lam, Cross, Chen, et al., 2013a). In addition, the observed cultural differences in endorsement of the importance of personality similarity were partially mediated by beliefs in personality malleability (Chiu et al., 1997). In other words, Chinese tend to think that core personality characteristics can be changed, and, hence, they are less motivated to find a partner who is similar to themselves to enhance the likelihood of a successful relationship. Similarity can be construed in the eye of the beholder. Among dating and married couples in Western cultural contexts, people project their own personality onto their partners, assuming their partners to be more similar to themselves than they actually are (Murray, Holmes, Bellavia, Griffin, & Dolderman, 2002). This perceived similarity leads to better relationship quality and less conflict, perhaps because seeing one’s partner as a mirror of the self is rewarding and promotes liking of the partner (Murray et al., 2002; see also Heine, Foster, & Spina, 2009). In addition, the behavior of someone similar to oneself is more easily predicted than that of someone quite different, leading to smooth interactions (Gonzaga, Campos, & Bradbury, 2007). The positive association between perceived similarity and relationship outcomes has been well documented in many previous studies across a wide range of relationship contexts (e.g., Decuyper, De Bolle, & De Fruyt, 2012; Klohnen & Luo, 2003; Morry, 2005; Morry, Kito, & Ortiz, 2011). Perceived similarity also offers a sort of epistemic confidence for members of Western cultures. As discussed earlier, people of Western European

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 361

heritage tend to perceive individual personality as relatively stable and unchangeable. A partner who is perceived as similar to the self provides verification and validation of one’s characteristics, beliefs, or values (in contrast to the possible dissonance created by a relationship with someone quite different; Swann, De La Ronde, & Hixon, 1994). In a similar vein, according to balance theory (Heider, 1958), people strive for cognitive consistency in their representations of close others. A  positive relationship with a friend leads one to perceive him or her to be similar to oneself (Morry, 2005; Morry et al., 2011). This, then, allows the individual to maintain balance and experience little pressure to change. In contrast, a dialectical perspective assumes that the world, people, and the self are constantly changing; consequently, East Asians may be less motivated than Westerners to perceive their partners as similar to themselves. First, East Asians tend to value self-​improvement and are less self-​enhancing and self-​ verifying than are people of Western heritage (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Kurman, Hui, & Dan, 2012; Spencer-​Rodgers, Boucher, Peng, & Wang, 2009). Differences between the self and the partner may therefore be less psychologically disturbing for East Asians. Second, as previously mentioned, people of East Asian heritage tend to exert secondary control and they value fitting into or adjusting to their environment or interpersonal relationships (Lam & Zane, 2004; Morling et al., 2002). Thus, people of East Asian heritage may be less likely than Westerners to view their partners as similar to themselves (and therefore self-​verifying); they may be more likely than Westerners to seek to change themselves and adjust to a relationship partner. Based on these arguments, we expected that Chinese couples would be less likely than European American couples to project their self-​ perceptions when rating their partners, resulting in lower levels of perceived personality similarity among Chinese compared to European Americans. Moreover, we hypothesized that perceived personality similarity would be a weaker predictor of relationship quality among Chinese than among European Americans, owing to the Chinese view that a successful relationship requires one to adjust and fit in. A  study of dating couples in Taiwan and the United States provided partial support for these hypotheses. Wu and her colleagues (2011) examined perceived similarity on personality measures that were originally developed in both Chinese and Western contexts. Intraclass correlations were computed between individuals’ self-​ratings and their ratings of their current dating partners to indicate perceived similarity. The results revealed that Taiwanese people perceived less similarity between themselves and their partners than

362 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

did European Americans on the Western measure of the Big Five personality traits (the Ten-​Item Personality Inventory by Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003). However, perceived similarity did not differ between the two cultural groups for the personality factor of interpersonal relatedness (as assessed by the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory; Cheung et  al., 2001). Consistent with our predictions, both the Western and Chinese indices of perceived personality similarity were less strongly related to relationship satisfaction and commitment for Taiwanese people than for European Americans. In short, these data suggest that a “missing puzzle piece” model of partner selection—​finding someone who fits with oneself—​does not describe Taiwanese relationships as well as it does European American relationships.

Willingness to Change and Adjust This cultural difference in the importance of changing oneself to fit into a relationship was examined in another study of lay perspectives of “what makes a great couple” (Lam, Cross, Chen, et al., 2013a). We asked European American and Hong Kong Chinese college students to respond to a set of scenarios describing hypothetical dating couples who either change themselves to fit one another or stay true to oneself despite differences in personality and interaction styles (the scenarios were similar in content across the two cultural groups, but used culturally common given names). For each scenario, we asked the participants to rate the quality of the hypothetical couple’s relationship using items such as “How much do you think they are satisfied with their relationship?” on 7-​point scales. The composite score for each scenario indicated participants’ perception of the overall quality of the relationship. Our results revealed a significant culture-​by-​adjustment interaction. Chinese participants evaluated couples who adjusted themselves in the relationship as having a higher-​quality relationship than did European American participants (see Figure 12.2). On the other hand, European American participants evaluated couples who did not adjust as having a higher-​quality relationship than did Chinese. Consistent with the metaphor of grinding down gears to fit together, these findings suggest that adjustment is more important for Chinese in the evaluation of romantic relationships than for European Americans. How might willingness to adjust and change influence relationship outcomes in existing relationships? Although the research on close relationships has identified various strategies couples use to maintain a romantic relationship or a marriage (Canary, Stafford, & Semic, 2002;

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 363

Relationship Quality Ratings

6 5

* *

4 US HK

3 2 1 Adjust

Do not adjust

Figure 12.2  Evaluation of relationship quality of hypothetical couples who do or do not adjust, by participant culture. * Indicates significant group difference. US = European Americans; HK = Hong Kong Chinese.

Stafford & Canary, 1991), these factors do not tap the adjustment dimension that our findings suggest is central to Chinese close relationships. To address this gap, we generated items about adjustment behaviors that could help maintain a marriage, especially from an East Asian perspective, and tested these items using the cross-​cultural couples sample described earlier in the chapter (Lam, Cross, Chen, et  al., 2013b). We hypothesized that Hong Kong Chinese couples would be more likely than American couples to emphasize adjustment in regulating their marriage. In addition, we predicted that people who viewed their partners as attempting to adjust in the relationship would report higher levels of commitment than would others. We asked couples to rate the importance of a list of adjustment behaviors that might help maintain a marriage, as well as how frequently their spouses had performed these behaviors over the past month. Factor analysis suggested a two-​factor structure in both cultural groups, and Tucker’s phi indicated similar factor structure across cultures (Tucker, 1951). One dimension tapped active efforts to adjust, to fit with one’s partner, and to seek advice from one’s partner for ways to improve (e.g., “Adjust plans and goals to fit one’s partner’s needs,” “Work hard to improve based on one’s partner’s criticism”); this factor was labeled proactive adjustment. The other dimension tapped efforts to refrain from acting in ways that their partners dislike and to exhibit restraint in showing one’s own wishes (e.g., “Avoid conflict with one’s partner,” “To maintain harmony, do not say what one really thinks”); this factor was termed self-​restraint adjustment.

364 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Cross-​cultural differences were found for the self-​restraint adjustment dimension such that Chinese rated these behaviors as more important for maintaining a marriage than did European Americans (a gender difference was found in that husbands valued these behaviors more than wives), but Chinese and European Americans endorsed the importance of proactive adjustment similarly. Using multilevel modeling, we found that people who thought that their spouses proactively adjust in their marriage had higher levels of relationship quality in both cultural groups, but this association was stronger among Chinese than among European Americans. Self-​ restraint adjustment did not predict relationship quality, and culture did not moderate the association. Overall, our predictions were generally supported in the couples’ data: adjustment, especially the self-​restraint aspect, is emphasized in East Asian marriages more than in American marriages, and proactive adjustment behaviors predict marital quality more strongly among East Asian couples than among European American couples. Perception of Change and Fluctuation in Relationships

So far, we have discussed how perceptions of change about the self and partner could shape how people with different cultural backgrounds experience and regulate their romantic relationships and marriages. Because members of Eastern cultures have a relatively cyclic perception of change (e.g., good is followed by bad, bad is followed by good, etc.), one might expect these expectations about fluctuation to be applied to relationships as well. For example, Chinese (as compared to European Americans) think that it is more likely for a college-​aged dating couple to break up after graduation and that two children who do not like each other might become lovers when they grow up (Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001; for a review of this research, see Chapter 3 in this volume). For East Asians, perhaps a rough patch or difficult time in a relationship is expected, so one should work hard to get through the bad times. In addition, good times are expected to be followed by bad times, so perhaps it is not devastating when something bad occurs in the relationship. As a result, these expectations of change and tolerance of contradiction (i.e., dialectical thinking) may lead to longer relationships; that is, there may be fewer unrealistic expectations of the “perfect” relationship among Chinese people. In contrast, members of Western cultures have a relatively linear perception of change; that is, they believe that once something is on a certain trajectory, it will continue to follow that trajectory (Ji et al., 2001). This perception may result in unrealistic expectations of relationships among Westerners. For example, members of Western cultures may expect a

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 365

relationship to stay wonderful and to be in the “honeymoon phase” for the duration of the relationship, and thus they feel disappointed or worry that something is wrong when the relationship moves out of this honeymoon phase (Lavner, Karney, & Bradbury, 2013). Also, Western non-​dialectical or linear perceptions may lead to the notion that if there are bad times in the relationship right now, these bad times will persist because change is not expected. This may result in apathy (i.e., “Things will never change, so it doesn’t matter what I do . . .”) or premature dissolution of the relationship. Thus, it is possible that members of Eastern and Western cultures have different understandings of the trajectory of relationships. Future cross-​cultural research can examine these speculations in samples of individuals who have just formed a committed relationship, such as newlyweds. By asking couples from different cultures to provide forecasts of their own relationships and tracking their change in expectations over time, one could investigate whether dialectical thinking in relationships enables the Chinese to be more patient or tolerant of bad times in their relationships and to make more effort to adjust in order to maintain their relationships, compared to Westerners.

Dialectical Emotions in Close Relationships Sorrow is born of excessive joy. Happiness is dependent on unhappiness, while unhappiness is hidden in happiness —​L. Lu (2001)

These common Chinese expressions reflect a dialectical understanding of emotion. Research on dialecticism in emotion-​related processes has begun to accumulate, and it has been reviewed thoroughly elsewhere (see Goetz, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng, 2008; Spencer Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010; see also Chapter 18, this volume). Briefly, the existing research indicates that dialectical beliefs are associated with complex or mixed emotional experiences. For example, when asked to freely describe “happiness,” Japanese were more likely than European Americans to list features that were undesirable (e.g., not long lasting or envy of others; Uchida & Kitayama, 2009; see also Lu, 2001). Similarly, European Americans report that when they are experiencing positive emotions, they do not also experience negative emotions; in other words, their tendencies to experience positive and negative emotions tend to be negatively correlated. In contrast, East Asians sometimes report experiencing positive and negative

366 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

emotions at the same time; their frequencies are either uncorrelated or, at times, positively correlated (Bagozzi, Wang, & Yi, 1999; Kitayama, Markus, & Kurokawa, 2000; Perunovic, Heller, & Rafaeli, 2007; Scollon, Diener, Oishi, & Biswas-​Diener, 2005; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng & Wang, 2010). Cultural differences in the associations between positive and negative emotions are better explained by dialecticism than by collectivism (Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2002; see also Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, et al., 2010). Westerners do, at times, experience mixed or ambivalent emotions (Larsen & McGraw, 2011). A  common American saying is that “Every cloud has a silver lining,” and Westerners are encouraged to see the good in the bad. What is less common is the tendency to see the bad in the good. People who point out the possible negative consequences of good events are derided as pessimists, killjoys, or cynics. East Asians, in contrast, are more likely to see the bad in the good than are North Americans. Research focused on emotional reactions to success or failure tend to show that both East Asians and North Americans experience mixed or complex emotions in failure situations (i.e., they feel both positive and negative emotions), but East Asians are more likely than North Americans to feel mixed emotions in response to success situations (Leu et al., 2010; Miyamoto, Uchida, & Ellsworth, 2010; but see Zhang & Cross, 2011, for contrasting findings). How might cultural differences in the tendency to experience mixed emotions influence relationship processes? One might predict that East Asian conceptualizations of close relationships would reflect mixed or ambivalent emotions as compared to that of Westerners. One of the first studies to provide evidence of dialectical emotions among East Asians examined prototypes of emotions in the United States and China. As reported in Shaver, Wu, and Schwartz (1992), Chinese prototypes of love were more likely than American prototypes to include a “sad love” component (with features such as “sorrow/​love” and unrequited love). Are people from East Asians backgrounds more likely than people from Western backgrounds to experience both positive and negative emotions in the context of their relationships? This question was addressed in a study in which Chinese American and European American heterosexual couples were asked to engage in structured interactions that potentially involved both positive and negative emotions (e.g., teasing, a personal concern, previous romantic relationships, and their first date; Shiota, Campos, Gonzaga, Keltner, & Peng, 2010). The researchers examined the correlations between participants’ ratings of how much love for their partner they were feeling and negative emotions the discussion elicited. For example,

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 367

a person may feel both love and anger when the partner discusses a previous relationship. In general, the European Americans were more likely to experience either love or a target negative emotion (e.g., anger), whereas Asian Americans were more likely to experience both love and the negative emotion during the conversations. Likewise, when European American and Chinese American dating couples were observed discussing conflicts in their relationships, the Chinese American couples expressed less positive emotion and more negative emotion than did the European American couples (Tsai, Levenson, & McCoy, 2006; see also Tsai & Levenson, 1997). Other studies have tended to find higher levels of negative emotions among East Asian couples than those found among European or European American couples (Schoebi, Wang, Ababkos, & Perrez, 2010; Williamson et al., 2012). We recommend caution, however, in interpretation of these findings, for we fear that readers may infer that these East Asian relationships are less satisfying than Western relationships. That may not be the case. For example, expression of negative emotion may signal recognition of one’s own faults or flaws and a desire to improve. Open-​ended studies in which participants freely report their emotions and their level of happiness in the relationship would help clarify this issue. A second way that dialectical beliefs can influence emotional processes is through a preference for the “middle way,” or a tendency to seek moderation in emotional expression (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Whereas Westerners, especially European Americans, value and prefer high-​arousal positive emotions (such as joy or excitement), people of East Asian descent tend to value more moderate, low-​arousal positive emotions (such as calm or peacefulness; Tsai, 2007). European Americans also tend to savor or attempt to maintain positive emotions, whereas Japanese are less likely to engage in this “hedonic emotional regulation” (Miyamoto & Ma, 2011). In addition, cultural differences in dialectical beliefs about emotions (tapped by items such as “I thought that something bad might happen if I continued feeling delighted”) accounted for the cultural differences in the savoring of positive emotions (Miyamoto & Ma, 2011). In courtship and marriage, there is also some evidence that the preference for the “middle way” is related to emotional experience and beliefs. For example, when asked to describe their ideal marital relationship, Taiwanese students were less likely than European American students to spontaneously mention features related to passion (Lam et al., 2016). In a subsequent study, Taiwanese students also rated features related to passion (e.g., passionate, romantic) as less important for their ideal relationship than did European American students (Lam et  al., 2016; see also Gao,

368 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

2001). Other researchers have observed that emotions are controlled in Chinese family life, and that expression of affection between married couples is rare outside the bedroom (Whyte & Parish, 1984). If negative emotions are the natural outcomes of positive emotions (as in the traditional Chinese proverb “Sorrow is born of excessive joy”), then negative emotions may be more expected by East Asians than by European Americans. Consequently, they may be less strongly related to relationship satisfaction or well-​being among East Asians than among Westerners. Research among Western populations suggests that negative interactions or emotions among married couples have deleterious effects on marital satisfaction and well-​being. Years of research observing couple interactions in Western cultural contexts led Gottman (1994) to recommend five positive interactions to compensate for one negative interaction to maintain marital harmony. We suspect this ratio could be lower for East Asian couples. Some evidence for this expectation comes from research that examined the influence of positive and negative daily events on general well-​being among college students in the United States, Korea, and Japan (Oishi, Koo, & Akimoto, 2008). Oishi and his colleagues found that for European Americans, two positive events had the same impact on well-​being as one negative event (a 2:1 ratio), but this ratio was smaller among Asian Americans (1.31:1), Koreans (1.32:1), and Japanese (1:1). Dialectical thinkers (such as Asian Americans and East Asians) may be less surprised when negative events occur, and so they are better prepared to cope with them than are European Americans (see also Choi & Nisbett, 2000, and Chapter 4 in this volume).3 There is relatively little research on the relation of dialectical emotions to relationship well-​being in East Asian contexts. In the Shiota et al. (2010) study described earlier, the relation between feelings of love and negative emotion tended to be less strongly negative for Asian Americans than for European Americans, which suggests that negative emotions experienced in the relationship may have less deleterious consequences for the relationship for people from Asian backgrounds. Other research, however, found that negativity expressed during conversations with one’s spouse (e.g., hostility, contempt, verbal attack) was most strongly related to low marital satisfaction for Chinese husbands, compared to Chinese wives or American husbands or wives (Williamson et  al., 2012). Given the tendency of Chinese people to suppress or modulate extreme negative emotions (Butler, Lee, & Gross, 2009; Tsai, 2007), expression of these potent negative feelings may reveal greater problems in the relationship compared to American relationships.

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 369

In sum, we are wary of drawing conclusions from this limited sample of studies, in part because typical Western-​style satisfaction measures may reflect Chinese people’s self-​critical tendencies and concern for improvement, rather than problems in the relationship (Heine et al., 1999). Given the influence of dialectical emotions in Chinese psychology, we suspect that satisfied Chinese couples will tend to express moderate levels of both positive and negative emotions, whereas satisfied American couples will tend to express more high-​arousal positive emotions than negative emotions. For both Chinese and American couples, high levels of high-​arousal negative emotions may be detrimental. Future research that examines both the extremity and valence of emotions expressed in dyadic interactions, balanced emotions, and outcomes that disentangle evaluation of the relationship from self-​criticism (such as measures of commitment and other indigenous relationship constructs) may provide a more complete picture of the role of dialectical emotions in Chinese marital interactions.

Holism and Relationship Cognitions A central feature of dialectical thinking, indeed of East Asian forms of cognition in general, is a holistic cognitive style (Nisbett et al., 2001). East Asians pay attention to the context as a whole, as well as to the relations among objects and their environment. The causes of events are understood to be complex, interrelated, and multidimensional (Choi, Dalal, Kim-​ Prieto, & Park, 2003). In contrast, the analytic cognitive style that characterizes Western ways of thinking focuses attention on objects and their attributes, and it distinguishes objects from their environments. Causes of events are more often located in an object, and the simplest, context-​free explanations are preferred (Nisbett et  al., 2001). Extensive research has shown that East Asians pay more attention to the context in a display or scene than do North Americans (Chua, Boland, & Nisbett, 2005; Masuda et al., 2008; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). This holistic thinking contributes to higher levels of situational attribution among East Asians compared to North Americans. For example, when asked to explain the movement of a single fish swimming away from group of fish in a video of a pond scene, East Asians are more likely than European Americans to describe the scene in terms of the group’s actions rather than the action of the individual fish. Likewise, when asked to explain another person’s behavior, people of East Asian descent are less likely to commit the fundamental attribution error than are people of Western European descent (Choi & Nisbett, 1998; Morris & Peng, 1994).

370 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

How, then, might this greater focus on external, situational forces among East Asians influence close relationships? One concept that reflects this holistic view is the Chinese concept of yuan. Yuan has been described as “the chief force that allows contextual factors to influence relationship development processes” (Chang & Chan, 2007, p. 66). The importance of yuan in marital relationships is reflected in a traditional Chinese expression used in the context of newly married couples, “A thousand years for you to sail on the same boat, and a million years for you to sleep on the same pillow.” In other words, Chinese believe in the strong external forces, namely yuan, that bond two people who meet and eventually marry. Yuan is often described as “relational fatalism,” or “the belief that personal relationships are predestined to succeed or fail” (Goodwin, 1999; Goodwin & Findlay, 1997, p.  86). Chang and Holt (1991) further suggest that in Chinese thought, “any relationship has its roots in uncounted numbers of lifetimes and is situated in a complex web of interdependent causative factors that are outside the control, or even the comprehension, of the human mind” (p. 34). In dating relationships, then, the attribution of having yuan or not with another person may influence the individual’s persistence in the relationship. If a relationship has yuan, then the two people are destined to meet and form a relationship (Chang & Holt, 1991). Consequently, relationships that do develop are viewed as special and should be cherished, because the couple is fated to be together. But yuan also can be used to discourage formation of relationships. As one respondent in the study by Chang and Holt (1991) put it, “ ‘I always use [not having yuan] to fend away unwanted suitors.’ Because they are not rejected outright, ‘that makes them feel much more comfortable’ ” (p. 40). In a study of newlywed Taiwanese and American couples, Taiwanese couples were more likely than European American couples to attribute changes in their relationship to external or circumstantial reasons (Chang & Chan, 2007). Similarly, in another study, Hong Kong Chinese college students were more likely to endorse items related to a belief in yuan (e.g., “A relationship is something that develops outside human control”) than were UK students (Goodwin & Findlay, 1997). One consequence of East Asian’s holistic thinking and recognition of external influences on a relationship may be that they will tend to make complex and situational explanations for their partner’s behavior or for relationship difficulties. On the one hand, this tendency can be helpful to a relationship, if the partner on the receiving end of another’s anger or frustration can attribute the offender’s behavior to situations outside his or

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 371

her control (Bradbury & Fincham, 1992; Yang & Ho, 1988). Indeed, comparisons of European American and mainland Chinese couples temporarily living in the United States found that the Chinese couples were less likely to attribute problems in their relationship to their spouses (Stander, Hsiung, & MacDermid, 2001). On the other hand, however, this fatalism may reduce feelings of responsibility for problems in relationships or lead abused spouses to endure harmful relationships because they perceive themselves to have little control over the situation (Yang & Ho, 1988). The potential negative consequences of a belief in fate or yuan may be mitigated by beliefs in the efficacy of proactive efforts to change to make the relationship better, as our findings described earlier suggest (Lam, Cross, Chen, et al., 2013a; see also Epstein et al., 2005). Holistic thinking can also have an impact on people’s views of the consequences of good or bad events in their relationship. Westerners tend to be prone to biases in affective forecasting, in which they overestimate the impact of positive and negative events on their happiness (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003). This is largely due to focalism, or the tendency to focus on the target event (e.g., becoming engaged or breaking up with a romantic partner) and to ignore or discount other aspects of one’s life that may also influence their emotions. For example, an American may imagine life after marriage as joyful and satisfying with one’s beloved, but underestimate how the pressures of work, extended family, and other stressors may influence his or her happiness. Chinese are less prone to overestimate the consequences of positive and negative events for emotion (Lam, Buehler, McFarland, Ross, & Cheung, 2005), largely because they are less likely to focus primarily on the target event. One consequence of the Western pattern of biased affective forecasting may be that Westerners are more likely than East Asians to experience disappointment after engagement, marriage, or other such relationship events. If people expect a relationship to be completely fulfilling, to make them happy, or to provide the deepest meaning in their lives (Coontz, 2005), they may underestimate the impact of the everyday stresses of living together, of making decisions, and of a myriad other stressors or conflicts. East Asians, in contrast, may be more likely to recognize that multiple factors will influence their happiness and satisfaction in a relationship. External factors (e.g., yuan) and interpersonal factors (e.g., conflict with extended family; Wu et al., 2010) may play a more important role in East Asian couples’ relationship evaluations and experiences than for Westerners. In addition, they are more likely to expect the bad with the good (Miyamoto et al., 2010), so when conflict or problems arise in the

372 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

relationship, they may be less likely to overestimate their negative consequences for the relationship.

Conclusions The notion of dialecticism gives researchers a starting point for theoretical investigations into the processes that shape and influence East Asian relationships. Without this framework, it is tempting to judge East Asian relationships by Western standards and models. From a Western, non-​ dialectical perspective, East Asian beliefs and practices in close relationships may seem confusing or even detrimental (e.g., changing oneself for the partner or holding more negative views of one’s partner, etc.). But Chinese close relationships are more easily understood in light of dialectical ways of thinking, such as acceptance of contradiction, expectation of change, and holistic perception. This theoretical perspective also suggests many avenues for future research. Whereas some research has investigated the influence of negative emotions in Chinese couples (Williamson et al., 2012), to our knowledge, none have investigated the influence of balanced positive and negative emotions on relationship well-​being. Cross-​cultural research also brings to light concepts and processes that may be relevant outside their original cultural contexts. For example, assessment of relationship maintenance strategies that involve proactive adjustment and restraint may be useful in research on Asian immigrant couples in Western societies. Daily diary or other longitudinal studies that focus on the extent to which members of couples adjust and change to fit into the relationship would also be informative in East Asian and Western cultural contexts. Some may wonder why the oft-​studied concepts of individualism and collectivism (or of independent and interdependent self-​construals) were barely mentioned in this integration of dialecticism with close relationships research. In some ways, the constructs overlap: the holistic dimension of dialecticism may contribute to collective orientations, and both constructs may explain some aspects of behavior (e.g., situational vs. dispositional attributions). Other findings, such as the tendency for East Asians to experience mixed emotions more often than Westerners (e.g., Miyamoto, et al., 2010), may be better explained by dialectical ways of thinking (Schimmack et  al., 2002). Further research that clarifies the relations between these constructions and that examines their unique influences on behavior will contribute to more specific and thorough understandings of cultural beliefs and values, and their influence on interpersonal relationships.

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 373

In closing, we suggest that Western relationship scientists could think about research in new cultural contexts as something like learning a new language. When learning a new language, one does not simply learn new words for objects or actions, but one also must often learn an entirely new set of grammatical rules. If English speakers were to use the English rules of grammar when speaking Chinese, they would elicit quizzical looks or laughter. Similarly, Western researchers may need to learn a new set of “rules” for understanding relationships in East Asian contexts. Those rules include not only acceptance of contradiction, expectation of change, and holism, but also a variety of other beliefs and attitudes about the family, relations with parents, and the expectations of the partners that remain to be explored.

Notes 1.  The mediation was not significant using the absolute difference score method (Hamamura et al., 2008). 2. The two variables within a dyad were target of rating (self-​rating vs. partner-​rating) and gender (husband vs. wife), and the variable across dyads was culture. 3. Note that Oishi et al. (2007) explained these findings somewhat differently. They argued that daily positive events have more impact for Asians than for Americans, because Asians have less positive expectations and attitudes than Americans do, and so positive events are more novel and therefore their effects are amplified.

References Bagozzi, R. P., Wong, N., & Yi, Y. (1999). The role of culture and gender in the relationship between positive and negative affect. Cognition and Emotion, 13(6), 641–​672. doi:10.1080/​026999399379023 Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. New York: Harper & Row. Boucher, H. C. (2010). The dialectical self-​concept II: Cross-​role and within-​role consistency, well-​ being, self-​ certainty, and authenticity. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 42(7), 1251–​1271. doi:10.1177/​0022022110383316 Bradbury, T. N., & Fincham, F. D. (1992). Attributions and behavior in marital interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(4), 613–​628. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.63.4.613 Butler, E. A., Lee, T. L., & Gross, J. J. (2009). Does expressing your emotions raise or lower your blood pressure? The answer depends on cultural context. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 40(3), 510–​517. doi:10.1177/​0022022109332845 Canary, D. J., Stafford, L., & Semic, B. A. (2002). A panel study of the associations between maintenance strategies and relational characteristics. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 64(2), 395–​406. doi:10.1111/​j.1741-​3737.2002.00395.x

374 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Chang, H., & Holt, G. (1991). The concept of yuan and Chinese interpersonal relationships. In S. Ting-​Toomey & F. Korzenny (Eds.), Cross-​cultural interpersonal communication (pp. 28–​57). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Chang, S.-​C., & Chan, C.-​N. (2007). Perceptions of commitment change during mate selection:  The case of Taiwanese newlyweds. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 24(1), 55–​68. doi:10.1177/​0265407507072583 Cheung, F., Leung, K., Zhang, J.-​X., Sun, H., Gan Y.-​Q., Song, W.-​Z., & Xie, D. (2001). Indigenous Chinese personality constructs: Is the five-​factor model complete? Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 32(4), 407–​433. doi:10.1177/​0022022101032004003 Chiu, C., Hong, Y., & Dweck, C. S. (1997). Lay dispositionism and implicit theories of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(1), 19–​30. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.73.1.19 Choi, I., Dalal, R., Kim-​Prieto, C., & Park, H. (2003). Culture and judgment of causal relevance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(1), 46–​59. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.84.1.46 Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and actor–​observer bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(9), 949–​960. doi:10.1177/​0146167298249003 Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 890–​905. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.79.6.890 Chua, H. F., Boland, J. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (2005). Cultural variation in eye movements during scene perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, 102(35), 12629–​12633. doi:10.1073/​pnas.0506162102 Church, A. T., Alvarez, J. M., Katigbak, M. S., Mastor, K. A., Cabrera, H. F., Tanaka-​ Matsumi, J.,  .  .  .  Simon, J. Y.  R. (2012). Self-​concept consistency and short-​term stability in eight cultures. Journal of Research in Personality, 46(5), 556–​570. doi:10.1016/​j.jrp.2012.06.003 Coontz, S. (2005). Marriage: A history. New York: Viking. Cross, S. E., Hardin, E., & Gercek-​Swing, B. (2011). The what, how, why, and where of self-​construal. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(2), 142–​179. doi:10.1177/​1088868310373752 Decuyper, M., De Bolle, M., & De Fruyt, F. (2012). Personality similarity, perceptual accuracy, and relationship satisfaction in dating and married couples. Personal Relationships, 19(1), 128–​145. doi:10.1111/​j.1475-​6811.2010.01344.x English, T., & Chen, S. (2007). Culture and self-​concept stability:  Consistency across and within contexts among Asian Americans and European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(3), 478–​490. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.93.3.478 Epstein, N., Chen, F., & Beyder-​Kamjou, I. (2005). Relationship standards and marital satisfaction in Chinese and American couples. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 31(1), 59–​74. doi:10.1177/​0022022115579936 Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press. Gao, G. (2001). Intimacy, passion, and commitment in Chinese and US American romantic relationship. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 25(3), 329–​342. doi:10.1016/​S0147-​1767(01)00007-​4

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 375

Goetz, J. L., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K.-​P. (2008). Dialectical emotions:  How cultural epistemologies influence the experience and regulation of emotional complexity. In R. M. Sorrentino & S. Yamaguchi (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition across cultures (pp. 517–​539). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Gonzaga, G. C., Campos, B., & Bradbury, T. (2007). Similarity, convergence, and relationship satisfaction in dating and married couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(1), 34–​48. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.93.1.34 Goodwin, R. (1999). Personal relationships across cultures. London: Routledge. Goodwin, R., & Findlay, U. (1997). Relationships, culture, and social change. In A. L. Vangelisti & D. Perlman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of personal relationships (pp. 695–​708). New York: Cambridge University Press. Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(6), 504–​528. doi:10.1016/​S0092-​6566(03)00046-​1 Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hamamura, T., Heine, S. J., & Paulhus, D. L. (2008). Cultural differences in response styles: The role of dialectical thinking. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(4), 932–​942. doi:10.1016/​j.paid.2007.10.034 Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley. Heine, S. J., Foster, J.-​A. B., & Spina, R. (2009). Do birds of a feather universally flock together? Cultural variation in the similarity–​attraction effect. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12(4), 247–​258. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​839X.2009.01289.x Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-​regard? Psychological Review, 106(4), 766–​794. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.106.4.766 Heine, S. J., & Renshaw, K. (2002). Interjudge agreement, self-​enhancement, and liking:  Cross-​cultural divergences. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 28(5), 442–​451. doi:10.1177/​0146167202288002 Jack, D. C. (1991). Silencing the self: Women and depression. New York: Harper Perennial. Ji, L.-​J., Nisbett, R. E., & Su, Y. (2001). Culture, change, and prediction. Psychological Science, 12(6), 450–​456. doi:10.1111/​1467-​9280.00384 Ji, L.-​J., Zhang, Z., Usborne, E., & Guan, Y. (2004). Optimism across cultures:  In response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 7(1), 25–​34. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​839X.2004.00132.x Kanagawa, C., Cross, S. E., & Markus, H. R. (2001). “Who am I?” The cultural psychology of the conceptual self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(1), 90–​103. doi:10.1177/​0146167201271008 Kaplan, K. J. (1972). On the ambivalence-​indifference problem in attitude theory and measurement:  A suggested modification of the semantic differential technique. Psychological Bulletin, 77, 361–​379. doi:10.1037/​h0032590 Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., & Uchida, Y. (2007). Self as mode of being. In S. Kitayama, & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology. New York: Guilford Press. Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., & Kurokawa, M. (2000). Culture, emotion, and well-​ being: Good feelings in Japan and the United States. Cognition and Emotion, 14(1), 93–​124. doi:10.1080/​026999300379003

376 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Klohnen, E. C., & Luo, S. (2003). Interpersonal attraction and personality: What is attractive–​ self similarity, ideal similarity, complementarity, or attachment security? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(4), 709–​722. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.85.4.709 Kurman, J., Hui, C. M., & Dan, O. (2012). Changing the world through changing the self:  Understanding a new control strategy through self-​reported coping plans in two cultures. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43(1), 15–​22. doi:10.1177/​ 0022022110388565 Lam, A. G., & Zane, N. W. S. (2004). Ethnic differences in coping with interpersonal stressors: A test of self-​construals as cultural mediators. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 35(4), 446–​459. doi:10.1177/​0022022104266108 Lam, B. C. P., Cross, S. E., Chen, S. X., Hui, B. P. H., Ng, J., & Ng, H. (2013a). Cross-​ cultural comparison of college students’ relationship beliefs and relationship quality (Manuscript in preparation). Lam, B. C. P., Cross, S. E., Chen, S. X., & Lau, C. Y. (2013b). Cross-​cultural couples study (Manuscript in preparation). Lam, B. C. P., Cross, S. E., Wu, T.-​F., Yeh, K.-​H., Wang, Y.-​C., & Su, J. C. (2016). What do you want in a marriage? Examining marriage ideals in Taiwan and the United States. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(6), 703–​722. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167216637842. Lam, K. C.  H., Buehler, R., McFarland, C., Ross, M., & Cheung, I. (2005). Cultural differences in affective forecasting:  The role of focalism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(9), 1296–​1309. doi:10.1177/​0146167205274691 Larsen, J. T., & McGraw, A. P. (2011). Further evidence for mixed emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(6), 1095–​1110. doi:10.1037/​a0021846 Lavner, J. A., Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (2013). Newlyweds’ optimistic forecasts their marriage: For better or for worse? Journal of Family Psychology, 27(4), 531–​ 540. doi:10.1037/​a0033423 Leu, J., Mesquita, B., Ellsworth, P. C., Zhang, Z. Y., Yuan, H., Buchtel, E., . . . Masuda, T. (2010). Situational differences in dialectical emotions: Boundary conditions in a cultural comparison of North Americans and East Asians. Cognition and Emotion, 24(3), 419–​435. doi:10.1080/​02699930802650911 Lu, L. (2001). Understanding happiness:  A look into the Chinese folk psychology. Journal of Happiness Studies, 2(4), 407–​432. doi:10.1023/​A:1013944228205 Ma-​Kellams, C., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2011). I am against us? Unpacking ingroup favoritism via dialecticism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(1), 15–​27. doi:10.1177/​0146167210388193 Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self:  Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–​253. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.98.2.224 Masuda, T., Ellsworth, P. C., Mesquita, B., Leu, J., Tanida, S., & Van de Veerdonk, E. (2008). Placing the face in context: Cultural differences in the perception of facial emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(3), 365–​381. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.94.3.365 Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 922–​934. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.81.5.922

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 377

Miyamoto, Y., & Ma, X. (2011). Dampening or savoring positive emotions: A dialectical cultural script guides emotion regulation. Emotion, 11(6), 1346–​1357. doi:10.1037/​ a0025135 Miyamoto, Y., Uchida, Y., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2010). Culture and mixed emotions: Co-​ occurrence of positive and negative emotions in Japan and the United States. Emotion, 10(3), 404–​415. doi:10.1037/​a0018430 Morling, B., Kitayama, S., & Miyamoto, Y. (2002). Cultural practices emphasize influence in the United States and adjustment in Japan. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(3), 311–​323. doi:10.1177/​0146167202286003 Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67(6), 949–​971. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.67.6.949 Morry, M. M. (2005). Relationship satisfaction as a predictor of similarity ratings: A test of the attraction–​similarity hypothesis. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22(4), 561–​584. doi:10.1177/​0265407505054524 Morry, M. M., Kito, M., & Ortiz, L. (2011). The attraction–​similarity model and dating model and dating couples: Projection, perceived similarity, and psychological benefits. Personal Relationships, 18(1), 125–​143. doi:10.1111/​j.1475-​6811.2010.01293.x Murray, S. L., & Holmes, J. G. (1997). A leap of faith? Positive illusions in romantic relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(6), 586–​604. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167297236003 Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., Bellavia, G., Griffin, D. W., & Dolderman, D. (2002). Kindred spirits? The benefits of egocentrism in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(4), 563–​581. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.82.4.563 Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Griffin, D. W. (1996a). The benefits of positive illusions: Idealization and the construction of satisfaction in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(1), 79–​98. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.70.1.79 Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Griffin, D. W. (1996b). The self-​fulfilling nature of positive illusions in romantic relationships: Love is not blind, but prescient. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(6), doi:1155-​1180. 10.1037/​0022-​3514.71.6.1155 Neff, L. A., & Karney, B. R. (2002). Judgments of a relationship partner: Specific accuracy but global enhancement. Journal of Personality, 70(6), 1077–​1110. doi:10.1111/​ 1467-​6494.05032 Neff, L. A., & Karney, B. R. (2005). To know you is to love you: The implications of global adoration and specific accuracy for marital relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(3), 480–​497. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.88.3.480 Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–​310. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.108.2.291 Oishi, S., Koo, M., & Akimoto, S. (2008). Culture, interpersonal perceptions, and happiness in social interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(3), 307–​ 320. doi:10.1177/​0146167207311198 Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54(9), 741–​754. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.54.9.741 Perunovic, W. Q.  E., Heller, D., & Rafaeli, E. (2007). Within-​person changes in the structure of emotion: The role of cultural identification and language. Psychological Science, 18(7), 607–​613. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2007.01947.x

378 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Preacher, K. J., Zyphur, M. J., & Zhang, Z. (2010). A general multilevel SEM framework for assessing multilevel mediation. Psychological Methods, 15(3), 209–​233. doi:10.1037/​a0020141 Priester, J., & Petty, R. (1996). The gradual threshold model of ambivalence: Relating the positive and negative bases of attitudes to subjective ambivalence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 431-​449. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.71.3.431 Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-​image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rosenblatt, P. C., & Li, X. (2012). Researching Chinese cultural understandings of marriage via similes and metaphors on the World Wide Web. Marriage and Family Review, 48(2), 109–​124. doi:10.1080/​01494929.2011.626551 Schimmack, U., Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2002). Cultural influences on the relation between pleasant emotions and unpleasant emotions: Asian dialectic philosophies or individualism-​collectivism? Cognition and Emotion, 16(6), 705–​719. doi:10.1080/​ 02699930143000590 Schoebi, D., Wang, Z., Ababkos, V., & Perrez, M. (2010). Affective interdependence in married couples’ daily lives:  Are there cultural differences in partner effects of anger? Family Science, 1(2), 83–​92. doi:10.1080/​19424620903471681 Schug, J., Yuki, M., Horikawa, H., & Takemura, K. (2009). Similarity attraction and actually selecting similar others: How cross-​societal differences in relational mobility affect interpersonal similarity in Japan and the USA. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12(2), 95–​103. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​839X.2009.01277.x Scollon, C. N., Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Biswas-​Diener, R. (2005). An experience sampling and cross-​cultural investigation of the relation between pleasant and unpleasant affect. Cognition and Emotion, 19(1), 27–​52. doi:10.1080/​02699930441000076 Shaver, P. R., Wu, S., & Schwartz, J. C. (1992). Cross-​cultural similarities and differences in emotion and its representation: A prototype approach. In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 175–​212). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Shiota, M. N., Campos, B., Gonzaga, G. C., Keltner, D., & Peng, K. (2010). I love you but  .  .  .  :  Cultural differences in emotional complexity during interaction with a romantic partner. Cognition and Emotion, 24(5), 786–​799. doi:10.1080/​ 02699930902990480 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2009). Cultural differences in self-​verification: The role of naïve dialecticism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 860–​866. doi:10.1016/​j.jesp.2009.03.004 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2010). Dialecticism and the co-​occurrence of positive and negative affect across cultures. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 41(1), 109–​115. doi:10.1177/​0022022109349508 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(11), 1416–​1432. doi:10.1177/​0146167204264243 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Srivastava, S., Boucher, H. C., English, T., Paletz, S. B., & Peng, K. (2015). The Dialectical Self Scale (Unpublished manuscript). California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction: A decade of empirical research.

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 379

Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(3), 296–​ 312. doi:10.1177/​ 1088868310362982 Stafford, L., & Canary, D. J. (1991). Maintenance strategies and romantic relationship type, gender, and relational characteristics. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 8(2), 217–​242. doi:10.1177/​0265407591082004 Stander, V. A., Hsiung, P.-​C., & MacDermid, S. (2001). The relationship of attributions of marital distress: A comparison of mainland Chinese and U.S. couples. Journal of Family Psychology, 15(1), 124–​134. doi:10.1037/​0893-​3200.15.1.124 Swann, W. B., Jr., De La Ronde, C., & Hixon, J. G. (1994). Authenticity and positivity strivings in marriage and courtship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(5), 857–​869. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.66.5.857 Thompson, M., Zanna, M., & Griffin, D. (1995). Let’s not be indifferent about (attitudinal) ambivalence. In R. Petty, & J. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 361-​386). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Tsai, J. L. (2007). Ideal affect: Cultural causes and behavioral consequences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(3), 242–​259. doi:10.1111/​j.1745-​6916.2007.00043.x Tsai, J. L., & Levenson, R. W. (1997). Cultural influences of emotional responding:  Chinese American and European American dating couples during interpersonal conflict. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 28(5), 600–​625. doi:10.1177/​ 0022022197285006 Tsai, J. L., Levenson, R. W., & McCoy, K. (2006). Cultural and temperamental variation in emotional response. Emotion, 6(3), 484–​497. doi:10.1037/​1528-​3542.6.3.484 Tucker, L. R. (1951). A method for synthesis of factor analysis studies (Personnel Research Section Report No. 984). Washington, DC: Department of the Army. Uchida, Y., & Kitayama, S. (2009). Happiness and unhappiness in East and West: Themes and variations. Emotion, 9(4), 441–​456. doi:10.1037/​a0015634 Yang, K. S., & Ho, D. (1988). The role of yuan in Chinese social life. In A. C. Panajpe, D. Ho, & R. C. Reiber (Eds.), Asian contributions to psychology (pp. 261–​281). New York: Praeger. Wang, P. (1979). Lao Tzu. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii. Whyte, M. K., & Parish, W. (1984). Urban life in contemporary China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Williamson, H. C., Ju, X., Bradbury, T. N., Karney, B. R., Fang, X., & Liu, X. (2012). Communication behavior and relationship satisfaction among American and Chinese newlywed couples. Journal of Family Psychology, 26(3), 308–​315. doi:10.1037/​ a0027752 Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2003). Affective forecasting. Advances in Social Psychology, 35, 345–​407. Wu, T.-​F., Cross, S. E., Tey, S.-​H., Ma, P.-​W., & Wu, C.-​W. (2011). The role of similarity on predicting dating relationship satisfaction between Taiwanese and American college students (Manuscript in preparation). Wu, T.-​F., Yeh, K.-​H., Cross, S. E., Larson, L. M., Wang, Y.-​C., & Tsai, Y.-​L. (2010). Conflict with mothers-​ in-​ law and Taiwanese women’s marital satisfaction:  The

380 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

moderating role of husband behavior. Counseling Psychologist, 38(4), 497–​522. doi:10.1177/​0011000009353071 Yang, S. (2012). Marriage and family. In L. Peilin (Ed.), Chinese society: Change and transformation (pp. 34–​59). New York: Routledge. Yuki, M., Schug, J. R., Horikawa, H., Takemura, K., Sato, K., & Yokota, K., et al. (2007). Development of a scale to measure perceptions of relational mobility in society. CERSS Working Paper 75, Center for Experimental Research in Social Sciences, Hokkaido University. Zhang, M., & Cross, S. E. (2011). Emotions in memories of success and failure: A cultural perspective. Emotion, 11(4), 866–​880. doi:10.1037/​a0024025

Dialecticism in Close Relationships and Marriage 

| 381

­C HAPTER 13 The Yin and Yang of Attitudes and Related Constructs Dialectical and Holistic Influences Christine Ma-​Kellams, Julie Spencer-​Rodgers, and Kaiping Peng

Attitudes have long stood as a central topic in social psychology, and one that has important consequences for affective responding, information processing, and behavioral responses. A large and growing body of work has examined the structural components of attitudes and the processes by which attitudes are formed, changed, and transmitted (for reviews, see Bohner & Nickel, 2011; Cialdini, Petty, & Cacciopo, 1981; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006). Although investigation of the relationship between culture and attitudes has emerged as a relatively recent endeavor, there is compelling accumulating evidence that culturally bound lay epistemologies, such as naïve dialecticism and holism (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010), play a critical role in influencing the nature and structure of attitudes. This chapter explores how people from dialectical (predominantly East Asian) cultures hold less internally consistent attitudes and, perhaps, less situationally and temporally consistent attitudes than do members of non-​dialectical (predominantly Western) cultures. This internal inconsistency takes several forms. First, East Asians exhibit greater evaluative inconsistency, endorsing both positive and negative views of objects and events. Second, East Asians may show greater structural inconsistency among attitudinal components. For example, they may show inconsistencies between cognitive and affective components, and explicit and implicit levels (e.g., high implicit self-​esteem vs. low explicit self-​esteem; Hetts, Sakuma, & Pelham, 1999; Kitayama &

Karasawa, 1997; Kitayama & Uchida, 2003; Yamaguchi et  al., 2007). Moreover, East Asians expect and demonstrate greater discrepancies between their attitudes and actual behaviors (Kashima, Siegal, Tanaka, & Kashima, 1992; Zhou & Wang, 2007), and this discrepancy is less aversive (Heine & Lehman, 1997). Lastly, East Asians may show less situational and temporal consistency in their attitudes, responding differently to the same attitudinal object depending on the context and the moment (Morio, Yeung, & Peng, 2010). The chapter continues with a discussion of the consequences of naïve dialecticism for such phenomena as cognitive dissonance, attitudes toward life and death, and intergroup attitudes and relations. Interested readers are further referred to Chapter 11, in which Tsukamoto and colleagues review the literature on the related topic of dialecticism and individual versus group perception, as well as Chapter 14, on dialecticism and the perception of inconsistency.

Naïve Dialecticism and the Cultural Origins of Attitudinal Inconsistency First, we provide a brief overview of the theory of naive dialecticism (Peng, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Zhong, 2006). As a theory, naive dialecticism is distinct from other forms of Western dialectics (e.g., Hegel’s) in that it does not require the core processes of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, which are fundamentally reductionistic, analytic, and reflective of more linear ways of reasoning. In contrast, naive dialecticism is based on Taoist principles that have long been important lay epistemologies in Chinese models of thinking and reasoning (e.g., Zhou, 1990; see Chapter 2 in this volume). This kind of folk Taoism or naive dialecticism reflects a reasoning style that is more contextual, holistic, and flexible. At its core, naive dialecticism is based on three key principles. The first principle, the concept of change, states that the social and natural worlds are always in flux because reality itself is a process rather than a static entity. All things are fleeting and ever-​changing, folding and unfolding into their opposites (e.g., day becomes night, winter becomes summer, love becomes hatred, and vice versa). The second principle centers on the concept of contradiction, which contends that opposing elements are present in all things; as such, reality is complex and involves the interaction between opposites (e.g., as captured in the symbol of the yin/​yang). All things exist in a harmonious balance of opposing forces and contradictions need not be resolved (thesis and antithesis need not reach synthesis). The third and final principle

384 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

centers on the concept of holism, which asserts that information can best be understood in context; because everything is interconnected, things cannot be understood in isolation but, rather, in relationship to one another. Naïve dialecticism is more prevalent in East Asian countries (e.g., China, Japan, and Korea) and linear thinking is more often found in Western countries (e.g., United States, Australia, and United Kingdom). As a system of lay beliefs, naive dialecticism can be activated in a wide variety of psychological domains and contexts (for a review, see Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, & Wang, 2010). For the purposes of this chapter, we use the terms dialecticism and dialectical thinking to refer to the overarching theory and principles of naive dialecticism; holism and holistic thinking refer specifically to the perception of interrelationships and contextual embeddedness. In the following sections, we outline how naive dialecticism leads to complexity in the nature and structure of attitudes and related constructs.

Cultural Differences in Attitudinal Ambivalence One of the most studied forms of attitudinal inconsistency is attitudinal ambivalence, or an evaluative inconsistency in how people feel about a given attitudinal object. Attitudinal ambivalence occurs when an attitude is comprised of beliefs or feelings that are inconsistent in valence (i.e., the presence of both positive and negative beliefs; Thompson, Zanna, & Griffin, 1995). Notably, by the term ambivalence, we refer to the possession of “both-​valenced” (simultaneously positive and negative) evaluations, rather than to indifference, uncertainty, or ambiguity. A  growing body of work has established that attitudinal ambivalence is more prevalent in East Asian dialectical than Western non-​dialectical cultures, because East Asians are more tolerant and accepting of contradiction (Riemer, Shavitt, Koo, & Markus, 2014; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). East Asians self-​ report greater ambivalence in their attitudes toward themselves (Hamamura, Heine, & Paulhus, 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004), ingroup members (Ma-​Kellams, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng, 2011), myriad social issues (Hamamura, 2004), and even a wide variety of everyday objects, events, and people (e.g., exams and dentists; Ng, Hynie, & MacDonald, 2012). To illustrate, Hamamura (2004) found that Asian Canadians reported feeling greater ambivalence than European Canadians toward important political issues such as abortion, immigration, and globalization. Morio and colleagues (2010) documented a similar pattern when they measured online attitude judgments: Japanese vacillated more

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 385

in their feelings toward a variety of social issues on a moment-​to-​moment basis than did North Americans. The dialectical tendency to tolerate contradiction even affects the manner in which East Asians respond to attitude measures themselves, with East Asian cultures showing an “ambivalent response style” (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004), endorsing both positively and negatively keyed items on attitude scales (Hamamura et al., 2008; for a discussion of this issue, see Chapter 1 in this volume). Notably, in almost all of these studies, cultural differences in attitudinal ambivalence were mediated by the extent to which people possessed “dialectical selves” (i.e., responses on the Dialectical Self Scale [DSS]; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2010), and experimental studies priming the dialectical self have provided evidence of causality (e.g., Russell, 2013; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004, Study 4). Furthermore, even members of non-​dialectical cultures can exhibit heightened attitudinal ambivalence when a dialectical mindset is activated. For example, European Canadians were primed with the dialectical principle of contradiction (i.e., they read a passage about how “the theory of contradiction states that while persons and situations may seem to be one thing or another, they are actually very complex and may actually contradict themselves,” etc.) and then rated themselves on various personality traits in different roles. A group of control participants simply completed the trait ratings without reading the passage first. Attitudinal ambivalence indices were then computed. Dialectically primed European Canadians reported (marginally) more ambivalent trait ratings and demonstrated a stronger correlation between dialectical self-​conceptions (their scores on the DSS) and ambivalent trait ratings as compared to control European American participants (Russell, 2013). Given this culturally determined acceptance of contradiction, it follows that East Asians are less troubled by attitudinal ambivalence. Although they are more attuned to contradictory stimuli in their physical environment, as indicated by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies (Goto, Ando, Huang, Yee, & Lewis, 2010; Masuda, Russell, Chen, Hioki, & Caplan, 2014), they are less surprised by contradictory information about others (e.g., when a good Samaritan fails to help someone in need; Choi & Nisbett, 2000) and are less bothered by feelings of ambivalence (e.g., ambivalent attitudes are uncorrelated with “feeling torn” about controversial issues among Asians but are among Canadians; Wonkyong, Newby-​Clark, & Zanna, 2006). Another interesting consequence of a dialectical worldview is that East Asians (Hong Kong Chinese and East Asian Canadians) are less decisive, especially when making routine decisions, relative to members of less dialectical cultures (European and South Asian

386 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Canadians) (Li, Masuda, & Russell, 2014; Ng & Hynie, 2014). As a result of the tendencies to focus on interconnections, tolerate contradiction, and expect change, East Asians consider more pieces of information, both relevant and irrelevant, when making decisions (Choi, Dalal, Kim-​Prieto, & Park, 2003) More specifically, East Asians consider more downstream consequences of events (Maddux & Yuki, 2006), anticipate abrupt change and reversals in fortune (Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001), and, perhaps, acknowledge more cons and pros when evaluating potential outcomes of decisions. Consequently, they also self-​report greater indecisiveness—​putting off and feeling anxious when making decisions—​and this cultural difference is mediated by dialectical self-​conceptions (i.e., the DSS) (Li et al., 2014; Ng & Hynie, 2014). East Asians also tend to prefer a moderate, compromise approach when dealing with social conflict (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). For a detailed review of dialectical and holistic influences on decision-​making processes, readers are referred to Chapter 7 of this volume. Next, we discuss the role of naïve dialecticism in shaping attitudes toward one of the most central objects in social life—​ingroups and outgroups. These attitudes may have salient implications for intergroup and intercultural relations, a topic we return to later in the chapter.

Attitudes toward Ingroups versus Outgroups Traditional conceptions of group-​based attitudes have largely focused on the distinction between ingroups and outgroups (Tajfel, 2010). Both history and mainstream psychology point to an assumed universal norm that people hold more positive attitudes toward members of their own social group, relative to those who belong to a different social group (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The central motivator underlying this ingroup favoring tendency is the presumed universal need to bolster self-​esteem. Although less work has been undertaken on this topic, the literature also has documented that certain cultural groups, in particular, East Asians, tend to demonstrate ambivalent attitudes toward their own group members—​that is, the tendency to express both positively and negatively valenced attitudes toward ingroup members (e.g., Bond & Hewstone, 1988; Hewstone & Ward, 1985; Jahoda, Thompson, & Bhatt, 1972; Ma-​Kellams et al., 2011). For example, when asked to explain the negative behavior of ingroup and outgroup targets, Chinese participants in Malaysia made outgroup-​favoring attributions, while simultaneously showing ingroup-​disfavoring attributions. They explained a Malay (outgroup) actor’s negative behavior via external

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 387

situational factors, but a Chinese (ingroup) actor’s negative behavior via internal dispositions. For example, when a Malay shopkeeper (outgroup) cheated on a purchase, participants inferred that something was wrong with the shopkeeper’s weighing scales, but when a Chinese shopkeeper (ingroup) cheated on a purchase, they attributed it to a lack of generosity (Hewstone & Ward, 1985). Similar effects have been demonstrated in other contexts:  mainland Chinese students rated outgroup faces as more attractive than ingroup faces (Zhao, Wu, Shen, Xuan, & Fu, 2012), East Asian Canadian students exhibited ingroup derogation, whereas European Canadian students showed ingroup favoritism (Rogers & Biesanz, 2014), and Chinese participants in the United States routinely endorse the stereotypes that are held about them by majority group members (Lee & Ottati, 1993, 1995).1 Similarly, Chinese New Zealanders held more stereotypical views of elderly Chinese relative to European New Zealanders’ views of elderly Europeans (Liu, Ng, Loong, Gee & Weatherall, 2003). Ambivalence toward ingroups has even been observed toward more intimate ingroups among East Asians. Relative to North Americans, Japanese rate their close friends and family less favorably (Endo, Heine, & Lehman, 2000; Heine & Lehman, 1997) and report less satisfaction with their universities, sports teams, cities, and countries (Diener, Suh, Smith, & Shao, 1995; Endo et al., 2000; Snibbe, Kitayama, Markus, & Suzuki, 2003). Attempts to explain the tendency for certain cultural groups to show ambivalent attitudes toward ingroups have focused largely on sociological explanations (Fine & Bowers, 1984; Hewstone & Ward, 1985; Mlicki & Ellemers, 1996) and system-​justifying beliefs (e.g., Jost & Burgess, 2000). System justification, or the tendency for lower status groups to justify their lower status by subscribing to the dominant groups’ beliefs about them (Jost & Burgess, 2000), has been relevant in explaining some forms of ambivalence toward ingroups, especially ambivalent attitudes related to societally devalued groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, etc.). However, system justification does not adequately explain ambivalence toward ingroups among majority/​dominant group members, nor does it explain ambivalence toward ingroups that is status irrelevant. Specifically, system justification theory does not provide a plausible explanation for the aforementioned findings of ambivalence toward ingroups among majority group members in East Asian countries. Dialectical thinking stands as an alternative explanation for possible cultural differences in the origin and prevalence of ambivalent ingroup attitudes.

388 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Similar to ambivalent attitudes toward the self (Heine & Hamamura, 2007), ambivalent attitudes toward the ingroup may be more culturally normative and less troubling for East Asians. Given that East Asians possess “dialectical selves” and view the self as a more holistic, changeable, and internally inconsistent entity, East Asians (Japanese, mainland Chinese) typically exhibit greater ambivalence and inconsistency in their self-​ attitudes than do Westerners (Australians, European Americans) (Boucher, Peng, Shi, & Wang, 2009; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2004; Tsukamoto, Holland, Haslam, Karasawa, & Kashima, 2015). East Asians emphasize “self-​improvement” and do not strive to maximize self-​esteem in the same manner as do Westerners (Cai et al., 2010; Gaertner, Sedikides, & Chang, 2008; Heine, 2005; Heine & Hamamura, 2007; Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004; Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003). Moreover, a negative self-​focus and dialectical thinking (DSS scores) are not associated with psychological maladjustment to the same degree as they are in the West (Diener & Suh, 2000; Fulmer et al., 2010; Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Szabo, Sawyer, Patton, & Spencer-​Rodgers, 2015). If East Asians are more evaluatively contradictory in the way they perceive themselves, they likewise should be more evaluatively contradictory in their evaluative attitudes toward other self-​relevant entities—​namely, their ingroups. As outlined earlier, there is substantial evidence to support the notion that East Asians hold less internally consistent attitudes toward their ingroups than do Westerners (although see Tsukamoto et al., 2015). They show attitudinal inconsistencies that are both evaluative (involving positive, as well as negative responses) and structural (involving both cognitive and affective, implicit and explicit responses) in nature. Research by Ma-​Kellams, Spencer-​Rodgers, and Peng (2011) has provided causal evidence for the link between dialectical thinking and ambivalent attitudes toward ingroups. Using multiple levels of analysis, they showed that mainland Chinese and Chinese Americans are more likely to endorse negative beliefs about their ingroups (i.e., their family, ethnic group) than are other cultural groups (i.e., European Americans, Latino/​a Americans). Specifically, Chinese exhibited more ambivalent implicit attitudes toward ingroup members on a cognitive Implicit Association Test (IAT; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002a, 2002b), in which they paired positive and negative evaluative terms (e.g., smart, dumb) with ingroup and outgroup names. A similar pattern of findings emerged for explicit attributions for the negative behaviors of hypothetical targets—​for example, explaining

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 389

why a fellow student behaved rudely on campus or why a shopkeeper behaved dishonestly during a purchase. Furthermore, Chinese were more likely than European Americans to endorse both positive and negative characterizations of close family members. Ma-​Kellams et al. (2011) further examined the role of dialecticism in accounting for these effects. They found that individual differences in dialectical self-​conceptions (as assessed by the DSS; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010) predicted more ambivalent ingroup attitudes across all of the cultural groups. In addition, an experimental manipulation of dialecticism led to greater attitudinal ambivalence toward ingroups, at least on an explicit level—​in this case, on attributions for the behavior of ingroup and outgroup targets (Ma-​Kellams et al., 2011; Study 4). Taken together, these studies point to the causal influence of dialectical thinking and, more proximally, dialectical self-​conceptions, on ambivalent ingroup attitudes. It is important to note, however, that similar to research in the domain of self-​attitudes, which shows that East Asians may be self-​derogating on explicit, but not implicit, measures (Hetts et al., 1999; Kitayama & Karasawa, 1997; Kitayama & Uchida, 2003; Yamaguchi et al., 2007), Ma-​Kellams et al.’s work further suggests that the East Asian dialectical tendency to acknowledge the unfavorable characteristics of one’s ingroups does not translate into deep-​rooted antipathy toward these groups. In fact, the Chinese participants displayed more positive attitudes toward their ingroup on an affective IAT (i.e., an IAT in which they paired emotionally charged words—​e.g., vomit, sunshine,—​with ingroup and outgroup names) than did non-​dialectical cultures.

Cultural Differences in (Structural) Attitudinal Inconsistency The distinction between different components of group attitudes (i.e., explicit vs. implicit attitudes, and cognitive vs. affective attitudes) is an important one. The majority of research on intergroup attitudes has relied almost exclusively on explicit measures, including, but not limited to attribution tasks, stereotype ratings, and face and doll preferences. However, an increasing number of researchers have examined the subconscious nature of attitudes and have found that implicit attitudes can differ from, or even contradict, explicit attitudes (Devine, 1989; Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009; Nosek et  al., 2002a, 2002b). Traditionally, explicit attitudes have been defined as controlled, conscious, and accessible by self-​report tasks. In contrast, implicit attitudes have been defined

390 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

as the effect of unidentified (or incorrectly identified) past experiences inaccessible to introspection that promote either favorable or unfavorable feelings, thoughts, or actions toward social objects (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Dual-​process models of implicit and explicit attitudes have emphasized the different processes by which they arise, and research in this domain has demonstrated that each serves to predict different kinds of behavior—​namely, implicit attitudes predict nonverbal and spontaneous actions (e.g., Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003; McConnell & Leibold, 2001; Rydell & McConnell, 2010), whereas explicit attitudes predict deliberate thoughts and actions (e.g., Dovidio, Kawakami, Johnson, Johnson, & Howard, 1997). Given these differences in the outcomes associated with implicit versus explicit attitudes, it is not surprising that a sizeable body of work has found the two to be influenced by different mechanisms (e.g., Barden, Maddux, Petty, & Brewer, 2004; Blair, 2002; Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006; Gregg, Seibt, & Banaji, 2006; Petty, Tormala, Briñol, & Jarvis, 2006; Rydell, McConnell, Strain, Claypool & Hugenberg, 2007). Together, the disparate underlying mechanisms, outcomes, and contingencies that characterize implicit versus explicit attitudes suggest that it is possible for an attitudinal inconsistency to exist between a person’s implicit orientations and explicit avowals toward the same attitude object. In addition to the implicit versus explicit distinction, people’s cognitions and emotions also may differ markedly toward a variety of attitude objects (e.g., Crites, Fabrigar, & Petty, 1994; Esses & Dovidio, 2002; for reviews, see Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006; Nosek, 2007). Examining the possible distinction between cognitive versus affective and implicit versus explicit group attitudes may be especially important in dialectical cultures, where past research has shown there are greater expected discrepancies between attitudinal components (i.e., people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; Kashima et  al., 1992; Zhou & Wang, 2007). For example, it is plausible that East Asians might report derogatory explicit beliefs about, but not hold negative implicit emotions toward, their ingroups. Indeed, this is precisely what Ma-​Kellams et  al. (2011) found: ambivalence toward ingroups and outgroups were more prevalent in a dialectal culture (in this case, Chinese) than in non-​dialectical cultures (European Americans, Latinos). Furthermore, the effects of dialecticism depended somewhat on the domain and level of analysis. Namely, dialecticism influenced explicit and implicit cognitive beliefs about ingroup members more than implicit affective orientations toward ingroup members. This suggests that dialectical thinking influences ingroup attitudes

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 391

via deliberate thoughts, rather than through unconscious spontaneous emotional reactions. Future research should examine how these attitudes translate into actual behavior toward ingroup versus outgroup members, a topic to which we return later in the chapter. Next, we consider some of the psychological consequences (or absence thereof) of holding ambivalent attitudes.

Cultural Differences in Cognitive Dissonance One of the chief psychological consequences of holding contradictory or ambivalent attitudes toward the same object is cognitive dissonance. At its core, cognitive dissonance is based on the basic assumption that individuals strive to maintain consistency. Dissonance is experienced when there is an inconsistency between a person’s thoughts, emotions, and actions; because dissonance is aversive, individuals will actively try to reduce it by changing their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors (Festinger, 1957). Cognitive dissonance and implicit–​explicit attitude inconsistencies are distinct, albeit related, phenomena. The primary difference between the two lies in the presence of discomfort. Possessing an implicit–​explicit attitudinal inconsistency may not be discomforting, but cognitive dissonance, by definition, is. This discomfort can explain the increased information processing that typically accompanies conditions of attitudinal inconsistency among European Americans (Cooper & Fazio, 1984; Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959; Newby-​Clark, McGregor & Zanna, 2002). In contrast, when Easterners experience the same inconsistency in attitudes, they may not experience discomfort (Wonkyong et al., 2006) and, as a result, not engage in heightened information processing or attempts to synthesize or resolve the discrepancy. Despite being one of the most well-​established phenomena in mainstream social psychology, cognitive dissonance appears to be highly culturally bound and domain-​specific. Although perceiving an inconsistency between, for example, one’s attitudes and one’s behavior may be inherently threatening to Western notions of the self as a stable and consistent entity, such inconsistency may not be as threatening to East Asian (dialectical) selves (e.g., Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2004). Given that East Asians find cognitive dissonance less threatening, they should engage in fewer or no dissonance reduction efforts. In line with this prediction, numerous attempts to replicate cognitive dissonance effects in East Asian cultural contexts have proven to be unsuccessful,

392 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

yielding mixed results at best: Yoshizaki, Ishii, and Ishii (1975) did not replicate Festinger and Carlsmith’s original (1959) peg-​turning study in Japan (although see also Takata & Hashimoto, 1973; Yoshida, 1977); Sanada and Norbeck (1975) also did not replicate Festinger, Riecken, and Schacter’s (1956) study on reactions to a failed doomsday prophecy among cult members in Japan. Additional studies have shown that East Asians do not show the same attitude change under conditions of high choice in forced-​choice paradigms (Hinker, 1969; Hirose & Kitada, 1985; Kudo & Mitsui, 1974; Monden, 1980; Sakai, 1981), which are an extension of classic cognitive dissonance theory (see Cooper & Fazio, 1984; Thibodeau & Aronson, 1992). Heine and Lehman (1997) provided further evidence of the lack of cognitive dissonance effects among East Asians. They employed a free-​choice paradigm in which Canadians and Japanese were asked to make a choice that had a foreseeable aversive consequence; in the classic cognitive dissonance paradigm, Western participants find this action aversive and will engage in subsequent dissonance reduction (in this case, rationalizing their choice by a spreading of alternatives). Heine and Lehman (1997) predicted that Japanese participants would not experience cognitive dissonance and thus would not exhibit evidence of dissonance reduction. In accordance with this prediction, they found that while the Canadians replicated previous cognitive dissonance effects by rationalizing their decisions post-​ choice, the Japanese did not. Subsequent studies by Hoshino-​Browne and colleagues (2005) also found that Asian Canadians did not experience cognitive dissonance (and thus did not engage in dissonance reduction) when making choices for themselves; however, they did find that dissonance effects emerged for Asian Canadians when they were making choices for a friend, because making choices for a friend is a more salient process in an East Asian cultural context where being a good group member is of upmost importance. Taken together, these findings suggest that culture determines the situations in which dissonance is activated, and East Asian “dialectical selves” may not experience cognitive dissonance in contexts in which only the self is at stake.

Meaning-​Making and Attitudes toward Life and Death In addition to processing information and forming evaluations of ingroups, outgroups, and other attitude objects, other research has examined the roles of holism and dialecticism in influencing perceptions and attitudes

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 393

toward more abstract entities and the ways in which individuals make meaning of the world around them. Indeed, culturally determined lay epistemologies influence the attitudes people hold toward their own life (and death) and how to make meaning of the events that occur between the two ends. Researchers have posited that the distinct cognitive styles or systems of lay beliefs that distinguish Easterners from Westerners should produce different attitudes toward coping with life’s biggest issue:  its inevitable conclusion (Ma-​Kellams & Blascovich, 2011). Drawing on terror management theory (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989) concerning how thoughts of death motivate psychological responses aimed at coping with the inevitability of one’s own demise, Ma-​Kellams and Blascovich (2011) hypothesized that the defense of one’s own attitudes and worldviews typically observed among European Americans in the face of their own mortality may not be a particularly relevant or preferred manner of responding to concerns about death among East Asians. Given that East Asians view the world more holistically and process objects, relationships, and ideas not in isolation but in relation to other entities (Choi & Nisbett, 1998; Hong, Chiu, & Kung, 1997; Lee, Hallahan, & Herzog, 1996; Miller, 1984; Morris & Peng, 1994; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001), this should lead to distinct attitudes toward issues of life and death. In contrast to the linear, analytic Aristotelian logic prevalent in Western cultures, East Asians perceive constant flux and interconnections in the universe and view contradictory elements in all things (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). As a result, East Asians tend to emphasize the good with the bad, and embrace opposing sides when they reason about a wide range of topics and issues, including the self (Boucher et al., 2009; Choi & Choi, 2002; Ma-​Kellams et al., 2011; Spencer-​Rodgers, Boucher, Mori, Wang, & Peng, 2009). Given that the question of how humans have evolved psychological processes to bolster the self in the face of death is at the core of terror management theory (e.g., Rosenblatt et al., 1989) and that cultural differences in lay epistemologies affect the nature and form the self takes, culturally contingent lay epistemologies should likewise influence how people respond to life’s biggest problem—​the annihilation of the self—​or death. Thinking in a dialectical and holistic manner should lead people to view death as inextricably linked to life, as the one would not exist without the other. Compared to Western cultures, East Asian cultures place a particularly strong emphasis on the mutual constitution of life and death. The notion of yin and yang, for example, rooted in Eastern Taoist philosophy, specifically

394 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

refers to the alternation of life and death as forces that bring all things to completion (Huainaizi, 2010; Liu, 2013). Furthermore, yin-​yang stands as a lay symbol that is commonly used to refer to the interplay between life and death (e.g., Thangue, 2003). Early Confucian thought has similarly emphasized the idea that one cannot grapple with the problem of death without first tackling the problem of life (Legge, 1893; Yu, 1964). These philosophies are observed in popular modern culture and extant lay beliefs (for a review, see Chan, 2008). Grounded in this Confucian philosophy, Ma-​Kellams and Blascovich (2012) posited that the tendencies to perceive the world as holistic, changing, and contradictory leads East Asians to respond to death paradoxically. Specifically, the inevitability and potential terror surrounding one’s demise will promote more positive attitudes toward life, because life and death are inextricably connected; without the terror of death, there would be no joy in life. Across five studies, Ma-​ Kellams and Blascovich examined attitudes toward life and death under conditions of mortality salience or a control (in this case, dental pain) among East Asians (i.e., Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) and European Americans. The researchers used multiple methods to assess the manifestations and ramifications of the valuing of life more in the face of death, such as behavioral manifestations of striving to enjoy life (e.g., interest in activities aimed either at achieving immortality or joy; actual enjoyment of a mundane daily activity, etc.) and tested for cultural differences in responses to mortality salience. In addition, they assessed proximal reactions to mortality salience using an implicit measure of life and death thought accessibility—​in this case, having participants complete anagrams of words that could be completed as death related or non-​death related and life related or non-​life related (e.g., COFF_​_​could be completed as “coffee” or “coffin”; _​ ​_​ ​VE could be completed as “live” or “move”). As predicted, after thinking about their own death, East Asians expressed greater interest in enjoyable daily activities (e.g., reading a book, watching a movie, etc.) and reported they would experience greater enjoyment during the activities. In addition, Ma-​Kellams and Blascovich tested whether the predicted mediator, lay epistemologies (measured in this case by the Analysis-​Holism Scale [AHS]; Choi, Koo, & Choi, 2007), accounted for the link between culture and the valuing of life in the face of death. In a 2 (culture: East Asian vs. European American) × 2 (mortality salience vs. control) study, the authors found that East Asians were more interested in enjoyable life activities after thinking about their own death, but European Americans did not show this phenomenon; moreover, individual differences in lay epistemologies (AHS scores) mediated this effect. In

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 395

a follow-​up experimental study, the researchers manipulated lay beliefs by having participants read fabricated news articles that either endorsed Eastern or Western forms of thinking (using the same materials developed by Ma-​Kellams et al., 2011); they subsequently tested its effects on striving to affirm life after mortality salience, using a 2 (culture: East Asian vs. European American) × 2  (lay belief:  East Asian vs. Western) × 2  (mortality salience vs. control) design. A  significant lay belief by mortality salience interaction emerged, such that under conditions where death was salient, those primed with East Asian lay beliefs (holistic thinking) were more interested in enjoyable daily life activities. Another interesting finding that emerged from Ma-​Kellams et  al.’s work on culturally bound terror management processes was a divergence between East Asians and European Americans in terms of implicit responses to mortality salience. In Western cultural contexts, after a delay, thoughts of death become more accessible (e.g., Greenberg, Arndt, Simon, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 2000; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994; Harmon-​Jones et al., 1997). Distal defenses also come into play, which include a varied repertoire of behaviors, such as worldview defense (i.e., bolstering one’s cherished values, beliefs, or group memberships) and derogation of dissimilar others (i.e., distancing oneself from or devaluing other groups). Notably, European Americans displayed the typical pattern of showing more death-​related thoughts after being primed with their own death; East Asians, in contrast, responded in a dialectical fashion and showed increases in life-​related thoughts.

Naïve Dialecticism, Intergroup Attitudes, and Related Constructs In sum, dialectical thinking affects valenced evaluations of a variety of objects outside the self, including ingroup and outgroup members, and abstract ideas like life and death. Although the literature on culture, dialecticism, and attitudes is compelling, there remain several avenues that warrant future research, which are outlined next. First, the substantive body of work on culture and ambivalence toward a wide array of attitudinal objects leaves an important question that remains to be answered:  how does culturally determined ambivalence (evaluative inconsistency) toward important social objects like ingroups and outgroups translate to actual behavior? Likewise, to what extent does attitudinal inconsistency at the structural level influence group-​ based

396 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

behavior? Ma-​Kellams et al. (2011) found convergent evidence that East Asians, relative to European Americans, exhibit less favorable cognitive evaluations of their ingroups, but more positive affective associations with those ingroups. Would East Asians favor the ingroup on a resource allocation task by virtue of their affective associations, or would they favor the outgroup by virtue of their cognitive evaluations? The implications of ambivalent (i.e., “both-​valenced”) and structurally inconsistent attitudes for group-​directed behavior remain an open question for future research. Additionally, how does naïve dialecticism affect constructs related to intergroup attitudes, such as stereotyping, prejudice, and attitudes toward racial and ethnic diversity more generally? Examining how dialecticism and related cultural variables (e.g., holism) affects group-​based behavior may be especially important in light of past research that shows that members of East Asian cultures treat groups as highly entitative (Menon, Morris, Chiu & Hong, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, Hamilton, Peng, & Wang; 2007; Tsukamoto et al., 2015). Little is known about how these culturally bound lay theories affect stereotyping processes, prejudice, and discrimination (Williams & Spencer-​Rodgers, 2010), but work by Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2007) indicates that, relative to European Americans, Chinese perceive social groups as more entitative, are more likely to ascribe coherent “personalities” to groups, and are more likely to make inferences about individuals on the basis of their group membership, at least in the absence of moderating situational information. This research is consistent with Menon et al.’s (1999) work documenting that Japanese attribute greater agency to groups and make more dispositional attributions to groups and organizations than do Americans, as well as a recent study that found that Japanese hold more essentialist beliefs about ingroups than do Australians (Tsukamoto et al., 2015). Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al. (2007) conducted three studies that examined cultural differences in individual and group perception. The first study explored people’s views of culturally neutral groups. Chinese and American students rated two target groups (Kenyans and a work group) that were culturally neutral, in that both Chinese and Americans should have had few prior expectations about the groups and no prior history of enmity, economic competition, etc. Although the Chinese and American participants held equally positive attitudes toward the groups, Chinese participants rated both groups higher on an entitativity measure, in accordance with a holistic view of groups as interconnected and cohesive. Moreover, Chinese participants ascribed a more internally consistent set of attributes to the groups, indicating that they see groups as possessing a coherent

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 397

“personality.” In a second study, Chinese and Americans rated the stimulus groups Chinese and Americans on the same measures of entitativity and personality trait consistency. Again, the Chinese participants rated both target groups (ingroup and outgroup) higher in entitativity and as having more coherent “personalities.” A third study asked Chinese and American participants to rate fictional social groups (i.e., groups with which they could have had no prior contact or expectations). The participants read descriptions of two fictional groups who inhabited a fictitious society. Participants were told that group membership was not based on social status and was not conferred through heredity; thus participants were left to make their own inferences about why members of this society might belong to one group or the other. Some basic descriptive information, culturally matched on social desirability, was provided for each group. Participants were then asked to imagine encounters with individual members of each group. They made two types of inferences: first, they estimated the likelihood that the individual described belonged to one of the fictional groups, given that the person possessed a personality trait stereotypical (based on the descriptive information provided) of that group. They then made inferences in the opposite direction; the likelihood that an individual possessed a particular personality trait, given that the person was a member of the group for which the trait was stereotypical. In both cases, Chinese participants made stronger inferences—​stronger trait inferences based on social group membership, and stronger group-​membership inferences based on traits—​than did Americans. Taken together, these studies suggest that East Asians view a variety of groups as possessing dispositional qualities to a greater extent than do Westerners. They perceive groups as possessing coherent “personalities” (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2007), attribute agency to groups and causality more to the dispositional properties of groups (Menon et  al., 1999), hold more essentialist beliefs about ingroups (Tsukamoto et al., 2015), and may be more likely to stereotype (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2007), at least in the absence of moderating information. This emphasis on the group as the primary unit of analysis is in accordance with the principle of holism that emphasizes the need to view entities—​including social groups—​as unified structures, rather than as a mere collection of individual parts (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2012; Tsukamoto et al., 2015; see Chapter 11 in this volume). Given this tendency for members of East Asian cultures to perceive groups as cohesive, agentic units, it may be all the more important to examine how dialectical and holistic views of ingroups and outgroups translate into actual group-​directed behavior. Although East Asians may use

398 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

stereotypes to a greater degree than Westerners, it may not hold that the antecedents of stereotypic perceptions and, more importantly, the consequences of stereotyping are equivalent in both cultures. First, with respect to the antecedents of stereotyping, in Western cultures, outgroup stereotyping and outgroup derogation are thought to derive primarily from the need to favor one’s ingroups over outgroups, with the aim of bolstering one’s self-​esteem (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). In East Asian cultures, however, where self-​enhancement is less salient (Heine & Hamamura, 2007; Heine et al., 1999) and ingroup derogation may even prevail (Ma-​Kellams et al., 2011), stereotyping may derive from other factors, such as lay beliefs about social groups as entitative and cohesive. Second, with respect to consequences, stereotyping may not be inextricably linked to prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviors among East Asians. In the West, stereotyping is significantly (albeit weakly) related to prejudice and discrimination (e.g., see Gawronski, 2002; McConnell & Liebold, 2011). In dialectical and holistic cultural contexts, there is less expected congruence between cognitions, emotions, and behaviors (Kashima et al., 1992; Zhou & Wang, 2007). Understanding the role of dialectical thinking in influencing group-​based attitudes can have important implications for our understanding of culture and responses to diversity more generally. Sanchez, Shih and Garcia (2009) have found that individuals of mixed ethnic descent who exhibited high scores on the DSS were more likely to view race as malleable and more likely to identify with different ethnic groups. Likewise, Alter and Kwan (2009) documented that European Americans with past overseas experience who were primed with dialecticism (yin-​yang symbol) were more cognizant of and accepting of change in their subsequent decision-​making, and Chinese employees trained to think dialectically were more accepting of change in organizations (Chen, Wang, Huang, & Spencer-​Rodgers, 2012). These findings suggest that dialectical beliefs may have implications for how individuals from both dialectical and non-​dialectical cultures alike react to contexts in which diversity is salient and how they respond to such diversity. Presumably, naïve dialecticism and tolerance of contradiction should lead to greater acceptance of racial and ethnic diversity, but more empirical investigation is warranted to answer this question.

Situational and Temporal Inconsistency in Attitudes A related, as-​yet unanswered, question is the issue of the situational and temporal malleability of attitudes among members of dialectical cultures. Again, given the proclivity to tolerate contradiction and change, one might

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 399

expect that, in addition to being less internally consistent, attitudes would generally be more context-​dependent, flexible, and changeable over time in these cultures. There is some evidence to support this hypothesis. Although English and Chen (2007) found that Asian Americans display temporal consistency in their self-​views in specific relationship contexts, mainland Chinese use more temporal markers and modifiers when describing the self (e.g., “I am X sometimes or more than I used to be”; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2009) and Japanese report greater variability in their emotional experiences over time in daily dairy studies (Oishi, Diener, Napa Scollon, & Biswas-​ Diener, 2004). Moreover, Asians (i.e., Filipinos, Japanese, and Indians) show more situational variability in their personality traits (Church et al., 2008) and absolute levels of positive and negative affect (Oishi et al., 2004) than do European Americans. In the face of disconfirming evidence (e.g., when receiving the results of a bogus personality test), Chinese more readily change their self-​descriptions, whereas European Americans report polarized or even more extreme self-​descriptions, in the direction of their original self-​perceptions (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009). Thus, at least with respect to self-​relevant domains, members of East Asian (dialectical) cultures appear to possess malleable attitudes. More research is needed to understand how naïve dialecticism shapes the situational and temporal consistency of attitudes toward objects and events outside of the self, such as social groups. Another area of research that is ripe for investigation is whether naïve dialecticism leads to cultural differences in persuasion. In one of the earliest studies on dialectical thinking (Peng & Nisbett, 1999), the researchers found that mainland Chinese preferred dialectical to non-​dialectical arguments, and rated them as more persuasive than did Americans. Moreover, Chinese tended to moderate their opinions when presented with contrasting information (i.e., after reading about two studies with contradictory results), whereas Americans exhibited polarized or more extreme opinions that were in line with their initial points of view. This research suggests that members of dialectical cultures (East Asians) are more readily influenced by arguments that consider opposing viewpoints.

Changeability of Ambivalent Atttitudes Ironically, perhaps, one form of attitudes—​ ambivalent attitudes—​ has been shown to be less tractable in dialectical cultures. In Western cultural contexts, both attitudinal ambivalence and cognitive dissonance are

400 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

associated with emotional tension (Hass, Katz, Rizzo, Bailey, & Moore, 1992; Newby-​Clark, McGregor, & Zanna, 2002), which, in turn, leads to attempts to shift the attitude in a more positive or negative direction. Consequently, ambivalent attitudes have been shown to be more malleable than non-​ambivalent ones in the West (Armitage & Connor, 2004; Bassili, 1996; MacDonald & Zanna, 1998; Maio, Bell, & Esses, 1996). Cross-​cultural work on attitudinal ambivalence among East Asians compared with that among Westerners confirms that those from more dialectical cultures are more comfortable with ambivalence and less motivated to resolve it. Ng and colleagues (2012) argued that, in the West, ambivalence is perceived as aversive; individuals actively strive to eliminate ambivalence and establish consistency. In contrast, the dialectical worldview more prevalent in Eastern cultures should produce a greater tolerance of inconsistency and, as a result, lead East Asians to hold more stable ambivalent attitudes. To test this prediction, Ng and colleagues (2012) pretested a variety of everyday attitudinal objects among East Asian and European Canadians in order to identify objects that were perceived as high and low in ambivalence. High-​ambivalence items included knives, exams, and dentists (negative high ambivalence), and dormitories, television, and ice cream (positive high ambivalence); low-​ambivalence items included cancer, mosquitos, and cavities (negative low ambivalence), and flowers, silk, and clowns (positive low ambivalence). They subsequently presented a new group of East Asian and European Canadians with persuasive essays concerning the objects. They found that while European Canadians demonstrated greater attitudinal change post-​essay for the high-​ambivalence objects (both positive and negative), East Asian Canadians did not show this effect. Taken together, these findings suggest that East Asians are more consistent and stable in their ambivalence, and less likely to change their ambivalent attitudes. Finally, future studies can address the question of the boundary conditions of dialectical thinking on attitudes. Studies by Hoshino-​Browne et al. (2005) on culture and cognitive dissonance have been telling in demonstrating the situational and relational moderators of the link between culture and responses to inconsistency: on the one hand, members of more dialectical cultures are accepting of inconsistency and do not demonstrate cognitive dissonance effects when the target is the self; on the other hand, members of more dialectical cultures exhibit the same cognitive dissonance effects as members of non-​dialectical cultures when the target is a relational other. This raises the question of how and when dialectical thinking does not influence attitudes. Elucidating the boundary conditions

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 401

of dialecticism on attitudes can ultimately lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms behind this culturally bound lay theory in shaping thought and behavior.

Note 1. A similar pattern also has been found with other cultural groups: African American girls appeared to prefer European American over African American dolls (Clark & Clark, 1947; Fine & Bowers, 1984), and Polish participants ascribed more negative than positive traits to their national group (Mlicki & Ellemers, 1996). African-​Americans and Latino-​ Americans often subscribe to negative cultural stereotypes about each other and themselves (Jost & Banaji, 1994). In sum, ingroup derogating tendencies have been observed in various cultural groups and appear to be particularly prevalent in East Asian cultures.

References Alter, A. L., & Kwan, V. S. Y. (2009). Cultural sharing in a global village: Evidence for extracultural cognition in European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(4), 742–​760. doi:10.1037/​a0014036 Armitage, C. J., & Conner, M. (2004). The effects of attitudinal ambivalence on attitude-​ intention-​behavior relations. In G. Haddock & G. R. Maio (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives on the psychology of attitudes (pp. 121–​143). Hove, UK: Psychology Press. Barden, J., Maddux, W. W., Petty, R. E., & Brewer, M. B. (2004). Contextual moderation of racial bias: The impact of social roles on controlled and automatically activated attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 5–​22. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.87.1.5 Bassili, J. N. (1996). Meta-​judgmental versus operative indexes of psychological attributes: The case of measures of attitude strength. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 637–​653. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.71.4.637 Blair, I. V. (2002). The malleability of automatic stereotypes and prejudice. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 6, 242–​261. doi:10.1207/​S15327957PSPR0603_​8 Bohner, G., & Nickel, N. (2011). Attitudes and attitude change. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 391–​417. doi:10.1146/​annurev.psych.121208.131609. Bond, M. H., & Hewstone, M. (1988). Social identity theory and the perception of intergroup relations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 12(2), 153–​170. doi:10.1016/​0147-​1767(88)90046-​6 Boucher, H. C., Peng, K., Shi, J., & Wang, L. (2009). Culture and implicit self-​ esteem: Chinese are “good” and “bad” at the same time. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 40, 24–​45. doi: 10.1177/​0022022108326195 Cai, H., Constantine, S., Gaertner, L., Wang, C., Carvallo, M., Xu, Y., et  al. (2010). Tactical self-​enhancement in China: Is modesty at the service of self enhancement in East Asian culture? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 59–​64. doi: 10.1177/​1948550610376599 Chan, W. (2008). A sourcebook in Chinese philosophy. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press.

402 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Chen, J., Wang, L., Huang, M., & Spencer-​Rodgers, J. (2012). Naive dialecticism and Chinese employees’ commitment to change. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 27(1), 48–​70. Choi, I., & Choi, Y. (2002). Culture and self-​concept flexibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(11), 1508–​1517. Choi, I., Dalal, R., Kim-​Prieto, C., & Park, H. (2003). Culture and judgment of causal relevance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 46–​59. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.84.1.46 Choi, I., Koo, M., & Choi, J. A. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 691–​705. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167206298568 Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and actor-​observer bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(9), 949–​960. Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 890–​905. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.79.6.890 Church, A. T., Katigbak, M. S., Reyes, J. A. S., Salanga, M. G. C., Miramontes, L. A., & Adams, N. B. (2008). Prediction and cross-​situational consistency of daily behavior across cultures:  Testing trait and cultural psychology perspectives. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(5), 1199–​1215. doi:10.1016/​j.jrp.2008.03.007 Cialdini, R. B., Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1981). Attitude and attitude change. Annual Review of Psychology, 32, 357–​404. doi:10.1146/​annurev.ps.32.020181.002041 Clark, K. B., & Clark, M. P. (1947). Racial identification and preference in Negro children. In T. M. Newcomb & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in Social Psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Cooper, J., & Fazio, R. H. (1984). A new look at dissonance theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 17, pp. 229–​ 266). New York: Academic Press. Crites, S. L., Fabrigar, L. R., & Petty, R. E. (1994). Measuring the affective and cognitive properties of attitudes: Conceptual and methodological issues. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 619–​634. doi:10.1177/​0146167294206001 Dasgupta, N., & Greenwald, A. G. (2001). On the malleability of automatic attitudes:  Combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 800–​814. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.81.5.800 Devine, P. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice:  Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5–​18. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.56.1.5 Diener, E., & Suh, E. M. (Eds.). (2000). Culture and subjective well-​being. MIT press. Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Smith, H., & Shao, L. (1995). National differences in reported subjective well-​being:  Why do they occur? Social Indicators Research (Special Issue: Global Report on Student Well-​Being), 34, 7–​32. doi:10.1007/​BF01078966 Dovidio, J. F., Kawakami, K., Johnson, C., Johnson, B., & Howard, A. (1997). On the nature of prejudice:  Automatic and controlled processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33(5), 510–​540. doi:10.1006/​jesp.1997.1331

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 403

Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Endo, Y., Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (2000). Culture and positive illusions in close relationships:  How my relationships are better than yours. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(12), 1571–​1586. doi:10.1177/​01461672002612011 English, T., & Chen, S. (2007). Culture and self-​concept stability:  consistency across and within contexts among Asian Americans and European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(3), 478. Esses, V. M., & Dovidio, J. F. (2002). The role of emotions in determining willingness to engage in intergroup contact. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(9), 1202–​1214. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press. Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58(2), 203–​210. doi:10.1037/​h0041593 Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Fine, M., & Bowers, C. (1984). Racial Self-​Identification: The Effects of Social History and Gender. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 14(2), 136–​146. Fulmer, C. A., Gelfand, M. J., Kruglanski, A. W., Kim-​Prieto, C., Diener, E., Pierro, A., & Higgins, E. T. (2010). On “feeling right” in cultural contexts: How person-​culture match affects self-​esteem and subjective well-​being. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1563–​1569. doi:10.1177/​0956797610384742Gaertner, L., Sedikides, C., & Chang, K. (2008). On pancultural self-​enhancement: Well adjusted Taiwanese self-​enhance on personally valued traits. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 39(4), 463–​477. doi:10.1177/​0022022108318431 Gawronski, B. (2002). What does the implicit association test measure? A  test of the convergent and discriminant validity of prejudice-​ related IATs. Experimental Psychology, 49(3), 171. Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2006). Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin, 132(5), 692–​731. doi:10.1037/​0033-​2909.132.5.692 Goto, S. G., Ando, Y., Huang, C., Yee, A., & Lewis, R. S. (2010). Cultural differences in the visual processing of meaning: Detecting incongruities between background and foreground objects using the N400. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-​3), 242–​253. doi:10.1093/​scan/​nsp038 Greenberg, J., Arndt, J., Simon, L., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (2000). Proximal and distal defenses in response to reminders of one’s mortality: Evidence of a temporal sequence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(1), 91–​99. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167200261009 Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Simon, L., & Breus, M. (1994). Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-​ related thoughts in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 627–​637. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.67.4.627 Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition:  attitudes, self-​ esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102(1), 4.

404 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L., & Banaji, M. R. (2009). Understanding and Using the Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(1), 17–​41. Gregg, A. P., Seibt, B., & Banaji, M. H. (2006). Easier done than undone: Asymmetries in the malleability of implicit preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(1), 1–​20. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.90.1.1 Hamamura, T. (2004). Cultural difference in dialectical response style:  How much yes is in your yes? (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Hamamura, T., Heine, S. J., & Paulhus, D. L. (2008). Cultural differences in response styles: The role of dialectical thinking. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(4), 932–​942. Harmon-​Jones, E., Simon, L., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & McGregor, H. (1997). Terror management theory and self-​esteem:  Evidence that increased self-​esteem reduces mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(4), 24–​36. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.72.1.24 Hass, R. G., Katz, I., Rizzo, N., Bailey, J., & Moore, L. (1992). When racial ambivalence evokes negative affect, using a disguised measure of mood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18(6), 786–​797. doi:10.1177/​0146167292186015 Heine, S. J. (2005). Where is the evidence for pancultural self enhancement? A  reply to Sedikides, Gaertner, and Toguchi (2003). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(4), 531–​538. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.89.4.531 Heine, S. J., & Hamamura, T. (2007). In search of East Asian self-​enhancement. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(1), 4–​27. doi:10.1177/​1088868306294587 Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). Culture, dissonance, and self-​affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 389–​400. doi:10.1177/​0146167297234005 Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-​regard?. Psychological Review, 106(4), 766. Hetts, J., Sakuma, M., & Pelham, B. (1999). Two roads to positive regard: Implicit and explicit self-​evaluation and culture. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(6), 512–​559. doi:10.1006/​jesp.1999.1391 Hewstone, M., & Ward, C. (1985). Ethnocentrism and causal attribution in Southeast Asia. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(3), 614–​623. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.48.3.614 Hiniker, P. J. (1969). Chinese reactions to forced compliance: Dissonance reduction or national character. The Journal of Social Psychology, 77(2), 157–​176. Hirose, Y., & Kitada, T. (1985). Actor’s and observers’ attributions of responsibility and attitude change in the forced-​compliance situation. Japanese Journal of Psychology, 56(5), 262–​268. doi:10.4992/​jjpsy.56.262 Hong, Y., Chiu, C., & Kung, T. M. (1997). Bringing culture out in front: Effects of cultural meaning system activation on social cognition. In K. Leung, U. Kim, S. Yamaguchi, & Y. Kashima (Eds.), Progress in Asian social psychology (Vol. 1, (pp. 139–​150). Singapore: Wiley. Hoshino-​Browne, E., Zanna, A. S., Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P., Kitayama, S., & Lackenbauer, S. (2005). On the cultural guises of cognitive dissonance:  The case of Easterners and Westerners. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(3), 294–​310. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.89.3.294

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 405

Huainanzi: A guide to the theory and practice of government in early Han China. (2010). (J. S. Major, S. Queen, A. Meyer, & H.D. Roth, Trans.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Hugenberg, K., & Bodenhausen, G. (2003). Facing prejudice:  implicit prejudice and the perception of facial threat. Psychological Science, 14(6), 640–​643. doi:10.1046/​ j.0956-​7976.2003.psci_​1478.x Jahoda, G., Thompson, S., & Bhatt, S. (1972). Ethnic identity and preferences among Asian immigrant children in Glasgow. European Journal of Social Psychology, 2(1), 19–​32. doi:10.1002/​ejsp.2420020104 Ji, L. J., Nisbett, R. E., & Su, Y. (2001). Culture, change, and prediction. Psychological Science, 12(6), 450–​456. doi:10.1111/​1467-​9280.00384 Jost, J., & Banaji, M. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-​justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 1–​27. doi:10.1111/​j.2044-​8309.1994.tb01008.x Jost, J., & Burgess, D. (2000). Attitudinal ambivalence and the conflict between group and system justification motives in low status groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(3), 293–​305. doi:10.1177/​0146167200265003 Kashima, Y., Siegal, M., Tanaka, K., & Kashima, E. S. (1992). Do people believe behaviours are consistent with attitudes? Towards a cultural psychology of attribution processes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31(2), 111–​124. doi:10.1111/​ j.2044-​8309.1992.tb00959.x Kitayama, S., & Karasawa, M. (1997). Implicit self-​esteem in Japan: Name letters and birthday numbers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(7), 736–​742. doi:10.1177/​0146167297237006 Kitayama, S., & Uchida, Y. (2003). Explicit self-​ criticism and implicit self-​ regard: Evaluating self and friend in two cultures. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39(5), 476–​482. doi:10.1016/​S0022-​1031(03)00026-​X Kudo, T., & Mitsui, H. (1974). The magnitude of incentive, timing, and attitude change. Japanese Psychological Review, 17(4), 384–​402. doi: 10.1177/​0146167297234005 Lee, F., Hallahan, M., & Herzog, T. (1996). Explaining real life events: How culture and domain shape attributions. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(7), 732–​ 741. doi:10.1177/​0146167296227007 Lee, Y., & Ottati, V. (1993). Determinants of in-​group and out-​group perceptions of heterogeneity:  An investigation of Sino-​American stereotypes. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 24(3), 298–​318. doi:10.1177/​0022022193243003 Lee, Y. T., & Ottati, V. (1995). Perceived in-​group homogeneity as a function of group salience and stereotype threat. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(6), 610–​619. doi:10.1177/​0146167295216007 Legge, J. (1873). Confucian analects, the great learning, and the doctrine of the mean. New York: Dover Books. Li, L. W., Masuda, T., & Russell, M. J. (2014). The influence of cultural lay beliefs: Dialecticism and indecisiveness in European Canadians and Hong Kong Chinese. Personality and Individual Differences, 68, 6–​12. doi:10.1016/​j.paid.2014.03.047 Liu, A. (2013). The Huainanzi: A guide to the theory and practice of government in early Han China. New York: Columbia University Press.

406 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Liu, J. H., Ng, S. H., Loong, C., Gee, S., & Weatherall, A. (2003). Cultural stereotypes and social representations of elders from Chinese and European perspective. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Gerontology, 18(2), 149–​168. doi:10.1023/​A:1025108618426 MacDonald, T. K., & Zanna, M. P. (1998). Cross-​dimension ambivalence toward social groups: Can ambivalence affect intentions to hire feminists? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(2), 427–​441. doi:10.1177/​0146167298244009 Maddux, W. W., & Yuki, M. (2006). The “ripple effect”: Cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(5), 669–​683. doi:10.1177/​0146167205283840 Maio, G. R., Bell, D. W., & Esses, V. M. (1996). Ambivalence in persuasion: The processing of messages about immigrant groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32(6), 513–​536. doi:10.1006/​jesp.1996.0023 Ma-​Kellams, C., & Blascovich, J. (2011). Culturally divergent responses to mortality salience. Psychological Science, 22(8), 1019–​1024. doi:10.1177/​0956797611413935 Ma-​Kellams, C., & Blascovich, J. (2012). Enjoying life in the face of death: East-​West differences in responses to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(5), 773–​786. Ma-​Kellams, C., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2011). I am against us? Unpacking ingroup favoritism via dialecticism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(1), 15–​27. doi:10.1177/​0146167210388193 Masuda, T., Russell, M. J., Chen, Y. Y., Hioki, K., & Caplan, J. B. (2014). N400 incongruity effect in an episodic memory task reveals different strategies for handling irrelevant contextual information for Japanese than European Canadians. Cognitive Neuroscience, 5(1), 17–​25. doi:10.1080/​17588928.2013.831819 McConnell, A. R., & Leibold, J. M. (2001). Relations among the Implicit Association Test, discriminatory behavior, and explicit measures of racial attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37(5), 435–​442. doi:10.1006/​jesp.2000.1470 Menon, T., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C. Y., & Hong, Y. Y. (1999). Culture and the construal of agency: Attribution to individual versus group dispositions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(5), 701. Mezulis, A. H., Abramson, L. Y., Hyde, J. S., & Hankin, B. L. (2004). Is there a universal positivity bias in attributions? A meta-​analytic review of individual, developmental, and cultural differences in the self-​serving attributional bias. Psychological Bulletin, 130(5), 711–​747. doi:10.1037/​0033-​2909.130.5.711 Miller, J. (1984). Culture and the development of everyday social explanation. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology. 46(5), 961–​978. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.46.5.961 Mlicki, P. P., & Ellemers, N. (1996). Being different or being better? National stereotypes and identifications of Polish and Dutch students.European Journal of Social Psychology, 26(1), 97–​114. doi:10.1002/​(SICI)1099-​0992(199601)26:13.0.CO;2-​F Monden, K. (1980). Attitude change and attitude recall in consonant or dissonant: An attempt to integrate cognitive dissonance theory and self-​perception theory. Japanese Journal of Psychology, 51(3), 128–​135. doi:10.4992/​jjpsy.51.128 Morio, H., Yeung, S., & Peng, K. (2010). Of mice and culture: How beliefs of knowing affect the habits of thinking (Unpublished manuscript). University of California, Berkeley.

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 407

Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attribution of physical and social events. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 67(6), 949–​971. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.67.6.949 Newby-​Clark, I. R., McGregor, I., & Zanna, M. P. (2002). Thinking and caring about cognitive inconsistency:  When and for whom does attitudinal ambivalence feel uncomfortable? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(2), 157–​166. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.82.2.157 Ng, A., & Hynie, M. (2014). Cultural differences in indecisiveness:  The role of naïve dialecticism. Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 45–​ 50. doi:10.1016/​ j.paid.2014.06.022 Ng, A., Hynie, M. & MacDonald, T. (2012). Culture moderates the pliability of ambivalent attitudes. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 43(8), 1313–​1324. Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought:  Holistic vs. analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–​310. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.108.2.291 Nosek, B. A. (2007). Implicit–​explicit relations. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(2), 65–​69. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​8721.2007.00477.x Nosek, B., Banaji, M., & Greenwald, A. (2002a). Harvesting implicit group attitudes and beliefs from a demonstration web site. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice, 6(1), 101–​115. doi:10.1037/​1089-​2699.6.1.101 Nosek, B., Banaji, M., & Greenwald, A. (2002b). Math = male, me = female, therefore math ≠ me. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(1), 44–​59. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.83.1.44 Oishi, S., Diener, E., Napa Scollon, C., & Biswas-​Diener, R. (2004). Cross-​situational consistency of affective experiences across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(3), 460. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.86.3.460 Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54(9), 741–​754. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.54.9.741 Peng, K., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Zhong, N. (2006). Naïve dialecticism and the Tao of Chinese thought. In U. Kim & K-​S. Yang (Eds.), Handbook of indigenous and cultural psychology (pp. 247–​262). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Petty, R. E., Tormala, Z. L., Briñol, P., & Jarvis, W. B. G. (2006). Implicit ambivalence from attitude change: An exploration of the PAST Model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(1), 21–​41. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.90.1.21 Riemer, H., Shavitt, S., Koo, M., & Markus, H. R. (2014). Preferences don’t have to be personal:  Expanding attitude theorizing with a cross-​ cultural perspective. Psychological Review, 121(4), 619–​648. doi:10.1037/​a0037666 Rogers, K. H., & Biesanz, J. C. (2014). The accuracy and bias of interpersonal perceptions in intergroup interactions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(8), 918–​926. doi:10.1177/​1948550614537307 Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Lyon, D. (1989). Evidence for terror management theory I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(4), 681–​690. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.57.4.681 Russell, M. J. (2013). How salience of consistency norms affects individual differences in ambivalent answering in North Americans (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Alberta, Canada.

408 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Rydell, R. J., & McConnell, A. R. (2010). Consistency and inconsistency in implicit social cognition:  The case of implicit and explicit measures of attitudes. In B. Gawronski & B. K. Payne (Eds.), Handbook of implicit social cognition (pp. 295–​ 310). New York: Guilford Press. Rydell, R. J., McConnell, A. R., Strain, L. M., Claypool, H. M., & Hugenberg, K. (2007). Implicit and explicit attitudes respond differently to increasing amounts of counterattitudinal information. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37(5), 867–​878. doi:10.1002/​ejsp.393 Sakai, H. (1981). Induced compliance and opinion change. Japanese Psychological Research, 23(1), 1–​8. Sanada, T., & Norbeck, E. (1975). Prophecy continues to fail: A Japanese sect. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 6(3), 331–​345. doi:10.1177/​002202217563005 Sanchez, D. T., Shih, M., & Garcia, J. A. (2009). Juggling multiple racial identities: malleable racial identification and psychological well-​being. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15(3), 243. Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Toguchi, Y. (2003). Pancultural self-​enhancement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(1), 60–​79. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.84.1.60 Snibbe, A., Kitayama, S., Markus, H., & Suzuki, T. (2003). They saw a game: A Japanese and American (football) field study. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 34(5), 581–​595. doi:10.1177/​0022022103256480 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Mori, S., Wang, L., & Peng, K. (2009). The dialectical self-​concept: Contradiction, change, and holism in East Asian cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(1), 29–​44. doi:10.1177/​0146167208325772 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2010). Dialecticism and the co-​occurrence of positive and negative emotions across cultures. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 41(1), 109–​115. doi:10.1177/​0022022109349508 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(11), 1416–​1432. doi:10.1177/​0146167204264243 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., Hamilton, D. L., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2007). Culture and group perception: Dispositional and stereotypic inferences about novel and national groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(4), 525. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction: A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(3), 296–​312. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M., & Peng, K. (2012). Culturally based lay beliefs as a tool for understanding interpersonal and intercultural relations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36(2), 169–​178. doi:10.1016/​j.ijintrel.2012.01.002 Szabo, L., Sawyer, J., Patton, A., & Spencer-​Rodgers, J. (2015, February). Construct validity of the Dialectical Self Scale:  A meta-​analytic approach. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Long Beach, CA. Tajfel, H. (2010). Social identity and intergroup relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of inter-​group behavior. In S. Worchel & L. W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations. Chicago: Nelson-​Hall.

The Yin and Yang of Attitudes 

| 409

Takata, T., & Hashimoto, H. (1973). Effects of insufficient justification upon the arousal of cognitive dissonance. The Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13(2), 77–​85. Thangue, N. B. (2003). The yin and yang of E2F-​1: Balancing life and death. Nature Cell Biology 5(7), 587–​589. doi:10.1038/​ncb0703-​587 Thibodeau, R., & Aronson, E. (1992). Taking a closer look: Reasserting the role of the self-​concept in dissonance theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18(5), 591–​602. doi:10.1177/​0146167292185010 Thompson, M. M., Zanna, M. P., & Griffin, D. W. (1995). Let’s not be indifferent about (attitudinal) ambivalence. In R. E. Petty & J. A. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength:  Antecedents and consequences (pp. 361–​386). Hillsdale, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum. Tsukamoto, S., Holland, E., Haslam, N., Karasawa, M., & Kashima, Y. (2015). Cultural differences in perceived coherence of the self and ingroup: A Japan–​Australia comparison. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 18(1), 83–​89. doi:10.1111/​ajsp.12090 Williams, M. J., & Spencer-​ Rodgers, J. (2010). Culture and stereotyping processes: Integration and new directions. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(8), 591–​604. doi:10.1111/​j.1751-​9004.2010.00288.x Wonkyong, B. L., Newby-​Clark, I., & Zanna, M. P. (2006). Cross-​cultural differences in the relation between potential and felt ambivalence. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Palm Springs, CA. Yamaguchi, S., Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Murakami, F., Chen, D., Shiomura, K., & Krendl, A. (2007). Apparent universality of positive implicit self-​esteem. Psychological Science, 18(6), 498–​500. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​9280.2007.01928.x Yoshida, T. (1977). Effects of cognitive dissonance on task evaluation and task performance. Japanese Journal of Psychology, 48(4), 216–​223. doi:10.4992/​jjpsy.48.216 Yoshizaki, S., Ishii, S., & Ishii, K. (1975). The effects of reward magnitudeand choice freedom on opinion change. Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14, 35–​44. Yu, Y. (1964). Life and immortality in the mind of Han China. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 25, 80–​122. doi:10.2307/​2718339 Zhao, K., Wu, Q., Shen, X., Xuan, Y., & Fu, X. (2012). I undervalue you but I  need you: The dissociation of attitude and memory toward in-​group members. PloS One, 7(3). doi:10.1371/​journal.pone.0032932 Zhou, G. X. (1990). Chinese traditional philosophy. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press (in Chinese). Zhou, F., & Wang, D. (2007). Dissociation between implicit and explicit attitudes towards the rich in a developing country: The case of China. Social Behavior and Personality, 35, 295–​302.

410 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

­C HAPTER 14 The Dialectical Self The Internal Consistency, Cross-​Situational Consistency, and Temporal Stability of Self-​Conception Sylvia Xiaohua Chen, Julie Spencer-​Rodgers, and Kaiping Peng

Cultures differ in how the self is conceptualized. For decades, the traditional value approach of individualism versus collectivism (Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1995) at the culture level and the pervasive self-​construal approach of independence versus interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991)  at the individual level have been used to categorize and explain cultural differences in self-​conception. In individualistic cultures, people possess an independent self-​construal, which views the self as idiocentric, autonomous, separate, and agentic. In collectivistic cultures, people hold an interdependent self-​construal, which views the self as allocentric, relational, connected, and communal. The content, structure, and functioning of these two self-​systems have profound implications for psychological processes, influencing cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior. People with independent self-​views focus more on objects and abstract attributes, express more ego-​focused emotions, and are more prone to self-​ enhancement and self-​promotion (Heine, 2001, 2012; Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999). In contrast, those with interdependent self-​ views attend more to relationships and social contexts, experience more other-​focused emotions, and are more inclined to self-​effacement and self-​ improvement (Heine, 2012; Heine et al., 1999). In recent years, dialecticism has emerged as another dimension that accounts for East–​West differences in self-​views (Nisbett, 2003; Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010; see Chapter 1

in this volume). In Western cultures, the laws of formal logic encompass three principles: everything must be identical with itself (law of identity), no statements can be both true and false at the same time (law of non-​ contradiction), and all statements must be either true or false, with no middle position (law of the excluded middle). In East Asian cultures, naïve dialecticism is composed of three central beliefs: the world and reality are in a constant state of flux (principle of change), opposing sides can coexist in an entity (principle of contradiction), and everything is interconnected as part of the whole (principle of holism). Dialectical thinking is an epistemology, or “way of knowing,” that gives rise to tolerance for contradictions, ambiguities, and incongruities. Although there are four possible psychological responses to dealing with contradiction—​denial, discounting, differentiation, and dialectical thinking—​Chinese show a preference for dialectical thinking. For example, relative to Americans, they favor dialectical proverbs (whether from Chinese or Yiddish literature), dialectical compromise resolutions to social conflicts, dialectical arguments rather than Western logical arguments, and dialectical approaches to understanding contradictory research findings (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Dialectical thinking is prevalent in the domains of the self, emotional experience, psychological well-​being, attitudes and evaluations, social categorization and perception, and judgment and decision-​making (for a review, see Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et  al., 2010). Importantly, dialectical thinking is not conceptualized as a “cognitive style” that is domain-​general but rather as a set of folk or naïve epistemologies that are domain-​specific and can be activated and applied at different times and in different contexts (similar to a dynamic constructivist approach to culture; Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-​Martínez, 2000; see Peng, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Zhong, 2006). Although both interdependent self-​construal and dialectical thinking characterize East Asian self-​views, they can be distinguished conceptually and empirically. (Thus, while East Asians are inclined to be both interdependent and dialectical in orientation, not all interdependent cultures are dialectical, e.g., South Americans, Hispanics; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et  al., 2010.) Interdependent self-​ construal emphasizes the “self-​in-​relation-​to-​other” (Markus & Kitayma, 1991), with the goals of maintaining harmonious relationships with others, belonging to and fitting in with social groups, being sensitive to ingroup members’ needs, being responsive to situational demands, and striving to meet significant others’ expectations. The dialectical self extends relationships with social objects to embody living and nonliving things, and material and spiritual phenomena (Spencer-​Rodgers, Boucher, Mori, Wang, & Peng,

412 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

2009a; Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et  al., 2010). For example, East Asians often provide very global self-​statements on open-​ended measures of self-​concept, such as “I am a human being,” “I am a living creature,” and “I am a product of my environment” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2009a; Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2004). These self-​descriptions may be better understood from the perspective of the principle of holism rather than interdependent self-​construal. The distinctiveness of the two self-​views is further demonstrated by the weak correlations between measures of interdependent self-​construal and dialectical self-​views (r = .08) among American college students and (r = .06) among Chinese college students (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010). Dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999)  and interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991)  both encourage self-​ adjustment and accommodation to others and the situation. Originating from East Asian epistemologies, naïve dialecticism is deeply rooted in Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Zhong, 2005). These philosophical traditions share some similar humanist values and ethics. Unlike Western ideologies that encourage the pursuit of individual autonomy and personal happiness, Eastern philosophies emphasize relationships with the family, the world, and nature. One should fulfill interpersonal obligations, uphold moral standards, and achieve harmony with nature. The means to these ends do not lie in “being one’s true self,” but in suppressing one’s desires and wishes and exerting restraint to adhere to norms and proprieties. Accordingly, the self in East Asia is interdependent, adjustable, malleable, and responsive to role demands and situational constraints (Cousins, 1989; Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Self-​perfection and self-​improvement are essential processes to cultivating one’s virtues and upholding ethics. To improve the self, one needs to recognize one’s own strengths and weaknesses so that advances can be made in one’s weak areas. These ideologies may explain East Asians’ simultaneous endorsement of both positive and negative self-​ evaluative statements (Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004) and the variability and inconsistency of their personality trait ratings across roles and situations or contexts (Church et al., 2008). Although conceptually distinct, one converging consequence of the interdependent self and dialectical self is that they both give rise to contextualized self-​views and self-​concept inconsistency. For instance, when answering the Twenty Statements Test (TST; Hartley, 1970; McPartland, Cumming, & Garreston, 1961)  alone, paired with a peer, with a large group of peers, or alone with a professor, Japanese students exhibited

The Dialectical Self 

| 413

more variation in their self-​descriptions across situations than did their Americans counterparts (Kanagawa et al., 2001). Whereas American self-​ statements comprised more abstract, internal attributes, Japanese self-​ statements included more specific categories that indicated they defined themselves in contextual terms. Moreover, Japanese respondents described themselves most positively in the alone condition and most negatively in the authority condition (with the professor), but Americans did not show significant valence differences across the four conditions. This variability and inconsistency in Japanese self-​conceptions can be attributed either to the interdependent self that attends to situation-​specific roles and relationships or to the dialectical self that tolerates both positive and negative aspects of the self. These cultural factors also may have additive effects. Since Japan is both a collectivistic and a dialectical culture, the underlying mechanisms are not easily teased apart. Thus, in dialecticism research, it is preferable to measure or manipulate dialectical thinking and examine its effects on self-​concept inconsistency and other variables (for a review of dialectical manipulations, see Chapter 1 in this volume).

Measurement and Manipulation of the Dialectical Self The Dialectical Self Scale (DSS; Spencer-​Rodgers, Srivastava, et  al., 2010)  is a direct individual difference measure of dialectical thinking in the domain of the self, with both a full 32-​item version and a brief 14-​item version. The DSS is used to assess the tendency to view oneself as contradictory (internally inconsistent) and malleable across time and contexts. The scale consists of three factors, including (1)  contradiction (e.g., “When I hear two sides of an argument, I often agree with both”), (2) cognitive change (e.g., “I often find that my beliefs and attitudes will change under different contexts”), and (3) behavioral change (e.g., “I often change the way I am, depending on who I am with”). Yet, Zell and colleagues’ research, conducted in multiple countries, suggests that the DSS is best represented as a single, higher-​order factor (Zell et al., 2013; see Chapter 21 in this volume). Thus, scholars typically have employed the DSS as an overall measure of naïve dialecticism (overall scores) in the domain of self-​perception (Boucher, 2011; Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011; Boucher, Peng, Shi, & Wang, 2009; Chen, English, & Peng, 2006; Church et al., 2008; Hamamura, Heine, & Paulhus, 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009a). Researchers have further used its subscales separately, such as the behavioral change subscale (e.g., Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011; English &

414 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Chen, 2007, Study 2a) and the cognitive change subscale (e.g., Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011). More importantly, the mediating role of the DSS has been tested and found to “unpackage” cultural differences in positive, negative, and global self-​esteem (Boucher et al., 2009, Study 2; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004, Study 3), self-​ concept inconsistency (Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2009a, Study 5), self-​view importance and self-​enhancement (English & Chen, 2007, Study 2a), ambivalent and moderate responding (Hamamura et al., 2008, Study 2), and self-​verification and self-​concept change (Spencer-​ Rodgers, Boucher, Peng, & Wang, 2009b). These mediating effects are robust across different studies and various samples, lending strong support to the proposition that the mechanism underlying self-​concept variation across cultures can be attributed in large part to the dialectical self, the tendency to encompass multifaceted, changeable, and contradicting aspects in one’s self-​views. Other relevant self-​report measures include the Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS; Choi, Koo, & Choi, 2007; for a review, see Chapter 4 in this this volume) and the pictorial holism measure (Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011). The AHS captures cultural differences in analytic–​holistic thinking, with Koreans scoring higher on the AHS than Americans, and predicts typical culturally based perceptual patterns (e.g., similarity judgments in a categorization task and causal complexity in a reasoning task; Choi et al., 2007). The AHS consists of 24 items including four factors:  causality, attitude toward contradictions, perception of change, and locus of attention. Demonstrating its convergent and discriminant validity, the AHS is moderately correlated with conceptually similar constructs such as attributional complexity (Fletcher, Danilvics, Fernandez, Peterson, & Reeder, 1986), global thinking style (Sternberg & Wagner, 1991), and the management of interpersonal conflicts in work settings (Rahim, 1983), but not with individualism–​ collectivism (Triandis, 1996)  or independent–​ interdependent self-​construals (Singelis, 1994). The pictorial holism measure was adapted from the Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (IOSS, Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992), which uses seven Venn diagrams with two circles to indicate the degree of overlap between the self and others. This adapted version assesses the closeness of the self and the universe, and shows a marginally significant correlation of .24 (p  =  .07) with the AHS (Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011). Very few published studies, however, have utilized the AHS or adapted IOSS in research on the self-​concept (although see Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011, reviewed later in the chapter) or related concepts, such as emotional complexity.

The Dialectical Self 

| 415

In addition to scale measurement, the effects of dialecticism can be gauged by priming methods (Cheng, 2009, Study 2; Ma-​Kellams, Spencer-​ Rodgers, & Peng, 2011, Study 3; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004, Study 4). Dialectical thinking has been manipulated by asking participants to recall contradictory, uncertain experiences or situations that had both positive and negative consequences for the self and people they care about (e.g., graduation, the death of a terminally ill relative, etc.), and to describe in writing how they thought through all of the facts and possible perspectives. This manipulation activates a mode of dialectical thinking without synthesis and integration in which “there are no right answers” (Spencer-​ Rodgers et al., 2004). Interestingly, this priming method is more potent for Chinese than for Americans, perhaps because tolerance of contradiction is more culturally normative for Chinese. In the dialectical-​prime condition, Chinese scored higher on dialecticism (DSS), self-​evaluative ambivalence, and negative self-​esteem (reverse-​scored items) on the Rosenberg Self-​ Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965)  and lower on global self-​esteem than those in the control condition. European Americans displayed the same trend on the dependent measures, but the differences between the two conditions did not reach significance. “Prime-​ability” itself is evidence of the habitual mode of thinking characteristic of dialectical minds that is shaped by cultural experiences. Hence, this experimental method not only enables researchers to draw conclusions about the causal effects of dialectical thinking but also differentiates the epistemological characteristics of dialectical versus non-​dialectical (“linear” or “synthesis-​oriented”) cultures. An indirect way to infer the influence of dialecticism is by using national groups as a proxy and comparing dialectical, collectivistic cultures (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans), non-​dialectical, collectivistic cultures (e.g., Mexicans, Filipinos), and individualistic cultures. Any differences between the former two categories can be attributed to dialecticism, but not to collectivism. For example, Schimmack, Oishi, and Diener (2002) analyzed the frequency estimates of emotions across 38 countries and found a less negative correlation between pleasant and unpleasant emotions in dialectical, collectivistic cultures (East Asian) than in non-​dialectical, collectivistic cultures (African and Latin American) and individualistic cultures, suggesting that these cultural effects were moderated by East Asian dialecticism, rather than by the broader individual–​collectivism distinction. Even within the same collectivistic culture, ethnicity effects can reflect variation in dialectical propensities. In a six-​culture study by Church and colleagues (2008), lower cross-​role consistency was found among ethnic Chinese in Malaysia than Malays. Japanese exhibited less

416 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Dialectical Self

Internal Inconsistency

Valence: Self-Evaluative Ambivalence

Content: Trait Rating Inconsistency

Cross-Situational and Cross-Role Inconsistency

Temporal Instability

Figure 14.1  Components of the dialectical self.

cross-​role consistency compared (at the country level) with participants from non-​dialectical, collectivistic cultures (Mexicans and Filipinos) and individualistic cultures (Americans and Australians). Taken together, the authors concluded that it was dialecticism rather than collectivism that explained cultural differences in self-​concept inconsistency. In sum, dialecticism is a unique and important cultural variable that can be measured and manipulated, and it gives rise to cultural differences in self-​perception. As outlined earlier, dialecticism is a lay epistemology, or “way of knowing” the self that affects the nature or valence (positivity/​negativity) of self-​views and the content of the self-​concept. Thus, the influence of dialecticism is manifested in four main areas of self-​conception (see Figure 14.1): evaluative inconsistency, internal inconsistency, cross-​ role/​situational inconsistency, and temporal instability. We consider each of these domains in turn.

Dialectical Self-​Evaluations One important consequence of the dialectical self is self-​evaluative ambivalence (see Figure 14.1), which literally means the coexistence of both valences (positive/​ negative) simultaneously in evaluations of the self (Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2004). Self-​ evaluative ambivalence has been assessed with open-​ended measures (e.g., Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004), Likert-​type scales (e.g., Hamamura et  al., 2008), and implicit measures (Boucher et al., 2009). Early work on the dialectical self used the Twenty Statements Test and compared the open-​ended responses of people of East Asian and European American background (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004, Study 2). Responses were coded as positive, neutral, or negative, resulting in three

The Dialectical Self 

| 417

indices. In addition, self-​evaluative ambivalence was assessed by computing the proportion of positive-​to-​negative responses that participants listed on the TST. The results showed that Chinese wrote fewer positive and more negative self-​descriptions than did European Americans, with Asian Americans scoring in between. Chinese also showed greater ambivalence in their self-​statements, though the difference was not statistically significant. Insightful information came from within-​culture analyses. All three groups reported more favorable than unfavorable statements, suggesting that dialectical thinkers’ self-​evaluations were not more self-​deprecating, just more balanced than those of non-​dialectical thinkers. Self-​evaluative ambivalence is most typically assessed with unidimensional Likert-​type scales with opposing items, such as Rosenberg’s (1965) Self-​Esteem Scale (RSES). Researchers decompose the RSES into positive, negative, and global self-​esteem scores according to the valence of the items and then compute different ambivalence indices. For example, scores on the positively keyed items (e.g., “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself”) can be treated as the dominant response (L), and those on the negatively keyed items (e.g., “I feel I do not have much to be proud of”) as the conflicting response (S), or vice versa. Then ambivalence indices are computed using different formulas, such as the conflicting reactions model (CRM = 2 × S; Kaplan, 1972), the similarity-​intensity model (SIM = 3S –​1; Thompson, Zanna, & Griffin, 1995), or the gradual threshold model (GTM = 5S.5 –​ L1/​ S; Priester & Petty, 1996). Other ways of computing ambivalence indices include within-​person correlations or the absolute value of the difference between positively and negatively keyed items (Hamamura et al., 2008). Generally, regardless of the method employed, people in East Asian cultures report greater self-​evaluative ambivalence than do those in Western cultures, and dialectical thinking (DSS) is related to greater self-​evaluative ambivalence (Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2004; Boucher, 2011; Boucher et al., 2009). To illustrate, Chinese and Japanese provided more ambivalent and moderate (midpoint) responses to self-​esteem items than did East Asians in North America, European Americans, and European Canadians, and these cultural differences were accounted for by dialectical self-​ conceptions, as assessed by the DSS (Boucher et  al., 2009; Hamamura et al., 2008; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). Furthermore, self-​evaluative ambivalence mediates the relationship between dialecticism and psychological well-​being indicators (e.g., life satisfaction, anxiety, and depression), accounting in part for Asian Americans’ lower reported levels of global self-​esteem and psychological health compared with European Americans (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004).

418 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Kim, Peng, and Chiu (2008) further decomposed the wording effects of positively and negatively valenced self-​esteem items among Chinese and North American college students. In this study, four versions of the RSES were administered through random assignment and four scores were computed:  global self-​esteem with the original 10-​item version of the RSES containing a positively keyed item first; global self-​esteem with the original version of the RSES containing a negatively keyed item first; positive self-​esteem based on 10 positive self-​esteem items (with the original 5 negative items converted into positive statements), and negative self-​ esteem based on 10 negative self-​esteem items (with the original 5 positive items converted into negative statements). As in previous studies (e.g., Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2004), Chinese scored lower than North Americans on global self-​esteem, regardless of the valence of the first item. Notably, the two cultural groups did not differ on positively worded self-​esteem. These results indicate that Chinese do not lack positive self-​regard, but rather their dialectical thinking prompts them to see both strengths and weaknesses in themselves, so they endorse items of both valences. This cultural tendency to endorse both positive and negative self-​statements leads to lower overall or global self-​esteem scores (see also Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2004). In addition, the correlation between positively and negatively worded self-​esteem scores was smaller among Chinese than North Americans, indicating less internal self-​consistency among members of dialectical cultures. Lastly, implicit measures provide further evidence of cultural differences in self-​evaluative ambivalence. Implicit methods can assess sensitivity in associating the self with positive versus negative attributes, the assumption being that the difference scores reflect implicit self-​esteem. Boucher and colleagues (2009) employed the Go/​No-​Go Association Test (Nosek & Banaji, 2001) and found that Chinese showed greater sensitivity and greater self-​evaluative ambivalence than did Chinese Americans and European Americans. Although the correlations between explicit and implicit self-​esteem are typically modest or nonsignificant (Greenwald & Farnham, 2000), in this case, explicit and implicit measures converged to demonstrate the evaluative inconsistency of the dialectical self-​concept (Boucher et al., 2009; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009a).

Self-​Concept Inconsistency Beyond self-​evaluation, the dialectical nature of the self can be examined with respect to the content of people’s self beliefs. As just outlined,

The Dialectical Self 

| 419

members of dialectical cultures perceive both good and bad aspects of the self, thus they endorse both the positively and negatively keyed items on self-​esteem measures. Similarly, dialectical thinkers embrace contrasting sides of themselves, and their corresponding perceptions of their personality traits are often internally inconsistent. Members of dialectical cultures hold fluid, contextualized self-​views at both an explicit and implicit level. At the explicit level, researchers have adopted qualitative and quantitative measures to examine self-​conceptions, such as open-​ended measures (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009a), consistency indices (e.g., based on factor analyses; Suh, 2002), ambivalence indices (Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2009b), standard deviations (Church et al., 2008), and within-​person correlations (English & Chen, 2011). For example, the Twenty Statements Test has been used to compare the open-​ended responses of people of East Asian and European American background (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004). Employing a sophisticated and theory-​driven protocol, the Dialectical Coding Scheme, Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2009a, Study 1) found that Chinese listed a greater proportion of contradictory (internally inconsistent), change-​oriented, and holistic self-​statements on the TST than that for European Americans. In particular, compared to European Americans, Chinese responded with more dynamic self-​statements (e.g., “I am becoming more outgoing”), qualitative modifications (e.g., “I am somewhat outgoing”), contradictory pairs (e.g., line 1: “I am outgoing” and line 9: “I am shy”), not-​self statements (e.g., “I am not an outgoing person”; statements in which the self is perceived contradictorily in terms of what it is not), and holistic self-​statements (e.g., “I am a living form”). Researchers using quantitative Likert-​type measures of the self-​concept have focused on personality trait assessments. Ambivalence indices can be applied to traits with opposing sides (e.g., “outgoing” and “shy”), as in the study by Boucher and O’Dowd (2011), who applied the negative acceleration model (NAM = (2 × S + 1)/​(S + L + 2); Scott, 1966) to 24 pairs of contradictory traits and found that the self-​concept inconsistency index was greater among bilingual Chinese when responding in Chinese than when responding in English. Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2009a) also found that Chinese and Asian Americans exhibited greater self-​ concept inconsistency (on 13 pairs of contradictory attributes) than did European Americans, and these cultural differences were mediated by dialecticism (DSS). Furthermore, cultural differences in self-​concept inconsistency hold even when controlling for self-​criticism (i.e., East Asians’ tendency to endorse negative self-​statements) and self-​concept certainty, or the confidence and certainty with which people hold their self-​beliefs

420 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

(Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2009a). An experimental priming study further established a causal association between dialecticism (with the DSS used as a manipulation check) and self-​concept inconsistency (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009a, Study 5). While explicit measures provide evidence of the availability of contradictory self-​beliefs among dialectical thinkers, the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) has been used to investigate the simultaneous accessibility of contradictory self-​knowledge at the implicit level. Participants are asked to press me versus not me keys while seeing contradictory traits (e.g., extraversion/​introversion) presented on a computer screen. Their response latencies are measured, and then accessibility scores (or ambivalence indices) are computed. Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2009a, Study 2) showed that Japanese exhibited greater simultaneous accessibility of contradictory traits than did European Americans. As an additional measure of the implicit self-​concept, researchers have demonstrated that Chinese recall more contradictory self-​relevant traits from memory than do European Americans. In Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues’ (2009a) Study 3, Chinese and European Americans were presented with trait words and instructed to generate an autobiographical memory for each word. After a distracter task, they completed an open-​ ended recall task. Chinese remembered more contradictory words than did European Americans, who remembered more filler words. In sum, at both the explicit and implicit levels, East Asian dialectical thinkers exhibit less internal consistency in the content of their self-​beliefs than do Western linear thinkers, at least when asked to describe themselves in one context, at one moment in time. Next, we consider cultural differences in self-​consistency across roles and situations.

Cross-​Role and Cross-​Situational Consistency One of the first studies to examine cross-​role consistency among East Asians was Cousins’ (1989) work on culture’s influence on self-​perception in Japan and the United States. Japanese and American college students were asked to complete the Twenty Statements Test using non-​contextualized and contextualized formats. The non-​contextualized format simply asked the standard question, “Who am I?” The contextualized format consisted of three different relational/​situational contexts: at home, at school, and with close friends. For the non-​contextualized format, Japanese reported fewer abstract, psychological attributes (e.g., personality traits) than did Americans and

The Dialectical Self 

| 421

referred more to social roles and the behavioral context. Interestingly, the pattern was reversed for the contextualized format, with Japanese reporting more abstract, psychological attributes than Americans did. Cousins (1989) interpreted these findings as reflecting differences in cultural conceptions of the self rather than in terms of cultural variation in the cognitive ability to think abstractly in contrast to concretely. Role-​specific self-​views have since been examined widely using the following approach to elicit self-​concept inconsistency in relational contexts, although the computational methods and selected traits have varied from study to study (e.g., Boucher, 2011; Church et al., 2008; English & Chen, 2007; Suh, 2002). For example, participants are asked to rate how accurately a set of personality traits (20 in Suh, 2002; Study 2) describes them in different contexts: in general, while interacting with parents, with a romantic partner, with a same-​sex friend, and with a stranger. Identity consistency indices are derived by factor analyzing each person’s matrix of trait ratings × contexts, and extracting the first principal-​components factor. Americans’ self-​ratings across the five contexts were more consistent than those of Koreans. Moreover, the consistency indices significantly predicted subjective well-​being among Americans, whereas social appraisal (i.e., the perceived approval of significant others regarding one’s life) was a more potent predictor among Koreans. Furthermore, a family member and a friend of each participant were invited to rate the participant’s social skills and likability. American informants rated people who were more consistent across contexts higher on social skills and likability, but Korean informants did not show this preference for consistency. These findings indicate that consistency across social contexts (both self-​perceived and other-​perceived) is valued in the West and benefits one’s psychological health and social image, but consistency is not as desirable in East Asia. The effect of dialecticism on cross-​role consistency has been inferred in studies that have used group membership as a proxy for culture (i.e., by comparing the responses of members of dialectical, collectivist, and individualist cultures). Two contrasting theoretical perspectives on cross-​role consistency have prevailed in the literature: the trait perspective presumes consistency across roles in all cultures (e.g., Jang, McCrae, Angleitner, Riemann, & Livesley, 1998; McCrae & Allik, 2002), and the cultural perspective is that there is reduced consistency in collectivistic cultures (e.g., Heine, 2001; Markus & Kitayama, 1998). These competing hypotheses were tested in Church and colleagues’ (2008) six-​culture study, with participants from the United States, Australia, Mexico, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Japan. Participants rated 40 traits in general and in five

422 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

relational contexts:  with close friends, parents, professors, younger siblings or relatives, and strangers. The standard deviation indices in both the raw and ipsatized data were computed to examine cross-​role consistency in trait ratings. By and large, cross-​role consistency was evident in each of the cultures (i.e., the individualist cultures [United States, Australia] and the collectivist cultures [Mexico, Philippines, and Malaysia]), except for Japan (a prototypical dialectical culture; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Cross-​ role consistency also predicted adjustment indicators (self-​esteem, subjective well-​being, and social anxiety) in all cultures, with the strongest association being in the United States and the weakest in Japan. These results generally support the trait perspective that personality is consistent across roles, but since the individualism–​collectivism dimension could not explain the Japanese pattern, the authors inferred that the source of cultural variance was dialecticism. Other researchers have directly linked dialecticism (using the DSS) to two indices of cross-​role inconsistency. In English and Chen’s (2007) Study 2a, Asian and European American participants rated their standing on 15 attributes in two close relationships:  with their mother and with a friend. They further rated the traits’ desirability (i.e., how desirable it was to possess each attribute) and importance (i.e., how important each attribute was to their self-​concept). The authors then created two indices of cross-​role consistency based on the correlations between participants’ ratings for self-​with-​mother and self-​with-​friend. Asian Americans exhibited less self-​consistency across relationship contexts than did European Americans, and dialecticism (via DSS) mediated ethnic differences in cross-​role consistency. While mediational analysis identifies dialecticism as an underlying mechanism of self-​concept inconsistency, moderation analyses provide additional evidence for dialectical influences. Boucher (2011) differentiated three types of inconsistency (global self-​ concept inconsistency, within-​role inconsistency, and cross-​role inconsistency) and tested whether dialecticism moderated the link between self-​ inconsistency and well-​ being among mainland Chinese and Americans. The study employed 20 interpersonal traits and asked participants to rate themselves in general, as a son or daughter, and as a friend. Consistency indices were derived from within-​subject principal-​components factor analysis, in a manner similar to that used by Suh (2002). Dialecticism (as measured by DSS) moderated the effect of consistency (global self-​concept inconsistency, cross-​ role inconsistency, and within-​role inconsistency—​friend) on subjective well-​being such that the associations were stronger among individuals low

The Dialectical Self 

| 423

on dialecticism but weaker among those high on dialecticism. In other words, self-​concept inconsistency had a weaker negative effect on well-​ being among dialectical thinkers, regardless of culture, which suggests that self-​concept inconsistency is less detrimental for psychological health for these individuals. Directly testing the mediating and moderating effects of dialecticism provides more convincing evidence than using nationality (dialectical vs. non-​dialectical culture) as a proxy for the cultural variable of interest. In addition to role-​specific self-​views, some studies have measured the consistency of self-​ conceptions across situations. Compared with Americans, Koreans express inconsistent beliefs about the self across contexts, including testing sessions (Choi & Choi, 2002). They perceive themselves as extraverted or introverted depending on how the question is framed. Likewise, they evaluate their personality dimensions, in comparison to others, differently depending on the valence of the words in the question (Choi & Choi, 2002). Other research has compared self-​consistency in situational versus relational contexts. English and Chen (2007, Study 1a) randomly assigned participants to fill out questionnaires concerning situations or roles. The situational version presented four physical settings that are meaningful to college students, including a class discussion section, the gym, a party, and the cafeteria, and asked participants to choose two situations in which they were best able to describe themselves. The relational version presented two pairs of relationships, friends-​roommates and parents-​ siblings, and asked participants to choose the relationship in which they could best describe themselves. For both versions, participants gave self-​ ratings on 10 traits (five positive and five negative) in each situation or role. Using within-​person correlations across relationships or situations as consistency indices, the authors found significantly lower consistency across relationships and somewhat lower consistency across situations among Asian Americans compared to European Americans (although the latter difference did not reach significance). These findings suggest that dialectical thinkers’ self-​views vary somewhat more across relational than situational contexts (although these are somewhat confounded, as certain relationships are more likely to take place in certain physical settings than in others). To summarize, despite the use of different methods to compute consistency/​inconsistency indices (e.g., factor analyses, correlations, standard deviations, ambivalence indices), different attributes to assess self-​views (e.g., intrapersonal, interpersonal), and different levels of analysis (global,

424 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

cross-​role, cross-​situation), cultural variation in self-​concept inconsistency, and its relation to dialectical thinking, is clear and robust. Next, we consider the temporal stability of the self-​concept—​how the self changes over time—​from a dialectical perspective.

Temporal Stability Based on the theory of naïve dialecticism (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010), one would expect members of dialectical cultures (and dialectical individuals within various cultures) to exhibit less temporal stability in their self-​views than that among members of non-​dialectical linear cultures. Regrettably, relatively little research has examined the dynamic and fluid nature of the dialectical self over time, and more daily diary and longitudinal studies are needed on this topic. For example, to our knowledge, the relation of dialectical thinking to temporal stability of self-​ evaluative ambivalence and global self-​conceptions across cultures has not been investigated. The limited empirical evidence on the topic of temporal stability has focused on cultural differences in self-​consistency across and within roles over time. East Asians’ inconsistency across roles (e.g., with friends, with family, with co-​workers) raises the question of whether they perceive themselves as being their “true selves” or as “social chameleons.” For Westerners, consistency across relational contexts is central to one’s personal identity and sense of coherence (Heine, 2012). In cultures where relational mobility is high, opportunities to form new relationships abound, relational ties are dynamic, and social networks are freely chosen (Oishi, 2010; Schug, Yuki, & Maddux, 2010; Yuki et  al., 2007). Individuals are self-​reliant; when relationships are formed and dissolved easily, the building and sustaining of relationships are based on shared personal qualities (e.g., personality traits, physical characteristics). Idiosyncratic attributes therefore constitute essential, self-​defining features of identity, which are perceived as lying within individuals. These personal qualities are generally viewed as consistent across contexts and stable over time (Yuki et al., 2007). In East Asian cultures where relational mobility is low, relationships generally have been predetermined by extended family networks, relational ties are stable, and group boundaries are clear and fixed (Yuki et al., 2007). Personal qualities become less important. Fulfilling commitments and obligations required by extant relationships is beneficial for survival and effective functioning in the community. As such, inconsistency across

The Dialectical Self 

| 425

roles and situations or settings is inevitable (given different relational demands), but consistency within a given role over time might be valued (and even preferred). This was demonstrated in research by English and Chen (2007, Study 2b). Asian American and European American participants rated their standing on eight traits (relative to other college students) in two roles, with mother and with friend, as well as self-​view importance (i.e., the importance attached to one’s self-​views) and self-​enhancement (i.e., the motivation to see oneself positively). The ratings were collected again after approximately 65  days. The authors computed trait consistency scores for each role and averaged them across the two time points, for self-​view importance and self-​enhancement, separately. They also computed the stability of self-​view importance and self-​enhancement using within-​person correlations (i.e., correlations between each participant’s Time 1 and Time 2 ratings of self-​view importance and self-​enhancement for each role). Compared with European Americans, Asian Americans’ self-​ view importance and self-​enhancement ratings were less correlated across roles (self-​with-​mother and self-​with-​friend contexts), but within-​role stability was observed over time. That is, Asian Americans showed less consistency across relationships than did European Americans, but comparable temporal stability. In addition, English and Chen (2007, Study 1b) asked participants to evaluate themselves on 10 traits, either in two situations (e.g., party and discussion group) or in one of the two roles (as in Study 1a), but at two time points over 25 weeks. Once again, Asian Americans described themselves less consistently across roles than did European Americans (e.g., self-​with-​mother vs. self-​with-​friend) and yet not significantly differently across situations. Both cultural groups displayed highly stable relationship-​specific self-​views over time. Thus, the temporal stability of the self-​concept within social roles was supported across cultures. These findings have important implications for relationship outcomes in both Western non-​dialectical and East Asian dialectical cultures. In the West, being true to oneself is key, whereas in the East, being true and loyal to one’s relationships and roles is paramount. Self-​determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1995; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has identified three basic psychological needs: competence, relatedness, and autonomy, and has postulated that these needs are innate, essential, and universal. The fulfillment of these psychological needs contributes to mental health and well-​being. For members of Western non-​dialectical cultures, feelings of authenticity arise from being autonomous and congruent, which benefits both themselves and their relationships, as consistency fosters trust. However, this

426 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

is less relevant for members of dialectical cultures. Their need for relatedness is not fulfilled by expressing one’s “true self” across relational contexts, but by maintaining predictability with specific interaction partners. The interactionist perspective of personality × situation (Mischel & Shoda, 1995)  sheds light on our understanding of the dialectical self-​ concept across contexts and time. East Asians have an if-​then profile, in which if signifies the role or situation and then represents personal responses to the context. Personality traits are thus specific to the relationship but vary across roles and relationships (English & Chen, 2007). Indeed, consistency across roles did not contribute to subjective authenticity and relationship quality among Asian Americans (although it did for European Americans). Boucher (2011) also found that cross-​role consistency was less strongly related to personal authenticity among individuals with higher (than lower) levels of dialecticism, suggesting that dialectical thinkers’ sense of a “true self” does not depend on behavioral predictability when interacting with various kinds of people. However, consistency within relationships over time does predict subjective authenticity and relationship quality for both Asian and European Americans (English & Chen, 2011). These preliminary studies lend empirical support to both the fluidity of the dialectical self and the potential boundary conditions of this variability, although these studies need to be replicated in highly dialectical cultures, such China, Japan, and Korea. More longitudinal and experimental studies are warranted, moreover, to fully establish the causal association between dialecticism and the temporal instability of the self.

Self-​Verification Another line of research related to the temporal stability of the self-​ concept involves laboratory experiments on cross-​ cultural differences in self-​verification. Rather than comparing self-​descriptions across and within contexts over an interval of several weeks or months, researchers assess the change or stability of self-​perceptions when people receive feedback that is consistent or inconsistent with their prevailing self-​views. Self-​verification theory (Swann, 1983, 1987) asserts that people are motivated to confirm their self-​views—​whether positive or negative—​in order to maintain a sense of coherence and predictability. They tend to seek evidence and information in their social environments, including interaction partners, which verify their firmly held self-​beliefs in order to feel

The Dialectical Self 

| 427

authentic and understood. Given the dialectical nature of the East Asian self-​concept and the propensity to accept contradiction, one might expect East Asians to self-​verify less than Westerners. Dialectical thinkers’ fluid and changeable self-​views were demonstrated by Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2009b). In their experiment, participants completed a bogus personality test, received consistent or inconsistent feedback related to their levels of extraversion, and then completed another personality test. The researchers manipulated both the content (extraversion vs. introversion) and the valence (positive vs. negative) of the feedback participants received after the first personality test. The pre-​ test and post-​test personality ratings were then compared. After receiving contradictory feedback, non-​Asian Americans (European Americans, Latinos, etc.) verified their central self-​beliefs by rating themselves as slightly (though not significantly) more extraverted on the post-​test. They seemed to show resistance and even polarization, discounting the inconsistent feedback and exhibiting somewhat more extreme self-​ratings on extraversion. Conversely, Chinese participants changed their self-​views by adjusting their post-​test ratings in the direction of the contradictory feedback, regardless of whether the feedback was positive or negative. Asian Americans showed an intermediate pattern of responses, relative to Chinese and non-​Asian Americans. More importantly, these cultural differences were partially mediated by dialectical self-​conceptions (i.e., responses on the DSS). These findings suggest that Chinese are less inclined to self-​verify, even when the information they receive about themselves is unfavorable, in part due to their dialectical self-​concept. Other research suggests that members of dialectical cultures do self-​ verify, but only with respect to their situation-​specific self-​views (e.g., at a discussion section, gym, party, and cafeteria). Chen and colleagues (2006) conducted an experiment to test the relationship between dialectical thinking and self-​verification. European Americans and East Asian Americans completed an ostensibly newly developed computer-​based personality test, and then received feedback about their personality based on a subset of their responses on the test. They were randomly assigned to receive either verifying or non-​ verifying feedback regarding the content and valence of their self-​beliefs, which were assessed in a pre-​screening survey. Subsequently, participants rated the extent to which they agreed with the feedback. Interestingly, there was a significant self-​verification effect among individuals higher in dialecticism about their situation-​specific self-​views, but not among those lower in dialecticism. Specifically, dialectical thinkers (in both cultures) showed a preference for verifying over

428 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

non-​verifying feedback, relative to non-​dialectical thinkers. The authors interpreted these findings as indicating that dialectical thinkers have an “if-​then” manner of construing the self, such that their core self-​views are situationally and relationally dependent. Studies that compare global versus situation/​relationship-​specific self-​views are needed, however, especially among highly dialectical cultures (e.g., China, Japan, and Korea). In sum, the accumulating evidence suggests that dialectical thinkers, who are more likely to be members of East Asian countries, exhibit greater self-​ evaluative ambivalence, self-​ concept inconsistency, and temporal instability in their self-​views, as well as weaker self-​verification strivings, than do non-​dialectical thinkers, who more typically represent members of Western cultures. At the same time, the literature points to the potential boundary conditions of these cultural differences: relative to European Americans, Asian Americans demonstrated comparable self-​consistency across situations (English & Chen, 2007), comparable stability in their self-​conceptions within roles over time (English & Chen, 2007), and classic self-​verification effects with respect to situation-​specific self-​views (Chen et al., 2006). Future research will establish whether these boundary conditions hold for members of prototypical, highly dialectical cultures, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010). In the next section, we review the literature on topics closely related to the dialectical self, including self-​concept clarity (Campbell et al., 1996), self-​criticism, self-​monitoring (Snyder, 1974), and implicit theories of the self (Dweck & Leggett, 1988).

Constructs Related to the Dialectical Self Self-​Concept Clarity and Self-​Concept Certainty Although self-​concept inconsistency is largely attributable to dialecticism, a number of related constructs are also noteworthy and need to be differentiated from the dialectical self. Two notable constructs are self-​concept clarity and self-​concept certainty. Self-​concept clarity refers to self-​beliefs that are clearly and confidently defined, as well as internally consistent and temporally stable (see Self-​Concept Clarity Scale; Campbell, 1990; Campbell et al., 1996). Self-​concept certainty refers to the certainty or confidence with which self-​beliefs are maintained and typically has been indexed with confidence ratings or reaction time measures (Baumgardner, 1990; Campbell, 1990; Markus, 1977). The dual,

The Dialectical Self 

| 429

fluid, and incongruent nature of the dialectical self might appear to reflect low self-​concept clarity and low self-​concept certainty, but empirical studies suggest otherwise. If dialectical thinkers are less clear or certain about their self-​concept, they should take more time to answer self-​descriptive questions. Comparing reaction times on self-​descriptions between dialectical and non-​dialectical thinkers would be informative. Analyses of response latencies have revealed that Japanese and European Americans did not differ in the amount of time taken to make trait judgments, indicating that Japanese were not less certain about their self-​concept (Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2009a, Study 2). Moreover, the association between reaction time and self-​concept inconsistency was not significant among Japanese (although European Americans who responded more slowly did exhibit greater self-​concept inconsistency). In this sense, a lack of self-​concept certainty appears to contribute to self-​concept inconsistency in non-​dialectical cultures, but not in dialectical ones. Rather, tolerance of contradiction and the expectation of change seem to drive self-​concept inconsistency in East Asian dialectical cultures (Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010).

Self-​Criticism and Self-​Effacement A hot topic of debate in cultural psychology is whether or not the need for positive self-​regard is universal. Heine and colleagues (Heine & Hamamura, 2007; Heine et  al., 1999)  argue that, although self-​ enhancement is a widely assumed motive in Western societies, East Asians have more of a self-​critical or self-​improvement tendency. The implication of this debate for dialecticism research is whether cultural differences in self-​concept inconsistency are driven solely by self-​criticism—​that is, whether East Asians’ endorsement of contradictory personality traits (e.g., “organized” and “disorganized,” the latter trait being negative) arises from self-​criticism rather than dialecticism. Likewise, East Asians may exhibit modesty bias and self-​efface on positively keyed self-​statements (e.g., “I am organized”). Thus, both self-​criticism and dialecticism can give rise to higher self-​concept inconsistency scores. To address this issue, Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2009a, Study 4) tested whether cultural differences in self-​concept inconsistency were influenced by the valence of the personality traits participants rated. The authors constructed a self-​criticism index (by subtracting mean scores on negative traits from those of positive traits) and found no significant differences among Chinese, Asian Americans, and European Americans. Even

430 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

when the self-​criticism index was entered as a covariate in their analyses, cultural differences in self-​concept inconsistency remained significant. Thus, dialectical thinkers’ low internal self-​consistency is due to more than just self-​effacement.

High versus Low Self-​Monitoring Self-​monitoring denotes the regulation of one’s behavior either according to external situations, such as other people’s reactions, or to internal factors, such as personal attitudes, beliefs, values, and interests (Snyder, 1974). Low self-​monitors behave consistently across situations; high self-​ monitors change their behavior to match the situation (e.g., “Even if I’m not enjoying myself, I often pretend to be having a good time”). At first glance, high self-​monitors’ concern about the situational appropriateness of their social behaviors appears to resemble dialectical thinkers’ responsiveness to situations and contexts. The key issue here is whether dialectical thinkers are simply self-​monitoring when they adjust their behavior to the demands of the situation. Empirical studies present mixed findings on this topic. Dialectical self-​ conceptions (DSS) are positively correlated with scores on the Self-​Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974) (Chen et al., 2006). However, the correlations between self-​concept consistency (i.e., termed identity consistency; Suh, 2002)  and the three factors of the Self-​Monitoring Scale (Briggs, Cheek, & Buss, 1980) were mixed: identity consistency was positively related to the Extraversion factor, negatively related to the Other-​ Directedness factor, and unrelated to the Acting factor (Suh, 2002). Thus, it is difficult to draw a coherent conclusion about the relationship between dialectical self-​conceptions and self-​monitoring based on these correlational questionnaire data. Although somewhat empirically related, dialecticism and self-​monitoring are conceptually distinct constructs. While high self-​monitors may change their behavior from situation to situation, this behavioral inconsistency is driven by external factors and may not reflect true contradiction in the structure of self-​beliefs (an internal factor) (Chen et al., 2006). For dialectical thinkers, behavioral inconsistency stems directly from the structural inconsistency of the self-​concept. Thus the motivational factors driving the behavioral changes are distinct. Another limitation of this research is that the Self-​ Monitoring Scale assesses perceived behavioral inconsistency, and observational laboratory studies are needed to examine the associations between dialectical thinking, self-​monitoring, and actual behavioral changes.

The Dialectical Self 

| 431

Entity versus Incremental Theories of Self People hold implicit theories about the self and the world. The nature of the self-​concept can be characterized according to either an entity theory, which views abilities and traits as fixed, innate, and relatively stable across the lifespan, or an incremental theory, which views abilities and traits as dynamic, malleable, and ameliorable (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Implicit theories regarding the nature of the self vary across cultures and affect people’s strivings in the face of success and failure. North Americans tend to endorse an entity theory of self and exert more effort after success; in stark contrast, East Asians are likely to embrace an incremental theory of self and work harder after failure (e.g., Chiu, Dweck, Tong, & Fu, 1997; Hong, Chiu, Dweck, Lin, & Wan, 1999; Norenzayan, Choi, & Nisbett, 2002). One might expect that dialectical thinking (especially the principle of change) would be related to an incremental theory of self, as the latter is closely aligned with the changeable aspects of the dialectical self and the self-​improvement goals advocated by Eastern ideologies. In one study, Chen and colleagues (2006) failed to find a significant correlation between dialectical self-​ conceptions (as measured on the DSS) and an implicit theories of self measure, at least among Asian and European American participants. This is perhaps due to the focus of the two concepts: implicit theories of self pertain to perceptions of one’s personality (e.g., “The kind of person someone is something very basic about them and it can’t be changed very much”; Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997), whereas the DSS assesses beliefs about one’s broader self-​concept (e.g., “I find that my world is relatively stable and consistent”). In any event, more research and, in particular, studies in highly dialectical cultures are needed to clarify the relationship between dialectical self-​conceptions and implicit theories of self. Next, we consider some of the consequences of holding dialectical self-​ beliefs, particularly with respect to bilingual and bicultural contexts, and variables that are closely related to the self, such as emotion and psychological well-​being.

Consequences of the Dialectical Self Dialectical Self in Bilingual and Bicultural Contexts For the most part, studies on the dialectical self have used a cross-​cultural comparison design, contrasting the responses of members of dialectical

432 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

and non-​dialectical cultures on psychological measures (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010). This approach has established well-​grounded cultural differences in dialectical thinking. What about people who are exposed to and internalize two cultural systems? Do they adopt a blending model, which mixes their cultural knowledge and leads to intermediate responses and behaviors (i.e., in between those of monocultural groups, e.g., Heine & Lehman, 2004), or a frame-​switching model, which stores two or more cultural self-​views and activates the one that corresponds to environmental cues (e.g., Hong et al., 2000)? Evidence for blending comes from studies with East Asians residing in North America and Americans of East Asian descent. For instance, Asian Americans’ mean scores on self-​esteem are higher than those of mainland Chinese but lower than those of European Americans. Similarly, their self-​evaluative ambivalence scores (regardless of the indices used) were intermediate to those of Chinese and European Americans (e.g., Boucher et  al., 2009, Study 2; Spencer-​Rodgers et  al., 2004, Study 2). The same pattern held for Asian-​heritage students, whose ambivalent and moderate responses were higher than those of European-​ heritage students but lower than those of Japanese (Hamamura et al., 2008, Study 1). Alternatively, cultural priming methods provide support for the frame-​ switching model (for a review, see Oyserman & Lee, 2008). As a communication tool used to transmit cultural messages and markers of ethnic identity, language is a highly effective prime that elicits a set of shared knowledge systems, meanings, beliefs, and practices (e.g., Chen & Bond, 2010; Chiu, Leung, & Kwan, 2007; Lee, Oyserman, & Bond, 2010). Bilingual and bicultural individuals may store two or more knowledge structures in their minds and switch between different cultural selves as they switch languages. When responding in Chinese, Chinese-​English bilinguals in Canada wrote more collective self-​statements, scored lower on Rosenberg’s (1965) Self-​Esteem Scale, and agreed more with Chinese cultural views, compared with those responding in English (Ross, Xun, & Wilson, 2002). Bilinguals who responded in Chinese generated more evaluatively balanced (positive and negative) self-​descriptions, whereas those responding in English reported more positive self-​ descriptions. These patterns not only parallel established cultural differences in self-​ views between East Asians and North Americans, but they also indicate that the Chinese language activates a cultural mindset deeply entrenched in bicultural individuals. Boucher and O’Dowd (2011) tested language priming effects on various measures tapping dialectical thinking and dialectical self-​perceptions,

The Dialectical Self 

| 433

including the DSS, the AHS scale (Choi et al., 2007), the holism pictorial measure, and self-​concept inconsistency. Chinese-​English bilinguals studying in the United States responded to the measures in English or Chinese. The results of Chinese bilinguals answering in English were similar to those of European Americans. Bilinguals in the Chinese condition reported higher levels of dialectical thinking (global scores), tolerance of contradiction (subscale of the DSS), behavioral change (subscale of the DSS), holistic thinking (as measured by the AHS), and self-​concept inconsistency than did their counterparts in the English condition. The condition differences for cognitive change (subscale of the DSS), the holism pictorial measure, and negative self-​esteem scores were in the predicted direction but did not reach significance. These results provide direct evidence that the Chinese language evokes dialectical thinking and self-​concept inconsistency (for an extensive review of the association between the Chinese language and yin-​yang thinking, see Chapter 2 in this volume). Extending this line of research, a series of studies by Chen, Benet-​ Martínez, and Ng (2014) showed that language priming also elicits perceptions of inconsistency and variability in one’s personality and behavior and in those of others, and that these effects are related to dialectical thinking. The authors argued that when bilinguals learn and use their two languages, they develop stereotypic perceptions about native speakers of these languages, which may then be evoked by the languages (when written and spoken) and by the ethnicity of their conversation partners. Study 1 employed a within-​subject design, in which Chinese-​English bilinguals in Hong Kong responded in Chinese or English. They reported greater dialectical thinking (DSS) and perceived more differences in the personality profiles of both typical native speakers of Chinese and typical native speakers of English when participants responded in Chinese, relative to English. Study 2 replicated the results for dialectical thinking (DSS) and perceived personality inconsistency with another sample of Chinese-​English bilinguals in mainland China, using a between-​subject design. The study further tested the mediational effect of dialectical thinking and showed that differences in perceived personality inconsistency between language conditions were partially accounted for by dialectical thinking. These findings suggest that the Chinese language activates dialectical thinking, which in turn leads to greater perceived personality inconsistency. Study 3 went beyond paper-​ and-​ pencil measures and manipulated language in actual conversations. Chinese-​English bilingual participants (all of Chinese descent) talked to bilingual interlocutors of Chinese and

434 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Caucasian descent in both Chinese and English. They completed the DSS, and their conversations were filmed and rated by bilingual observers. Analyses were based on self-​ratings, interlocutor ratings, and observer ratings. (The participants themselves, their interaction partners, and impartial observers rated their personality traits and behaviors during the conversations.) Bilinguals who scored higher on dialectical thinking perceived themselves to behave, think, and feel differently when speaking Chinese than when speaking English and when talking with interlocutors of different ethnicities, relative to those lower in dialecticism. Study 4 used a thin-​slicing judgment method to examine language effects beyond verbal and semantic features. The muted video segments of Chinese-​English bilinguals engaging in conversations were evaluated by bilingual observers. The targets’ self-​ reported dialecticism scores (DSS) predicted judges’ perceptions of the targets’ cultural orientations more strongly in the Chinese than the English condition, indicating that bilinguals’ culturally embedded cognitive orientation (dialectical thinking) was more observable when they spoke Chinese than when they spoke English. Given that the verbal content was not available to the judges, these characteristics must have been manifested in the targets’ nonverbal communicative behavior. In sum, these studies attest to the importance of dialectical thinking in the communication of members of dialectical cultures, whether written, spoken, or nonverbal. The studies on the dialectical self in bilingual and bicultural contexts seem to suggest that rather than blending contradictory cultural elements into an integrated whole, Chinese bilinguals and biculturals tend to adopt dynamic, contextualized self-​views (Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011; Chen et  al., 2014; Chen, Benet-​Martínez, Wu, Lam, & Bond, 2013). Western biculturals (e.g., Latinos/​Hispanics) are also relatively adept at cultural frame-​switching (e.g., Ramírez-​Esparza, Gosling, Benet-​Martínez, Potter, & Pennebaker, 2006), but because East Asian biculturals and bilinguals tend to be dialectical, they may be especially adept at these cognitive processes. East Asians may readily retain both cultural identities in memory, alternate across situations, and tolerate the resulting behavioral inconsistencies. When cues in the social environment activate one of the cultural systems, biculturals utilize schemas and experiences acquired from that system and respond in accordance with the normative patterns in that culture (Hong, Benet-​Martínez, Chiu, & Morris, 2003). The implications of the dialectical self for malleable racial and ethnic identification are reviewed extensively in Chapter 16.

The Dialectical Self 

| 435

Emotions, Coping, and Psychological Well-​Being The possession of a dialectical self has salient consequences—​both negative and positive—​for emotions, coping, and psychological well-​being. These topics are thoroughly discussed in Chapters 18, 20, and 19, respectively. In the affective domain, tolerance for contradiction is thought to induce more negative emotions (emotional complexity) and results in poorer psychological well-​being, as assessed by self-​report questionnaire measures (Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2004; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et  al., 2010). This link is especially prominent in Western cultures, since incongruity generates cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957 Thompson et al., 1995). Westerners are uncomfortable with ambiguities, but East Asians are less troubled by contradictions. Tolerance for contradiction makes East Asians more at ease with opposing or mixed emotions (e.g., Goetz et  al., 2008), and the strong negative correlations between positive and negative feelings observed among Westerners are not evident among East Asians (Perunovic, Heller, & Rafaeli, 2007; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2004), who tend to embrace emotional complexity. On the positive side, dialectical thinkers exhibit greater coping flexibility when dealing with stress, using problem-​or emotion-​ focused strategies in response to controllable and uncontrollable situations, respectively (Cheng, 2009; see Chapter 20 in this volume). However, dialectical thinkers tend to be highly sensitive to contextual cues, they recognize self-​deficiencies, and they expect and accept the “bad along with the good” in all things, including the self, life, and the future. These factors, along with the constant monitoring of one’s behavior to accommodate situational demands, can be psychologically taxing, leading to greater psychological distress and poorer mental health (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010).

Conclusion To summarize, dialectical thinking influences the internal consistency, cross-​role/​situational consistency, and temporal stability of people’s self-​ conceptions, and affects the valence, content, and structure of people’s self-​beliefs. A  wide variety of cross-​cultural methodologies—​from self-​ report questionnaires, to experimental priming studies, to longitudinal analyses—​have demonstrated that members of non-​dialectical Western cultures possess more consistent and stable self-​conceptions across contexts and over time, whereas members of dialectical East Asian cultures hold more variable and contextualized self-​views, at both an explicit and implicit level. A  solid body of research now exists on the topic of the

436 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

dialectical self. Yet, there are many exciting avenues available for future investigation. To illustrate, scholars could examine the nature and prevalence of dialectical self-​conceptions in other cultures, beyond those of Anglo European or East Asian origin (see Chapter  21 in this volume). More experimental manipulations and observational behavioral studies are needed (similar to Chen et al., 2014) to fully test the link between dialectical self-​conceptions and people’s actual responses to situational and relational demands in different contexts and over time. We see these, and others, as promising areas for future research.

References Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). Inclusion of other in the Self Scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596–​612. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.63.4.596 Baumgardner, A. H. (1990). To know oneself is to like oneself: Self-​certainty and self-​ affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 1062–​1072. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.58.6.1062 Boucher, H. C. (2011). The dialectical self-​concept II: Cross-​role and within-​role consistency, well-​ being, self-​ certainty, and authenticity. Journal of Cross-​ Cultural Psychology, 42, 1251–​1271. doi:10.1177/​0022022110383316 Boucher, H. C., & O’Dowd, M. C. (2011). Language and the bicultural dialectical self. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17, 211–​216. doi:10.1037/​a0023686 Boucher, H. C., Peng, K., Shi, J., & Wang, L. (2009). Culture and implicit self-​ esteem: Chinese are “good” and “bad” at the same time. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 40, 24–​45. doi:10.1177/​0022022108326195 Briggs, S. R., Cheek, J. M., & Buss, A. H. (1980). An analysis of the self-​monitoring scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 679–​686. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.38.4.679 Campbell, J. D. (1990). Self-​esteem and clarity of the self-​concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 538–​549. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.59.3.538 Campbell, J. D., Trapnell, P. D., Heine, S. J., Katz, I. M., Lavallee, L. F., & Lehman, D. R. (1996). Self-​concept clarity:  Measurement, personality correlates, and cultural boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 141–​156. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.70.1.141 Chen, S., English, T., & Peng, K. (2006). Self-​verification and contextualized self-​ views. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 930–​ 942. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167206287539 Chen, S. X., Benet-​Martínez, V., & Ng, J. C. K. (2014). Does language affect personality perception? A functional approach to testing the Whorfian hypothesis. Journal of Personality, 82, 130–​143. doi:10.1111/​jopy.12040 Chen, S. X., Benet-​Martínez, V., Wu, W. C. H., Lam, B. C. P., & Bond, M. H. (2013). The role of dialectical self and bicultural identity integration in psychological adjustment. Journal of Personality, 81, 61–​75. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​6494.2012.00791.x

The Dialectical Self 

| 437

Chen, S. X., & Bond, M. H. (2010). Two languages, two personalities? Examining language effects on the expression of personality in a bilingual context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 1514–​1528. doi:10.1177/​0146167210385360 Cheng, C. (2009). Dialectical thinking and coping flexibility: A multimethod approach. Journal of Personality, 77(2), 471–​493. doi:10.1111/​j.1467-​6494.2008.00555.x Chiu, C., Hong, Y., & Dweck, C. S. (1997). Lay dispositionism and implicit theories of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 19–​30. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.73.1.19 Chiu, C., Dweck, C.S., Tong, J.Y., & Fu, J.H. (1997). Implicit theories and conceptions of morality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 923-​940. Chiu, C-​ Y., Leung, A. K.-​ Y., & Kwan, L. (2007). Language, cognition, and culture: Beyond the Whorfian hypothesis. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.), The handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 668–​688). New York: Guilford Press. Choi, I., & Choi, Y. (2002). Culture and self-​concept flexibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1508–​1517. doi:10.1177/​014616702237578 Choi, I., Koo, M., & Choi, J. A. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 691–​705. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167206298568 Church, A. T., Anderson-​Harumi, C. A., del Prado, A. M., Curtis, G. J., Tanaka-​Matsumi, J., Valdez-​Medina, J. L., et  al. (2008). Culture, cross-​role consistency, and adjustment: Testing trait and cultural psychology perspectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 739–​755. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.95.3.739 Cousins, S. D. (1989). Culture and self-​perception in Japan and the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 124–​ 131. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.56.1.124 Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1995). Human autonomy: The basis for true self-​esteem. In M. Kemis (Ed.). Efficacy, agency, and self-​esteem (pp. 31–​49). New York: Plenum Press. Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-​cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256–​273. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.95.2.256 English, T., & Chen, S. (2007). Culture and self-​concept stability:  Consistency across and within contexts among Asian Americans and European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 478–​490. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.93.3.478 English, T., Chen, S. (2011). Self-​concept consistency and culture:  The differential impact of two forms of consistency. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 838–​849. doi:10.1177/​0146167211400621 Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Fletcher, G. J. O., Danilvics, P., Fernandez, G., Peterson, D., & Reeder, G. D. (1986). Attributional complexity: An individual differences measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 875–​884. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.51.4.875 Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Using the Implicit Association Test to measure self-​esteem and self-​concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1022–​1038. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.79.6.1022 Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–​1480. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.74.6.1464

438 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Goetz, J. L., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2008). Dialectical emotions: How cultural epistemologies influence the experience and regulation of emotional complexity. In R. M. Sorrentino & S. Yamaguchi (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition. Hamamura, T., Heine, S. J., & Paulhus, D. L. (2008). Culture differences in response styles: The role of dialectical thinking. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 932–​942. doi:10.1016/​j.paid.2007.10.034 Hartley, W. S. (1970). Manual for the twenty statements problem. Kansas City, MO: Department of Research, Greater Kansas City Mental Health Foundation. Heine, S. J. (2001). Self as cultural product:  An examination of East Asian and North American selves. Journal of Personality, 69, 881–​906. doi:10.1111/​1467-​6494.696168 Heine, S. J. (2012). Cultural Psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. Heine, S. J., & Hamamura, T. (2007). In search of East Asian self-​enhancement. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 4–​27. doi:10.1177/​1088868306294587 Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (2004). Move the body, change the self:  Acculturative effects on the self-​concept. In M. Schaller & C. Crandall (Eds.), Psychological foundations of culture (pp. 305–​331). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-​regard? Psychological Review, 106, 766 –​794. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.106.4.766 Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Hong, Y. Y., Benet-​Martínez, V., Chiu, C. Y., & Morris, M. W. (2003). Boundaries of cultural influence:  Construct activation as a mechanism for cultural differences in social perception. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 34, 453–​464. doi:10.1177/​ 0022022103034004005 Hong, Y. Y., Chiu, C. Y., Dweck, C. S., Lin, D., & Wan, W. (1999). Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 588 –​ 599. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.77.3.588 Hong, Y. Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C. Y., & Benet-​Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds:  A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55, 709–​720. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.55.7.709 Jang, K. L., McCrae, R. R., Angleitner, A., Riemann, R., & Livesley, W. J. (1998). Heritability of facet-​level traits in a cross-​cultural twin sample: Support for a hierarchical model of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1556–​ 1565. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.74.6.1556 Kanagawa, C., Cross, S. E., & Markus, H. R. (2001). “Who am I?” The cultural psychology of the conceptual self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 90–​103. doi:10.1177/​0146167201271008 Kaplan, K. J. (1972). On the ambivalence-​indifference problem in attitude theory and measurement:  A suggested modification of the semantic differential technique. Psychological Bulletin, 77, 361–​372. doi:10.1037/​h0032590 Kim, Y.-​H., Peng, S., & Chiu, C.-​Y. (2008). Explaining self-​esteem differences between Chinese and North Americans: Dialectical self (vs. self-​consistency) or lack of positive self-​regard. Self and Identity, 7, 113–​128. doi:10.1080/​15298860601063437 Lee, S. W. S., Oyserman, D., & Bond, M. H. (2010). Am I doing better than you? That depends on whether you ask me in English or Chinese: Self-​enhancement effects of

The Dialectical Self 

| 439

language as a cultural mindset prime. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 785–​791. doi:10.1016/​j.jesp.2010.04.005 Ma-​Kellams, C., Spencer-​Rodgers, J. & Peng, K. (2011). I am against us? Unpacking cultural differences in ingroup favoritism via dialecticism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 15–​27. Markus, H. (1977). Self-​schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63–​78. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.35.2.63 Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self:  Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–​253. doi:10.1037/​ 0033-​295X.98.2.224 Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1998). The cultural psychology of personality. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 29, 63–​87. doi:10.1177/​0022022198291004 McCrae, R. R., & Allik, J. (Eds.). (2002). The five-​factor model of personality across cultures. New York: Kluwer Academic/​Plenum. McPartland, T. S., Cumming, J. H., & Garreston, W. S. (1961). Self-​conception and ward behavior in two psychiatric hospitals. Sociometry, 24, 111–​124. Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-​affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102, 246–​268. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.102.2.246 Nisbett, R. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently . . . and why. New York: Free Press. Norenzayan, A., Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (2002). Cultural similarities and differences in social inference: Evidence from behavioral predictions and lay theories of behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 109–​120. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167202281010 Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2001). The go/​no-​go association task. Social Cognition, 19, 625–​666. Oishi, S. (2010). The psychology of residential mobility: Implications for the self, social relationships, and well-​ being. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 5–​21. doi:10.1177/​1745691609356781 Oyserman, D., & Lee, S. (2008). Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism. Psychological Bulletin, 34, 311–​342. doi:10.1037/​0033-​2909.134.2.311 Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54, 741–​754. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.54.9.741 Peng, K., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Zhong, N. (2006). Naive dialecticism and the Tao of Chinese thought. In U. Kim, K.-​S. Yang, & K.-​K. Hwang (Eds.), Indigenous and cultural psychology: Understanding people in context (pp. 247–​262). New York: Springer. Perunovic, W. Q.  E., Heller, D., & Rafaeli, E. (2007). Within-​person changes in the structure of emotion: The role of cultural identification and language. Psychological Science, 18, 607–​613. Priester, J., & Petty, R. (1996). The gradual threshold model of ambivalence: Relating the positive and negative bases of attitudes to subjective ambivalence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 431–​449. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.71.3.431 Rahim, A. (1983). A measure of styles of handling interpersonal conflict. Academy of Management Journal, 26, 368–​376. doi:10.2307/​255985

440 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Ramírez-​Esparza, N., Gosling, S. D., Benet-​Martínez, V., Potter, J. P., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2006). Do bilinguals have two personalities? A special case of cultural frame switching. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 99–​120. doi:10.1016/​j.jrp.2004.09.001 Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-​image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ross, M., Xun, W. Q.  E., & Wilson, A. E. (2002). Language and the bicultural self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1040–​ 1050. doi:10.1177/​ 01461672022811003 Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-​determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-​being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–​78. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.55.1.68 Schimmack, U., Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2002). Cultural inferences on the relation between pleasant emotions and unpleasant emotions:  Asian dialectic philosophies or individualism-​collectivism? Cognition & Emotion, 16, 705–​719. doi:10.1080/​ 02699930143000590 Schug, J., Yuki, M., & Maddux, W. (2010). Relational mobility explains between-​and within-​culture differences in self-​disclosure to close friends. Psychological Science, 21, 1471–​1478. doi:10.1177/​0956797610382786 Scott, W. A. (1966). Brief report: Measures of cognitive structure. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1, 391–​395. doi:10.1207/​s15327906mbr0103_​9 Singelis, T. M. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-​ construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 580–​591. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167294205014 Snyder, M. (1974). Self-​monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526–​537. doi:10.1037/​h0037039 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Mori, S. C., Wang, L., & Peng, K. (2009a). The dialectical self-​ concept:  Contradiction, change, and holism in East Asian cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 29–​ 44. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167208325772 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Boucher, H. C., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2009b). Cultural differences in self-​verification: The role of naive dialecticism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 860–​866. doi:10.1016/​j.jesp.2009.03.004 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2004). The dialectical self: Contradiction, change, and holism in the East Asian self-​concept. In R. M. Sorrentino, D. Cohen, J. M. Olsen, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Culture and social behavior: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 10, pp. 227–​250). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East–​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1416–​1432. doi:10.1177/​0146167204264243 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Srivastava, S., Boucher, H. C., English, T., Paletz, S. B., Wang, L., et al. (2010). The Dialectical Self Scale. Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Santa Barbara. Spencer-​ Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction:  A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 296–​312. doi:10.1177/​ 1088868310362982

The Dialectical Self 

| 441

Sternberg, R. J., & Wagner, R. K. (1991). MSG thinking styles inventory manual (Unpublished manuscript). Suh, E. M. (2002). Culture, identity consistency, and subjective well-​being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1378–​1391. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.83.6.1378 Swann, W. B., Jr. (1983). Self-​verification: Bringing social reality into harmony with the self. In J. Suls & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Social psychological perspectives on the self (Vol. 2, pp. 33–​66). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Swann, W. B., Jr. (1987). Identity negotiation: Where two roads meet. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1038–​1051. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.53.6.1038 Thompson, M., Zanna, M., & Griffin, D. (1995). Let’s not be indifferent about (attitudinal) ambivalence. In R. Petty & J. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 361–​386). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview. Triandis, H. C. (1996). The psychological measurement of cultural syndromes. American Psychologist, 51, 407–​415. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.51.4.407 Yuki, M., Schug, J., Horikawa, H., Takemura, K., Sato, K., Yokota, K., & Kamaya, K. (2007). Development of a scale to measure perceptions of relational mobility in society. CERSS Working Paper 75, Center for Experimental Research in Social Sciences, Hokkaido University. Zell, E., Su, R., Li, H., Ho, M., Hong, S., Kumkale, T., . . . Albarracín, D. (2013). Cultural differences in attitudes toward action and inaction: The role of dialecticism. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4, 521–​528. doi:10.1177/​1948550612468774

442 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

­C HAPTER 15 Dialecticism and the Future Self in Cultural Contexts Relation to Well-​Being Qi Wang, Yubo Hou, and Tracy Gould

It all begins with this widely known Chinese folk story (Liu An, 139 bc): There once was a father, skilled in divination, who lived close to the frontier with his son. One of his horses accidentally strayed into the lands of the northern tribes, so everyone consoled him. But the father said, “Why should I hastily conclude that this is not fortunate?” After several months, the horse came back from the land of the northern tribes, accompanied by another stallion, so everyone congratulated him. But the father said, “Why should I hastily conclude that this can not be unfortunate?” His family had a wealth of fine horses, and his son loved riding them. One day the son fell off a horse, and broke his leg, so everyone consoled the father. But the father said, “Why should I hastily conclude that this is not fortunate?” One year later, the northern tribes invaded the frontier, and all able-​bodied men took up arms and went to war. Of the men from the frontier who volunteered, nine out of ten men perished from the fighting. It was only because of the son’s broken leg, that the father and son were spared this tragedy.

This story tells us that a seeming gain may turn out to be a cause of misfortune, and a seeming disaster may turn out to be a blessing. This dialectical view of the changing world is deeply rooted in Chinese religious and philosophical thinking: everything has a positive side and a negative side, and the two sides are dynamically related and interchangeable. Recent research in psychology has further shown that Chinese individuals, not

unlike the father in the story, often view things as inherently contradictory and constantly changing in direction in their development. They frequently predict changes in both positive and negative directions, in such areas as individual performance, the experience of happiness, interpersonal relations, income, and even the trend of the stock market (Ji, 2008; Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010; for a review, see Chapter 1 in this volume). People’s views of the world are often mirrored in their views of themselves. Studies by Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, and colleagues have shown that Chinese individuals often view themselves as possessing opposing qualities (e.g., shy and outgoing; good and bad; for a review, see Chapter 14 in this volume) and as fluctuating across situations and roles (Spencer-​ Rogers, Boucher, Mori, Wang, & Peng, 2009; Spencer-​Rodgers & Peng, 2004; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). Less is known about the perception of the self across time and its relation to dialectical thinking. In this chapter, we discuss the role of dialecticism in the perception and prediction of one’s future self. We first look at the future self-​concept, namely, the conceptual representation of what the self may become in the future, similar to Markus’ possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986). We compare people’s future self-​concepts with their past and current self-​concepts to examine the change of valence in the conceptual self across time. We then move on to the episodic future self, a special form of future self-​knowledge that involves the anticipation of specific future personal events (Schacter, 2012; Szpunar, 2010). We examine the valence change between recalled past experiences and anticipated future episodes to trace the change in the episodic self over time. We further discuss the relation of dialectical thinking and the future self to psychological well-​being. Throughout our discussion, we present original data from a cross-​cultural project with mainland Chinese and European American college students to illustrate the psychological and cultural foundations of the future self.

Dialectical Thinking Dialectical thinking as a doctrine or worldview has ancient origins in Eastern and Greco-​Roman philosophy (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). It constitutes principles of emergence and development that consider things and phenomena as changing and interdependent. The concept is rooted in three underlying theories:  the theory of change, the theory of contradiction, and the theory of holism. The theory of change views change as a natural

444 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

way of life and the world as in constant flux; the theory of contradiction states that two opposing parts can exist simultaneously; and the theory of holism views the world as made up of many interrelated parts. Dialectical thinking thus represents a general understanding that reality is something that changes and becomes and combines opposites within itself (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rogers et al., 2009). Although dialectical thinking can be traced back to both ancient Eastern and Western philosophical thoughts, it is more prominent among East Asians, who exhibit greater tolerance for contradiction, greater tendency to expect change, and greater cognitive holism when compared with Westerners (Ji, 2008; Ji et al., 2001; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). In contrast, Westerners, particularly European Americans, tend to seek to reconcile inconsistencies, perceive things as stable or consistent over time and across situations, and demonstrate analytical thinking in focusing on individual objects rather than their relations. East Asian dialectical thinking reflects the profound influence of Confucianism and Taoism in East Asian cultures (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rogers et al., 2009). We conducted a study that examined dialectical thinking and the self among Chinese undergraduate students at Peking University (N  =  99; 50 females) and European American undergraduate students at Cornell University (N  =  99; 61 females). Participants completed the Dialectical Self Scale (DSS), developed by Spencer-​Rodgers and colleagues (2010). The scale consists of 32 statements to assess the extent to which individuals hold dialectical beliefs about the self, including three subscales related to, respectively, contradiction (e.g., “When I hear two sides of an argument, I often agree with both”), cognitive change (e.g., “I often find that my beliefs and attitudes will change under different contexts”), and behavioral change (e.g., “The way I behave usually has more to do with immediate circumstances than with my personal preferences”).1 A higher score in the total scale or a subscale indicates a greater tendency to exhibit dialectical thinking (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2010). Consistent with previous findings, our Chinese participants (M = 3.88) scored higher than European Americans (M = 3.78) on the overall DSS, although the difference was not significant and smaller in magnitude than in prior studies (e.g., Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2009). When each subscale was examined separately, the cultural difference was only significant for the behavioral change subscale. Figure 15.1 illustrates the mean DSS subscale scores as a function of culture. We speculate that because our data were collected fairly recently (2012), the scores may reflect ideologies in the current Chinese society that have

Dialecticism and the Future Self in Cultural Contexts 

| 445

5 *

Mean Score

4

3

2

1 Contradiction

Cognitive Change Chinese

Behavioral Change

Euro-American

Figure 15.1  Mean DSS subscale scores as a function of culture. Cultural difference was significant for the behavioral change subscale. *p  0.15). There was no significant difference in dialecticism when comparing Europe to South America (p = .99, d = 0.02). Despite these findings, comparisons across continents using the current data must be interpreted with caution, as the countries sampled may not be representative of the continents as a whole. Further, it important to note that there was substantial variation in dialecticism within continents. In sum, these results provide evidence suggesting that dialectical thinking about the self is significantly more pronounced in East Asian than in Western cultures and in cultures that are classified as dialectical as opposed to non-​dialectical on a priori grounds. It is important to note that our results are limited by a reliance on self-​report data, which are prone to response biases (e.g., responding in a socially desirable manner). Additionally, all participants were college students, which limits generalizability (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzeyan, 2010). Nonetheless, the overall pattern of results confirmed our expectations regarding cultural differences in dialecticism.

4.0 3.9

Dialecticism

3.8 3.7 3.6 3.5 3.4 North America

South America

Europe

Asia

Figure 21.1  Mean dialecticism scores by continent. Error bars are ±1 SEM. Scores range from 1 to 7.

Dialectical Thinking and Attitudes toward Action/Inaction 

| 599

Having demonstrated variations in dialecticism across cultures, we next examine whether cultural variations in dialecticism can be used to predict attitudes toward basic constructs that are of important relevance to everyday life. Specifically, we examine whether cultural differences in dialecticism predict how favorably people evaluate the general constructs of action and inaction.

Dialecticism and Attitudes toward Action/​Inaction We conceptualize action and inaction as two endpoints along a continuum, with frequent/​intense output representing the action side (e.g., running) and infrequent/​reduced output representing the inaction side (e.g., sleeping; Albarracín, Hepler, & Tannenbaum, 2011). Action/​inaction goals can be temporality primed by contextual cues, such as the words stop and go (Albarracín et  al., 2008; Hart & Albarracín, 2012). Additionally, action and inaction goals can operate in a trait-​like fashion; some people engage in a larger number of activities than others (Hepler & Albarracín, 2014), and some people have more favorable attitudes toward action and/​or inaction than others (Ireland, Hepler, & Albarracín, 2015; McCulloch, Li, Hong, & Albarracín, 2012). One potential contributor to people’s general orientation toward action and inaction is culture. Consistent with this argument, past research has demonstrated that there are pronounced cultural differences in rates of active behavior, such as walking, stimulant use, and voting (Levine & Norenzayan, 1999; Noguchi, Handley, & Albarracín, 2011). People in Australia, Iceland, and Norway show greater activity levels when averaged across multiple indices than those of people in Uganda, Vietnam, and Bangladesh (Noguchi et al., 2011). In our research, we examined whether cultures differ in their attitudes toward the constructs of action and inaction, such as how useful people think action and inaction are for daily life, and whether dialecticism predicts the association of these attitudes (i.e., the degree to which they are correlated; Zell et al., 2013). In light of past studies showing that dialectical thinking is associated with greater balance and moderation in self-​perception and emotional experience (Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010; Chapters 14 and 18, this volume), we anticipated that people from dialectical cultures would report greater balance and moderation in their attitudes toward action and inaction than people from non-​dialectical cultures. Whereas people from dialectical cultures should show complementary attitudes toward the

600 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

opposing constructs of action and inaction, resulting in a positive association, people from non-​dialectical cultures should hold oppositional, polarized attitudes toward the constructs of action and inaction, resulting in a negative association. Thus, we anticipated that the correlation between attitudes toward action and inaction would be more positive when examining people in dialectical cultures than when examining people in non-​ dialectical cultures. To test these hypotheses, participants in our cross-​cultural study completed measures of attitudes toward action and inaction (see McCulloch et al., 2012). Attitudes toward action were assessed using items such as “Action is essential for life” and attitudes toward inaction were assessed using items such as “Inaction offers many benefits.” As with the DSS, both attitude measures showed adequate cross-​cultural reliability and validity (Zell et al., 2013). Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to examine whether dialecticism scores moderated the relation between attitudes toward action and inaction at the individual level (Level 1) and the nation level (Level 2). Our analyses focused on the relation between attitudes toward action and inaction instead of mean level differences. However, for descriptive purposes, we also examined whether mean level differences in attitudes toward action and inaction varied across cultures.3 Consistent with predictions, results showed that the relation between attitudes toward action and inaction varied substantially across nations and that this variation was significantly predicted by nation-​level dialecticism. That is, people from high-​dialecticism nations evidenced a more positive association in their attitudes toward action and inaction than people from low-​dialecticism nations (β [standardized path coefficient]  =  .175, p < .001). Further, descriptive analyses of means showed that whereas people from high-​dialecticism nations typically reported similar attitudes toward action and inaction, people from low-​dialecticism nations typically reported a strong preference for action over inaction. Notably, the relation between dialecticism and attitudes toward action/​ inaction remained significant after controlling for other relevant variables that have been shown to vary across nations, such as neuroticism, individualism–​collectivism, and gross domestic product (β’s > .160, p’s, < .001), and dialecticism yielded a substantially larger effect than each of these predictors. Further, the relation between dialecticism and attitudes toward action/​inaction could not be attributed to cultural differences in response style. Specifically, dialecticism remained a significant predictor of the relation between attitudes toward action and inaction when nation-​ level reliabilities on the attitude scales were entered as level 2 predictors

Dialectical Thinking and Attitudes toward Action/Inaction 

| 601

into the model (β  =  .172, p < .001). Taken together, these findings are consistent with the perspective that dialecticism is a unique and, in some cases, more potent predictor of cultural differences in attitudes than other cultural variables that have received extensive attention in the literature. Consistent with prior research suggesting that dialecticism is a meaningful individual difference variable (see Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010), we also found that individual differences in dialecticism yielded similar effects to nation-​level differences in dialecticism. That is, people with high dialecticism scores, relative to others in their country with low dialecticism scores, showed a more positive association in their attitudes toward action/​inaction (β = .084, p < .001). Further, use of a multilevel model indicated that individual-​and nation-​level effects were unique. That is, the effect of cultural differences in dialecticism remained after accounting for individual differences and, similarly, the effect of individual differences in dialecticism remained after accounting for cultural differences. These findings suggest that one’s own dialectical thinking and the level of dialectical thinking present in one’s society are both important predictors of action/​inaction attitudes. Although our primary, aggregate-​level analysis focused on cultural differences using nation-​level scores on the DSS, we also conducted a supplemental analysis that dummy coded 4 societies as dialectical (mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore) and the other 15 societies as non-​dialectical (see Schimmack et  al., 2002 for a similar approach). Consistent with the primary analysis, dialectical societies showed a more positive association in their action/​inaction attitudes than did non-​ dialectical societies. Thus, the effect of cultural differences in dialecticism on attitudes toward action and inaction was observed both when dialecticism was directly measured as an individual difference variable and when it simply was inferred on the basis of previous theory regarding the characteristics of national groups (Peng & Nisbett, 1999).

Dialectical Thinking Outside East Asia Our findings show that dialecticism varies significantly across regions and is most prevalent in East Asian cultures. However, dialecticism was still present to some degree in the other cultures we investigated. As can be seen in Table 21.1, countries such as England and Norway reported levels of dialecticism that were only slightly lower than those observed in East Asia. The high level of dialecticism in countries such as England and

602 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Norway is surprising in light of previous theory (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010). Even in the least dialectical societies (e.g., Guatemala, Turkey), mean dialecticism scores hovered around the scale mid-​point (4). Further, there was substantial variability in DSS scores within countries as shown by the standard deviation (SD) values in Table 21.1. Finally, laboratory studies have found that dialecticism can be primed among Americans and leads to similar behavioral effects as when primed among East Asians (Alter & Kwan, 2009; Spencer-​Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004). Therefore, dialectical thinking exists to some degree in a variety of cultures and regions outside of East Asia. Previous theory has argued that philosophies such as Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism likely contribute to the high levels of dialecticism observed in East Asian societies (Nisbett, 2003; Peng & Nisbett, 1999), but less work has focused on factors that contribute to dialecticism in Western cultures. We discuss potential contributors to dialectical thought in Western cultures in the next section.

Origins of Dialectical Thinking across Cultures A variety of environmental, sociopolitical, and economic factors may contribute to the prevalence of dialectical and “linear” thinking across the globe (see Nisbett, 2003, and Chapters 1 and 2 in this volume for comprehensive reviews). For example, regions with fertile plains, low mountains, and navigable rivers tend to become agricultural in nature, the rice farming tradition of southern China and Japan being a characteristic example. Agricultural peoples must live and work together in tight-​knit communities, which can increase social sensitivity and the desire to think and behave in ways that harmonize the self with others (Varnum, Grossmann, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2010). The desire for social harmony may yield thinking styles that resolve contradictory views through compromise and the seeking of solutions by finding a “middle path.” Alternatively, regions that are mountainous and closer to the sea may promote hunting, herding, fishing, and trade—​lifestyles that require little cooperation and less communal living arrangements. The isolation and individualism these lifestyles engender may reduce the social sensitivity and desire for harmony characteristic of dialectical cultures. Further, philosophical and epistemological factors, such as religion and education, may contribute to cultural variations in dialectical thinking. Buddhism is thought to contribute to dialectical thinking, especially its

Dialectical Thinking and Attitudes toward Action/Inaction 

| 603

focus on acceptance, tolerance, and compromise (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Fundamentalist religions may foster polarized, uncompromising attitudes that are antithetical to the core tenants of dialectical philosophies. Decreases in religiosity over time (Shermer, 2013) may in part explain the surprisingly high levels of dialecticism observed in some Western nations such as England and Norway. Conversely, exposure to Western philosophies may decrease dialectical thinking (Ma-​Kellams et  al., 2011), for example, in countries such as Singapore, where we found lower scores on the DSS. Aristotelian logic promotes linear thinking and the identification of one correct solution among close alternatives. This mode of thought is in contrast to the acceptance of multiple, conflicting perspectives that is a hallmark of dialectical thought (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Finally, it is possible that linguistic and even genetic factors may contribute to cultural differences in dialecticism. As a group, East Asian languages are fundamentally different from the languages of Western cultures. Our results showed excellent cross-​cultural equivalence in the items used to measure dialectical thinking (Zell et al., 2013), but it’s possible that linguistic cues may prime different modes of thought. Consistent with this argument, U.S. college students of Chinese descent reported higher scores on the DSS when questionnaires were presented in Chinese instead of English (Boucher & O’Dowd, 2011; see also Lee, Oyserman, & Bond, 2010). The possibility that genetic factors influence cultural differences in cognitive styles remains largely untested. However, the fact that dialecticism can be altered by subtle primes and that dialecticism is reduced among people who have resided for only brief periods in Western cultures (see Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010) suggests that genetic influences are minimal. More research is needed on the origins of dialectical thinking and its mode of transmission across cultures and within cultures over time.

Differences within Cultures Our study demonstrated considerable variability in dialecticism scores within each of the societies, suggesting that some participants were substantially higher in dialecticism than others (see SD’s listed in Table 21.1). The observation of substantial individual differences within cultures further suggests that dialecticism is not limited to residents of East Asian societies, as some European Americans scored relatively high on the DSS and some East Asians scored relatively low. Moreover, individual differences

604 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

in dialecticism (within-​nation effects) predicted the relation between attitudes toward action and inaction in a parallel fashion to cultural differences in dialecticism (between-​nation effects). These effects were unique, which indicates that individual differences in dialectical thinking predict outcomes over and above the effect of culture. Therefore, dialecticism may be a meaningful individual difference variable in numerous countries and cultures across the globe. Few studies have examined factors that predict individual differences in dialecticism, but several existing constructs in the literature may be conceptually related. For example, dialecticism should be positively associated with tolerance for ambiguity (Norton, 1975) and negatively associated with the need for structure (Neuberg & Newsom, 1993)  and need for closure (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). Moreover, dialectical thinking should be positively associated with growth mindsets, which assert that people are capable of change, as opposed to fixed mindsets, which assert that people are highly stable (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997). Finally, if dialecticism results from increased social sensitivity, dialecticism should be associated with the need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In sum, whereas dialecticism has been traditionally conceptualized as a variable that can be used to explain differences between cultures, it also may be useful in explaining differences between people within cultures (see Chapter 14 on dialectical thinking and personality).

Future Directions Our study was the first to explore variations in dialecticism across a larger set of nations (Zell et al., 2013), but additional research is needed to explore cultural differences in dialecticism across the entire globe. Currently, there are several regions and countries in which dialecticism has been less researched, such as Africa and the Middle East (Crooke, Spencer-​Rodgers, & Peng, 2014). Moreover, tolerance for contradiction has been linked to the culture and philosophy of India (Shweder, 1991), which may be fertile ground for future study on dialectical thinking. In addition to cross-​national studies, future research should explore variation in dialecticism within nations. For example, research could examine whether dialecticism varies across different regions within the United States (e.g., Northeast, South, Midwest, and West) and whether regional differences in dialecticism can be used to predict attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. There also may be differences among ethnic groups within

Dialectical Thinking and Attitudes toward Action/Inaction 

| 605

countries. Consistent with this argument, Asian Americans score higher on the DSS than do Hispanic Americans and European Americans (Spencer-​ Rodgers et  al., 2017). Finally, additional research is needed to explore the interplay between cultural and individual differences in dialecticism. We showed that individual and nation-​level dialecticism scores exerted unique, statistically significant effects on attitudinal outcomes, which suggests that both levels of analysis are important. Numerous studies directly examining cultural differences in dialectical thinking have used the Dialectical Self Scale (DSS; Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2017). Although the DSS has proven to be a highly effective and cross-​culturally valid instrument, further refinement of the scale may be needed. Past research has argued that the DSS comprises three separate sub scales (Spencer-​Rodgers et al., 2017). However, in our multi-​country data set, the DSS had better fit when the 32 items were treated as a one-​ factor rather than a three-​factor solution (Zell et  al., 2013). Additional studies are needed to examine more closely the factor structure of the DSS. Moreover, scales that measure dialectical thinking in domains other than the self-​concept are needed (e.g., social perception). Along these lines, the Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS) measures epistemologies similar to dialectical thought, but applies them to perception of the environment as opposed to perception of the self (Choi, Koo, & An Choi, 2007; see Chapter 4 in this volume). Previous scholarship has largely assumed that dialectical thinking derives from East Asian philosophies (Peng & Nisbett, 1999), but more work is needed to directly test this assumption. Along these lines, research could explore whether endorsement of Taoist, Confucian, and Buddhist principles predicts higher scores on the DSS. Additionally, experiments could test whether exposure to East Asian philosophies cultivates greater dialecticism. In one experiment (Ma-​Kellams et al., 2011, Study 3), participants exposed to a fictitious news article stating that dialectical thinking is an “accurate view of reality” subsequently showed more dialectical (i.e., ambivalent) attitudes toward ingroups than participants exposed to an article stating that linear thinking is superior. This finding suggests that dialectical thinking can be temporarily shifted by exposure to salient cultural cues. Furthermore, research is needed to explore the effects of globalization on dialectical thinking. Western influences (e.g., educational programs that emphasize formal logic) may be decreasing dialectical thinking in East Asia. Conversely, the growing popularity of East Asian philosophies and practices (e.g., meditation; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

606 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

[CDC], 2008) may be increasing dialectical thinking in Western cultures. Consistent with this argument, recent research on extracultural cognition demonstrated that exposure to the yin-​yang symbol led European Americans to exhibit greater dialectical beliefs about cyclical change (Alter & Kwan, 2009; see Chapter 17 in this volume). Therefore, it’s possible that the East–​West gap in dialectical thinking presently observed may dissipate over time through processes such as extracultural cognition. Finally, future research is needed to study whether there are boundary conditions in which East–​West differences in dialectical thinking are reduced or even eliminated. It is important to note that East Asians may not exhibit higher levels of dialectical thinking in all domains. In contrast to research showing that East Asians exhibit less internal consistency (i.e., greater dialecticism) in self-​evaluations, emotions, and attitudes (see Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, et al., 2010), Chinese are more likely to rate outgroups as internally consistent and cohesive than Americans (Spencer-​ Rodgers, Williams, Hamilton, Peng, & Wang, 2007). Further, East Asians are more likely than North Americans to report dialectical, mixed emotions in response to positive events, but this effect disappears when examining negative or mixed events (Leu et al., 2010). Future research is needed to further explore moderators of East–​West differences in dialecticism.

Conclusion The dialectical concepts of tolerance for contradiction, expectation of change, and cognitive holism were first examined in East Asian cultures, such as China and Japan (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). However, we argue that dialecticism may be a more general cognitive orientation that is observed to some extent in many cultures across the globe. Moreover, dialecticism may be an important individual difference variable that fluctuates within societies, as it does between societies. Additional study is needed to extend our understanding of geographic patterns of dialectical thinking, as well as factors that cultivate dialectical thinking in both Eastern and Western cultures.

Notes 1.  Based on its location in East Asia, one could argue that the Philippines should be considered a dialectical nation. However, we classified the Philippines as a non-​ dialectical nation because East Asian philosophical traditions were relatively infrequent. Specifically, less than 2% of the population in the Philippines identifies themselves as either Buddhist or Taoism (CIA, 2013).

Dialectical Thinking and Attitudes toward Action/Inaction 

| 607

2. The ethnic breakdown of the U.S. sample was as follows: 60.8% White/​Caucasian-​ American, 12.7% Black/​African-​American, 13.9% Hispanic/​Latino-​American, 6.3% Asian-​ American/​South Pacific Islander, and 4.6% other. Asian Americans reported descriptively higher levels of dialectical thinking (M  =  3.75, SD  =  0.34) than Caucasian Americans (M = 3.55, SD = 0.62), African Americans (M = 3.37, SD = 0.62), and Latino Americans (M = 3.50, SD = 0.51), but none of these differences were statistically significant (p’s > .30 for post-​hoc multiple comparisons). Future research with a larger number of Asian Americans is needed to further explore variations in dialectical thinking within the United States. 3. Our primary, correlation-​based model tested the prediction that the rank order of people’s attitudes toward action and inaction would be more consistent (i.e., disagree less) in dialectical countries than non-​dialectical countries. An alternative model could test the prediction that mean differences in attitudes toward action and inaction would be smaller in dialectical countries. A correlation-​based approach is advantageous, because it allows the correlations between dialecticism and attitudes toward action/​inaction to vary and be freely estimated by the model. A  mean-​difference approach would require the arbitrary and potentially incorrect assumption that the correlations between dialecticism and attitudes toward action/​inaction are equal to a fixed value (beta).

References Albarracín, D., Handley, I., Noguchi, K., McCulloch, K., Li, H., Leeper, J., . . . Earl, A. (2008). Increasing and decreasing motor and cognitive output: A model of general action and inaction goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 510–​ 523. doi:10.1037/​a0012833. Albarracín, D., Hepler, J. J., & Tannenbaum, M. B. (2011). General action and inaction goals: Their behavioral, cognitive, and affective origins and influences. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 20, 119–​123. doi:10.1177/​0963721411402666. Alter, A. L., & Kwan, V. Y. (2009). Cultural sharing in a global village:  Evidence for extracultural cognition in European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 742–​760. doi:10.1037/​a0014036 Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497–​ 529. doi:10.1037/​0033-​2909.117.3.497 Boucher, H. C., & O’Dowd, M. C. (2011). Language and the bicultural dialectical self. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17, 211–​216. doi:10.1037/​a0023686 Centers for Disease Control (CDC). (2008, December 10). Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults and children: United States, 2007. Retrieved from http://​nccam.nih.gov/​sites/​nccam.nih.gov/​files/​news/​nhsr12.pdf Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (2013, May 27). The world factbook. Retrieved from https://​www.cia.gov/​library/​publications/​the-​world-​factbook/​fields/​2075.html Chiu, C., Hong, Y., & Dweck, C. S. (1997). Lay dispositionism and implicit theories of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 19–​30. doi:10.1037/​ 0022-​3514.73.1.19 Choi, I., Koo, M., & An Choi, J. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 691–​705. doi:10.1177/​ 0146167206298568

608 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Crooke, S., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2014). Dialectical thinking in Arabic-​, English-, and Chinese-​speaking nations. Approches: Revue des Sciences Humaines, 14, 12–​27. Gelfand, M., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. A., Lun, J., Lim, B., . . . Yamaguchi, S. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures:  A 33-​nation study. Science, 332, 1100–​1104. doi:10.1126/​science.1197754 Gupta, A. F. (1994). The step-​tongue: Children’s English in Singapore. Clevedon, UK; Philadelphia, PA: Multilingual Matters. Hart, W., & Albarracín, D. (2012). Craving activity and losing objectivity:  Effects of general action concepts on approach to decision-​ consistent information. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3, 55–​62. doi:10.1177/​1948550611408620 Heine, S. J. (2010). Cultural psychology. In D. T. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., pp. 1423–​1464). New York: Wiley. Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–​83. doi:10.1017/​S0140525X0999152X Hepler, J., & Albarracín, D. (2014). Liking more means doing more:  Dispositional attitudes predict patterns of general action. Social Psychology, 45(5), 391–​398. doi: 10.1027/​1864-​9335/​a000198 Ireland, M., Hepler, J., & Albarracín, D. (2015). Neuroticism and attitudes toward action in 19 countries. Journal of Personality, 83(3), 243–​250. doi:10.1111/​jopy.12099. PMID: 24684688 Kruglanski, A. W., & Webster, D. M. (1996). Motivated closing of the mind: “Seizing” and “freezing.” Psychological Review, 103, 263–​283. doi:10.1037/​0033-​295X.103.2.263 Lee, S. S., Oyserman, D., & Bond, M. (2010). Am I doing better than you? That depends on whether you ask me in English or Chinese: Self-​enhancement effects of language as a cultural mindset prime. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 785–​ 791. doi:10.1016/​j.jesp.2010.04.005 Leu, J., Mesquita, B., Ellsworth, P. C., ZhiYong, Z., Huijuan, Y., Buchtel, E., . . . Masuda, T. (2010). Situational differences in dialectical emotions: Boundary conditions in a cultural comparison of North Americans and East Asians. Cognition and Emotion, 24, 419–​435. doi:10.1080/​02699930802650911 Levine, R. V., & Norenzayan, A. (1999). The pace of life in 31 countries. Journal of Cross-​Cultural Psychology, 30, 178–​205. doi:10.1177/​0022022199030002003 Ma-​Kellams, C., Spencer-​Rodgers, J., & Peng, K. (2011). I am against us? Unpacking cultural differences in ingroup favoritism via dialecticism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 15–​27. doi:10.1177/​0146167210388193 McCulloch, K. C., Li, H., Hong, S., & Albarracín, D. (2012). Naive definitions of action and inaction: The continuum, spread, and valence of behaviors. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 227–​234. doi:10.1002/​ejsp.860 Morrison, M., Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2011). Subjective well-​being and national satisfaction:  Findings from a worldwide survey. Psychological Science, 22, 166–​171. doi:10.1177/​0956797610396224 Neuberg, S. L., & Newsom, J. T. (1993). Personal need for structure:  Individual differences in the desire for simpler structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 113–​131. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.65.1.113

Dialectical Thinking and Attitudes toward Action/Inaction 

| 609

Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently . . . and why. New York: Free Press. Noguchi, K., Handley, I., & Albarracín, D. (2011). Participating in politics resembles physical activity:  General action patterns in international archives, United States archives, and experiments. Psychological Science, 22, 235–​ 242. doi:10.1177/​ 0956797610393746 Norton, R. W. (1975). Measurement of ambiguity tolerance. Journal of Personality Assessment, 39, 607–​619. doi:10.1207/​s15327752jpa3906_​11 Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54, 741–​754. doi:10.1037/​0003-​066X.54.9.741 Reuters. (2013, May 27).Turkey likely to move ahead on EU path in June. Retrieved from http://​ www.reuters.com/​article/​2013/​05/​27/​us-​turkey-​eu-​idUSBRE94Q0F220130527 Schimmack, U., Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2002). Cultural inferences on the relation between pleasant emotions and unpleasant emotions:  Asian dialectic philosophies or individualism-​collectivism? Cognition & Emotion, 16, 705–​719. doi:10.1080/​ 02699930143000590 Shermer, M. (2013). Is God dying? Scientific American, 309, 82. doi:10.1038/​ scientificamerican1213-​82 Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Peng, K., Wang, L., & Hou, Y. (2004). Dialectical self-​esteem and East-​ West differences in psychological well-​ being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1416–​1432. doi:10.1177/​0146167204264243 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Srivastava, S., Boucher, H. C., English, T., Paletz, S. B., Wang, L.,  .  .  .  Peng, K. (2017). The Dialectical Self Scale (Unpublished manuscript), California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Spencer-​Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., Hamilton, D. L., Peng, K., & Wang, L. (2007). Culture and group perception: Dispositional and stereotypic inferences about novel and national groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 525–​543. doi:10.1037/​0022-​3514.93.4.525 Spencer-​ Rodgers, J., Williams, M. J., & Peng, K. (2010). Cultural differences in expectations of change and tolerance for contradiction:  A decade of empirical research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 296–​312. doi:10.1177/​ 1088868310362982 Terracciano, A. A., Abdel-​Khalek, A. M., Adam, N. N., Adamovova, L. L., Ahn, C. K., Ahn, H. N., . . . McCrae, R. R. (2005). National character does not reflect mean personality trait levels in 49 cultures. Science, 310, 96–​100. doi:10.1126/​science.1117199 Varnum, M. W., Grossmann, I., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2010). The origin of cultural differences in cognition: The social orientation hypothesis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 9–​13. doi:10.1177/​0963721409359301 Zell, E., Su, R., Li, H., Ho, M., Hong, S., Kumkale, T., . . . Albarracín, D. (2013). Cultural differences in attitudes toward action and inaction: The role of dialecticism. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4, 521–​528. doi:10.1177/​1948550612468774

610 

| 

The Psychological and Cultural Foundations of East Asian Cognition

INDEX

Page references for figures are indicated by f and for tables by t. AAB renewal, 248–​250, 248t, 253, 255, 258, 259 Aaker, J. L., 20, 109, 159, 535 ABA renewal, 247–​250, 248t, 253, 255, 258, 259 ABC renewal, 248–​250, 248t, 253, 255, 258, 259 absolutist beliefs, 151 absolutistic thinking, 146 abstract-​negative-​concrete, 138 acceptance, of stressful events, 316 acceptance and commitment therapy, 563 action/​inaction attitudes toward, dialecticism and, 600–​602 contextual cues, 600 adaptive expertise, 272t, 291–​293 adjustment. see also under relationships, close, dialecticism in pro-​active, 364 self-​restraint, 364–​365 adolescent development, of dialectic thought, 164 adult development, of dialectic thought, 164–​166 advertisements, multitasking and memory of, 123t, 125 affect balance, 456, 457f, 458–​459 affective optimization, 157

affirmation, mutual, in relative terms, 48 age (aging) biological, 163 on dialectical emotions, 520–​521 on dialectical thought cross-​cultural, 166 development, 166 on emotional dialecticism, cross-​ cultural, 166–​168, 167f generativity and orientation toward others, 170 self-​distancing, 169–​170 agency, collective, 316 Albarracín, D., 595, 596, 597t, 600, 601, 604, 605, 606 Alter, A. L., 20, 21, 94, 399, 497–​498, 499, 575, 588 amae, 161–​162 ambidexterity, 65 ambiguity, 40–​41 positive, 41 ambivalence. see also contradiction, tolerance of attitudes, 514–​515 changeability, 400–​402 cultural differences, 385–​387 close others, view of, 354–​359, 357t, 358f definition, 385

611

ambivalence (cont.) emotional, measurements, 514–​515 self-​evaluative, 418–​419 ambivalent response style, 14, 23–​24, 386 research, 65 Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS), 14, 17–​18, 110–​127 construction and purpose, 111 four-​factor model, 111 published studies, other, 119–​127, 120t–​123t correlates, 119, 124 manipulations, analytic and holistic thinking, 126–​127 as mediating variable, 124–​125 as moderating variable, 125–​126 validity, 111–​119 convergent and discriminant, 111 criterion or known-​groups, 111–​112 future events, prediction, 112–​116, 114f–​115f locus of attention, 116–​119, 117f, 118f validity, predictive categorization task, 112 judgment of causal relevance task, 112 analytic cognition (thinking), 2, 182, 272t. see also cognition, analytic vs. holistic; specific topics definition, 105, 215 lay theories of change, 82–​83 narcissism, 119, 121t, 124 priming, 19 social environments promoting, 182 Anderson, R. E., 112, 123t anomalies, 267 appearance and reality, correspondence, 90–​91 Aristotle’s formal logic, 43, 45f, 51 geocentric integration, 63, 64–​65 arithmetic processing, holistic, cultural neuroscience, 195–​200, 198f, 199f Arlin, P. K., 281 Asakawa, K., 85 asymmetrical balancing, 36, 52–​53, 55f

612 

| 

Index

asynchrony, affective, 522 attention. see also specific types on dialectical emotions, 529–​530 holistic thinking, cultural neuroscience, 187–​190 memory judgments and, 231–​232 mere, vs. causal attribution, 257–​259 attention, locus of, 3, 7–​8 Analysis-​Holism Scale, 116–​119, 117f, 118f analytic vs. holistic cognition, 107 cognitive style activation, 120t, 127 on dialectical emotions, 530 dialectical thinking, 3, 7–​8 field-​dependence vs. field-​ independence, 122t, 125–​126 attitudes and related constructs, 383–​401 ambivalent attitudes, 514–​515 changeability, 400–​402 cultural differences, 385–​387 attitudinal inconsistency naïve dialecticism and cultural origins, 384–​385 structural, cultural differences, 390–​392 cognitive dissonance, cultural differences, 392–​393 culture, 383 dialectical cultures, inconsistencies, 383–​384 ingroups vs. outgroups, 387–​390 meaning-​making and attitudes toward life and death, 393–​396 naïve dialecticism, intergroup attitudes, and related constructs, 396–​399 situational and temporal inconsistency, 399–​400 structural components, 383 attitudinal learning, context and attention, 252–​253 Bagozzi, R. P., 524 balance asymmetrical, 36 mental health and, 550 yin-​yang (see yin-​yang balancing)

balancing asymmetrical, 52–​53, 55f curvilinear, 53, 55f transitional, 53–​54, 55f Baltes, P. B., 151–​152, 154, 494 Barnett, S. M., 293 Barrett, F. S., 520 Basseches, M., 8, 12, 144–​145, 152, 273, 280, 281 Bauer, J. J., 122t, 124 Baumeister, R. F., 314–​315 Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), 560 Benack, S., 280 Benet-​Martínez, V., 434 Benish, S. G., 562 Berlin Wisdom Paradigm (BWP), 154–​155 bias correspondence, 217 disconfirmation, 6 positive, European American couples, 357, 357t biased affective forecasting, 372 biculturals, shifting between cognitive styles, 495–​496 bilateral projection theory, 61 biological aging, 163 Blackburn, T. C., 579 Blanchard-​Fields, F., 151, 152–​153 Blascovich, J., 121t, 124–​125, 394, 395–​396 Bloom, J. M., 521 blue ocean strategy, 65 Bohr, Niels, 56, 65 Bonanno, G. A., 534 Bond, M. H., 549–​550 Book of Changes, 46, 59, 491 both/​and system, 54–​57, 55f both/​or system, 44, 54–​55 Boucher, H. C., 121t, 127, 338, 419, 420, 423, 427, 433–​434, 553 Bouton, M. E., 247–​248 brain cultural, 182 plasticity, 60 Braman, D., 502–​503

brand extensions companies with, thinking styles on, 121t, 126 vs. parent brands, on consumer attitudes, 126 Brown, R. A., 555 Bruder, M., 122t, 125 Buddhism, 2, 273 contradiction, 5 contradictions, 5 dialectical thinking, 140, 596, 603–​604 dialecticism, 509, 547, 603 emotional regulation strategies, 536 middle way, 275 naïve dialecticism, 214, 413 Buddin, B. J., 520 Bushman, B. J., 119, 121t, 124 business, international, 499–​500 Campbell, J. D., 335, 337 Carrera, P., 516 Carstensen, L. L., 157, 159–​160, 521 categorization, 4, 7–​8 Analysis-​Holism Scale, 112 analytic vs. holistic cognition, 109–​110 causal attribution holistic thinking, cultural neuroscience, 190–​192 mere attention vs., 257–​259 causality, 17 causality attribution, 4, 7–​8 causal perception, analytic vs. holistic cognition, 107–​108 causal relevance, judgment of, Analysis-​Holism Scale, 112 cause and effect linear vs. cyclical view, 88–​89 magnitude and correspondence, 89–​90 Ceci, S. J., 447, 454 Cesario, J., 257 Chalybäus, Heinrich Moritz, 137 Chang, E. C., 85 Chang, H., 371 Chang, S. S., 126 change ambivalent attitudes, 400–​402

Index 

| 613

change (cont.) cultural and lay theories, 81–​99 (see also lay theories of change, culture and) expectation, 3, 4–​5, 9t–​10t, 18, 354 holism, 299–​300 perception of analytic vs. holistic cognition, 108–​109 close relationships, 365–​366 theory (principle) of, 215, 274, 320–​321, 384, 412, 491, 509–​510, 547 willingness, close relationships, 363–​365, 364f Chen, J., 400 Chen, S., 423, 424, 426 Chen, S. X., 428–​429, 432, 434 Cheng, C., 328, 556–​558, 582, 585, 586, 587, 588, 589 Cheung, M. W. L., 585, 586, 587 childhood development, early, of dialectic thought, 162–​164 Chinchanachokchai, S., 123t, 127 Chinese dialectical thinking, 272t, 273–​275. see also specific topics Chinese Dialectical Thinking Styles Scale (CDTSS), 14 Chinese Holistic Thinking Styles Scale (CHTSS), 14 Chiu, C.-​Y., 340, 419, 578 Choi, I., 93–​94, 108, 111–​119, 114f–​115f, 117f, 118f, 120t, 122t, 219, 221, 224, 254, 504, 578 Choi, J. A., 111–​119, 114f–​115f, 117f, 118f, 120t, 122t, 504 Christians, emotional regulation strategies, 536 Christopher, J. C., 558–​559 Chua, H. F., 203, 252 Church, A. T., 416–​417, 422–​423, 553 climate change, global, 502–​503 clinical interventions, mental health, 562–​565 cognition, analytic vs. holistic, 105–​128. see also analytic cognition

614 

| 

Index

(thinking); holistic cognition (thinking); specific topics Analysis-​Holism Scale, 110–​127 (see also Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS)) categorization, 109–​110 causal perception, 107–​108 change, perception of, 108–​109 contradiction, tolerance of, 109 definitions, 105 as epistemological difference, 106–​107 independent self vs. interdependent self, 106 individualism vs. collectivism, 106 literature, 105 locus of attention, 107 measurement techniques, 110–​111 cognition-​language-​brain causal chain, 60–​62 cognitive-​affective developmental theory (CADT), 157 cognitive control, holistic thinking, cultural neuroscience, 187–​190 cognitive dissonance, 204, 575 cultural differences, 392–​393 definition, 392 cognitive functioning and processing, cultural variations, 182 cognitive holism, 2, 3. see also holism cognitive orientation (style), 2 social orientation and, 106 Coifman, K. G., 534 collective agency, 316 collective control, 316–​317 holism in, 322 collectivism, 13, 148 definition, 106, 342 literature, 335 malleable racial identity, 482 as naïve ontology, 346–​347 collectivism/​interdependence, 12–​13 vs. naïve dialecticism, 12–​13 Collins, J. C., 65 Collins, J. F., 471 communication, indirect personal control, 324–​325, 325f

companies with brand extensions, thinking styles on, 120t, 121t, 126 complementarity, principle of, 56 complexity, 39, 40, 41 emotional, 554 integrative, 285–​286 self-​complexity theory, 475 Taoism, 39, 40 compromise, 6 conceptual combination, 268–​269 conflicting reactions model (CRM), 515 Confucian Doctrine of the Mean, 3, 6 Confucianism, 2, 273, 395 contradiction, 5 dialectical thinking, 445, 447, 596, 603 dialecticism, 509, 547 life and death, attitudes toward, 395 naïve dialecticism, 214, 413 self-​improvement and self-​perfection, 449 social lives, 589 utopia as U-​shaped life model, 491 yin-​yang balancing, 46, 57 consistency cross-​role, 421–​424 cross-​situational, 424–​425 identity, 431 judgments and, 229–​231, 231f lack of (see inconsistencies) norm, 229–​230 context action/​inaction, 600 attention to in attitudinal learning, 252–​253 in encoding, 249–​251 expectancy-​violating information and, 253–​255 counter-​attitudinal information, 256–​257 counter-​attitudinal learning, 253–​255 definition, 255–​257 on evaluative representations activation of, 247–​249, 248t formation of, 245–​247 on mental health, dialectical thinking on, 557

on racial identity, 467–​470 for multiracial people, 471–​472 racial identity meanings, 468–​469 self-​categorization, racial and ethnic, 469–​470 representational theory of contextualized evaluation, 245–​251 (see also representational theory of contextualized evaluation (RTCE)) on social identity, 467–​468 context-​free representation, 246 contextualization, of mental representations and evaluative responses, 243–​262 case examples, 243–​244 context, defined, 255–​257 cross-​cultural research, implications, 259–​261 cultural differences, 251–​255 attention to context, attitudinal learning, 252–​253 context, attention to, counter-​ attitudinal learning, 253–​255 predicted cultural differences, 255 research, East–​West differences, 251–​252 mere attention vs. causal attribution, 257–​259 representational theory of contextualized evaluation, 245–​251 (see also representational theory of contextualized evaluation (RTCE)) contextualized representation, 246 contradiction, 267, 354 creativity and tension, 295 emotions, balance between, 510–​512 moderate, 51 psychological responses, 412 sense-​making processes, 183 strong, 51 theory (principle) of, 215, 274, 320, 343, 384–​385, 412, 491–​492, 510, 547 contradiction, tolerance of, 3, 5–​6, 9t–​10t, 354, 436. see also ambivalence analytic vs. holistic cognition, 109

Index 

| 615

contradiction, tolerance of (cont.) dialectical thinking and, cultural neuroscience, 202–​205 East Asians, 183–​184 between speech and intentions, naïve dialecticism, 323–​326, 325f control. see also personal control agents, 309–​310 cognitive, holistic thinking, 187–​190 collective, 316–​317 holism in, 322 definition, 309 loss of, psychological symptoms and, 328 control orientations, 309–​320 acceptance, of stressful events, 316 cultural psychology, 312–​313 naïve dialecticism, 311 personal, 309 direct, 315–​316, 319 indirect, 318, 323–​325, 325f primary, 312–​313 primary plus secondary, 310–​311 primary vs. secondary, 309–​310 intermediate choice, 326–​327 secondary, 312–​313, 329–​330 in close relationships, 360 strategies, flexible views and, 322 universal motive, strategies achieving, 313–​315 variations, 315–​320 control via self-​improvement, 318–​320 indirect personal control, 318, 323–​325, 325f primary control via proxies, 316–​318 collective control, 316–​317 proxy control, 316, 322 various control, 316 vicarious control, 316, 322 Yamaguchi’s and Kurman’s frameworks, 315–​316 via self-​improvement, 318–​320, 581 control orientations, dialectical thinking in, 320–​330 future directions, 327–​330

616 

| 

Index

psychological well-​being, 328–​329 secondary control, 329–​330 naïve dialecticism, 320 distinguishing features, 321 flexible views and control strategies, 322 holism, influence, 322–​323, 323f intermediate choice, primary and secondary control, 326–​327 principles, 320–​321 speech vs. intention contradiction, tolerance, 323–​326, 325f convergent creative thinking, 268 coping definition, 576 dialectical self, 436 dialectical thinking, 573–​590 (see also stress, yin-​yang of) differentiation, 584f, 585 disasters, 501 emotion-​focused strategies, 583 integration, 584f, 585–​586 outcomes dialectical thinking, 582–​584 personal control, cultural differences, 580–​581 problem-​focused strategies, 583 situation-​strategy fit, 584 transactional theory, 583 coping flexibility dialectical thinking and, 556, 582–​587 coping outcomes, 582–​584 motivational impetus and cognitive processes, 584–​587, 584f dialectical thinking on, 587–​588 differentiation and integration, 584f, 585–​586 discriminative facility, 584–​585, 584f Extended Miller Behavioral Style Scale, 586, 588 corpus callosum, 61 correlative thinking, 59, 62 correspondence bias, 217 counter-​attitudinal information context, 256–​257

encoding, 247 exposure, 246 counter-​attitudinal learning, context, attention to, 253–​255 Cousins, S. D., 421–​422 creation, of novel knowledge, 37 creative destruction, 66 creativity, 41–​42 conceptualization, 295–​296 construct clarification, 294–​296 cultural differences, 269 definition, 268 implicit theories, 270 measurement, future research, 297–​298 phases, for scientist, 279 problem finding, 269 recombination, 268–​269 subprocesses and stages, 268 creativity, dialectical thinking, 267–​330 concepts, 285–​294 adaptive expertise, 272t, 291–​293 dialectical inquiry method, 286–​287 integrative complexity, 285–​286 paradoxical frames, 272t, 287–​291 summary, 293–​294 cross-​cultural differences, 269–​270 definition, 268 divergent and convergent, 268 Hegelian vs. naïve dialecticism vs. linear thinking, reactions, 275–​277, 277f hypotheses, 277–​278 implicit theories, 270 innovation, 270 research, 278–​285 Hegelian dialectical thinking, 278–​281 naïve dialectical thinking, 281–​285 naïve dialectical thinking, and creativity, 281–​282 naïve dialectical thinking, and problem finding, 282–​283 naïve vs. Hegelian dialectical thinking and insight, 283 research, potential future, 294–​301 change and holism, 299–​300

concepts, to dialectical thinking, 298–​299 construct clarification, creativity, 294–​296 construct clarification, historically rooted and culture-​bound types, 296–​297 measurement, 297–​298 mediators and moderators, 300–​301 naïve and Hegelian dialectical thinking, 298 theoretical approaches, 270–​275, 272t (see also dialectical thinking, theoretical approaches) cross-​role consistency, 421–​424 cross-​situational consistency, 424–​425 Crouch, R. C., 122t, 125–​126 cultural brain, 182 cultural malleability, 60 cultural neuroscience, holistic thinking, 181–​205. see also holistic cognition (thinking), cultural neuroscience cultural psychology control orientations in, 312–​313 dialectical thought in, 149–​150 dialecticism, 147–​149 emotional dialecticism, 149 holistic cognitive style and interdependent social orientation, 148–​149 lay dialecticism, 147 culture, 466–​467 definition, 342 dialecticism and, 474–​475 diverse, exposure to, 496 globalization on, 490 psychological processes, 91 stability, 489 culture–​brain link, 69 curvilinear balancing, 53, 55f Dalal, R., 219, 221, 224 Dan, O., 310–​311 Deci, E. L., 576 decision-​making, 193 culture and, 218–​220

Index 

| 617

decision-​making (cont.) financial, lay theories of change, 87–​88 moral, holistic thinking and cultural neuroscience, 193–​195, 194f, 196f decision-​making process, online, 220–​235 cross-​cultural research, empirical findings, 222–​228 dialecticism and indecisiveness, 225–​227 discussion of findings, 227 summary and implications, 228 type and quality of information sought, 223–​225, 224f cultural differences, potential, 220–​222 indecisiveness, 221–​222 quantity of information, 221 type of information, 220–​221 dialecticism and judgments, 228–​235 attention and memory judgments, 231–​232 consistency and judgments, 229–​231, 231f memory performance and N400 ERP, analysis of variance, 233 memory performance and N400 ERP, regressions, 233–​234, 234f resource allocation, 228–​229 summary and implications, 234–​235 De Houwer, J., 256–​257 Dell, M. L., 151 Deng, Y., 193–​194 de Rosnay, M., 158 design thinking, 41–​42 destruction, creative, 66 desynchrony, affective, 522 developmental psychology, dialectical thought, 149–​150 development over time, personal, predictions, 83–​84 dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), 563, 565 Dialectical Coding Scheme, 17, 18, 420 dialectical emotions. see emotions, dialectical dialectical inquiry method, 286–​287 dialectical logic, 274

618 

| 

Index

dialectical materialism, 138 dialectical schemata, 151 dialectical self-​conceptions, 411–​437. see also self, dialectical Americans vs. Chinese, 13 Dialectical Self Scale (DSS), 14, 15–​17, 172n3, 414–​416, 565. see also specific topics across continents, 598–​599, 599f age and responses, 172n3 cultural differences, 445–​446, 446f, 596–​598, 597t, 605–​606 dialectical self-​views, 8, 480 interdependent self, 548 Mexicans and Spaniards, 13 dialectical thinking, 1–​26, 146, 272t, 354, 412, 444–​446, 446f, 595–​596, 606–​607. see also naïve dialectical thinking; specific topics aging on, cross-​cultural, 166 categorization, 4, 7–​8 causality attribution, 4, 7–​8 change, expectation of, 3, 4–​5, 9t–​10t, 18 concepts related to, 298–​299 continents, across, 598, 599f contradiction, tolerance of, 3, 5–​6, 9t–​10t cultural neuroscience, 202–​205 control orientation, 309–​329 (see also control orientations) core principles, 41, 354 counseling, 565 cultures across, 596–​600, 597t, 599f variation within cultures, 494–​495 within, differences, 604–​605 definition, 2, 215, 270–​271, 385, 479, 547–​548 development of, in West empirical evidence, 152–​156, 156f theoretical models, 150–​152 direct, 315–​316, 319 East Asia, outside, 602–​603 Eastern vs. Western, 8–​12, 607 elements and origins, 1–​8

on emotions, 522–​523 globalization on, 574–​576 historically rooted and culture-​bound types, 296–​297 vs. holistic thinking, 106 interconnectedness, perception of, 3, 7 vs. linear thinking, cross-​cultural, 492–​494 locus of attention, 3, 7–​8 manipulation, 19–​22 vs. non-​dialectical thinking, 490–​492 origins, 1–​2 origins of, 603–​604 overview, 595–​596 priming, 9t–​10t, 20 sample, 9t–​10t temporal effects, 557 temporary, 489–​505 (see also temporary dialectical thinking) dialectical thinking, measurement, 13–​19 Analysis-​Holism Scale, 14, 17–​18 Chinese Dialectical Thinking Styles Scale, 14 Chinese Holistic Thinking Styles Scale, 14 Dialectical Coding Scheme, 17, 18 Dialectical Self Scale, 8, 14, 15–​17 fundamentals, 13–​15 future research, 297–​298 Implicit Association Test, 17 issues, dialectical thinking and response styles, 22–​25 pictorial holism measure, 18–​19 self-​report inventories, 14 Twenty Statements Test, 17, 18 Zhong-​Yong inventories, 14–​15 dialectical thinking, theoretical approaches, 270–​275 as cognitive style or frame, 270–​271 East Asian, Chinese, or naïve, 272t, 273–​275 Hegelian and integrative, 271–​273, 272t dialectical vs. non-​dialectical judgments, 213–​235 meaning-​making and maintenance processes, 213–​214

näive dialecticism, East Asians vs. North Americans, 214–​216 online decision-​making process, 220–​235 (see also decision-​making process, online) perceptual-​cognitive processes, empirical evidence, 216–​218 dialectic inquiry, 272t dialecticism, 547–​548. see also Hegelian dialecticism; naïve dialecticism; specific types and topics action/​inaction and, attitudes toward, 600–​602 core principles, 214–​215, 509–​510 in counseling, 565 culture and, 474–​475 definitions, 215, 385, 509, 547 postformal, 146–​147 Eastern vs. Western, 8–​12 etymology, 136 indecisiveness, 225–​227 Marx, 11–​12 naïve (see naïve dialecticism) neo-​Piagetians, 12 non-​contradiction, 137 onset, 168 origins, 509 Plato, 11 psychological benefits, 555–​556 dialecticism, across lifespan, 135–​173 cultural psychology, 147–​149 emotional dialecticism, 149 holistic cognitive style and interdependent social orientation, 148–​149 lay dialecticism, 147 cultural vs. developmental psychology, 149–​150 development of dialectical thought, in West, 150–​156 dialectical thought, 150–​156 emotional dialecticism, 156–​160 empirical evidence, 152–​156, 156f theoretical models, 150–​152 development of dialectic thought, cross-​cultural, 161–​168

Index 

| 619

dialecticism, across lifespan (cont.) adolescence, 164 adult, 164–​166 aging on dialectical thought, 166 on emotional dialecticism, 166–​168, 167f early childhood, 162–​164 indigenous concepts, 161–​162 overview, 162 development of emotional dialecticism, in West, 156–​160 empirical evidence, 158–​160 theoretical models, 156–​158 in East, 139–​141 (see also specific types) Buddhism, 140 classic Indian philosophy, 139–​140 Taoism, 140–​141 generativity and orientation toward others, older age, 170 outlook and future directions, 168–​169 in philosophy, 135–​136 postformalist approach, 141–​147 definitions, 146–​147 Piaget vs. Riegel, 141–​144 schemata-​oriented representation, 144–​145 self-​distancing, older age, 169–​170 testing cultural differences and similarities, 171 in West, 136–​139 Hellenistic roots, 136–​137 Western European philosophy, 137–​139 Diener, E., 416, 524–​525 differentiation, copy, 584f, 585 direct personal control, 315–​316, 319 disasters, coping, 501 disconfirmation bias, 6 discounting approach, 57 discriminative facility, 584–​585, 584f dispositionist tendency, 337, 578–​579 dispute resolution, 500 dissonance, 392 divergent creative thinking, 268

620 

| 

Index

Dodd, D., 65 Doi, T., 161–​162 Dong, N., 298–​299 drawing scale, emotions, 516 dualism, 49 duality, paradox and, 49–​54 in duality, 68 explicit, 51 implicit, 51–​52 position, 56 duality, 36, 50 definition, 48 dualism, paradox and, 49–​54 dualism in, 68 duality-​rooted integration, 48, 56 Duff, B. R. L., 123t, 125 Duffy, S., 116, 117, 119 Duttle, K., 123t Dweck, C. S., 82, 578 dynamic process, 48 East, 36 East Asians. see also specific topics defined, 590n1 dialectical thinking, 272t, 273–​275 Eastern epistemological systems, 46–​48. see also specific types Eastern philosophy, 36 of wisdom, 40 education, on lay theories of change, 93–​94 ego, quiet, holistic thinking, 122t, 124 either/​and system, 46, 54–​57, 55f either/​or system, 35, 43, 54 elderly. see age (aging) electroencephalography (EEG), perceptual-​cognitive processes, 216 Ellsworth, P. C., 528, 529 embeddedness, 66 emergence, 40 emotional dialecticism, 149 aging on, cross-​cultural differences, 166–​168, 167f development of, in West, 156–​160 empirical evidence, 152–​156, 156f theoretical models, 150–​152

emotion-​focused strategies, coping, 583 emotions expression, middle way, 368 opposite (contradictory), 510–​512 (see also emotions, dialectical) regulation hedonic, 368 strategies, 536 emotions, dialectical, 509–​537 across cultures, 523–​532 experience of dialectical emotions, 524–​527 factors shaping and sustaining, 529–​532 situational dependency, 527–​529 affective constructs, 511–​512 bipolar constructs, 512 close relationships, 366–​370 consequences, 532–​536 negative, 532–​534 positive, 534–​536 definition, 553 dialectical self, 436 future research, 536–​537 meanings, 554 measurement, 512–​517 across-​individual analyses, 513 associations, positive and negative emotions, 512–​513 emotional ambivalence, 514–​515 mixed emotions, 513–​514 simultaneity, 515–​516 typological approaches, 516–​517 within-​individual analyses, 513 opposite (contradictory) emotions, 509, 510 balance between, 510–​512 relationships, close, 366–​370 unipolar constructs, 512 Western cultural contexts, 517–​523 age, 520–​521 personality and beliefs, 521–​523 situations, 517–​518 stimuli, 518–​519 types of emotions, 519–​520

encoding context in, attention to, 249–​251 of counter-​attitudinal information, 247 endogenous, 50, 51 Engels, F., 138–​139 English, T., 423, 424, 426 enjoyment, mortality salience and, 121t, 124–​125 entitativity, 335–​348 cultural conceptions, 336–​342 perceptions of groups, 339–​341 perceptions of individuals, 336–​339 cultural conceptions, explanations, 342–​347 naïve dialecticism, as domain-​ specific construct, 345–​347 operationalization, 343–​344 self involvement and ingroup/​ outgroup distinctions, 345 theories of cultural variability, 342–​343 definition, 335 vs. dialectical thinking, 336 limitations and conclusions, 347–​348 naïve dialecticism, 335–​336 entity theory of personality, 578 entity theory of self, 432 environmental affordance, 94–​95 episodic future self, 444, 449–​455, 453f essentialism, psychological, 339 ethnic self-​categorization, contextual cues, 469–​470 European philosophy, dialecticism and, 137–​139 evaluation, of extant knowledge, 37 evaluative inconsistencies, 383 evaluative representations context on activation of, 247–​249,  248t context on formation of, 245–​247 Evaluative Space Grid, 513–​514 evaluative space model, 511 excluded middle, law of, 43 exogenous, 50, 51 expectancy violation, 246–​247 context, reduced attention to, 253–​255

Index 

| 621

expectancy violation (cont.) mere attention vs. causal attribution, 257–​258 sense-​making processes, 183 expertise intuition, 47 explicit attitudes definition, 390 dual-​process models, 391 explicit dualism, 51 explicit judgments, 269–​270 extant knowledge, evaluation of, 37 Extended Miller Behavioral Style Scale (EMBSS), 586, 588 extracultural cognition, 20, 490, 495–​499 biculturals, shifting between cognitive styles, 495–​496 definition, 505 empirical evidence, recent research, 496–​499 exposure, diverse cultures, 496 eye-​tracking studies, 216 fate, negotiable, 581 Favaro, K., 65 Festinger, L., 393 Fichte, J. G., 137 financial judgment and decision-​making, 87–​88 Fireman, G., 158–​159, 520–​521 Fischer, R., 282 fixed world, belief in, 82 Flaskerud, J. H., 550 flexible views, control strategies and, 322 Flourishing Scale, 456–​458, 457f focalism, 372 folk epistemologies, 214 Fong, C. T., 291, 535 Fowler, J. W., 151 framed-​line task (FLT), 116–​119, 116f, 118f, 188 Fredrickson, B. L., 516 Friederici, A. D., 191–​192 Fryberg, S. A. ., 473–​474 functional flexible pattern, 328–​329 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 186–​187

622 

| 

Index

arithmetic processing, 195–​200, 198f, 199f fundamental attribution error, 493 future events, prediction, Analysis-​Holism Scale, 112–​116, 114f, 115f future self, dialecticism, 443–​460 dialectical thinking, 444–​446, 446f episodic future self, 444, 449–​455, 453f future self-​concept, 444, 446–​449, 448f possible selves, 444 psychological well-​being, 455–​459, 457f story illustrating, 443 views of world and self, 444 future self-​concept, 444, 446–​449, 448f Gabriel, S., 496 gambler’s fallacy, 97, 493 gambling, problematic, 97 Ganis, G., 184 Garcia, J. A., 399 Gardner, W. L., 496 Garza-​Caballero, A. A., 111, 121t Gawronski, B., 244–​262, 257. see also contextualization, of mental representations and evaluative responses Ge, J., 191–​192 Gelman, S. A., 158 generativity, in elderly, 170 geocentric meta-​paradigm (meta-​system), 35–​36, 67–​68 yin-​yang balancing, 62–​69 geocentric yin-​yang balancing, 67 Giddens, A., 49 Gilmour, R., 551 global climate change, 502–​503 globalization, 63 on culture, 490 on dialectical thinking, 606–​607 global–​local duality, 68 global village, 498, 499 Gödel’s theorems, 43 Goh, H., 187 golden rule of balanced harmony, 53 Go/​No-​Go Association Test, 419

Goto, S. G., 184, 186, 187, 232 Gottman, J. M., 369 gradual threshold model (GTM), 515 Granovetter, M., 66 Greek dialectic, 271 Greenberg, J., 455–​456 Gross, J. J., 519 Grossman, I., 155–​156, 156f, 169–​170, 495 groups, 335 as cohesive, agentic units, 398–​399 perceptions of, cultural, 339–​341 Grove, T., 119, 121t, 124 Gudykunst, W. B., 324 Guo, T., 87, 109, 219 habitual tendencies, dialecticism, 151, 159, 168 Hall, N. C., 312 Hamamura, T., 24–​25, 222, 385, 552 Han, S., 191–​192, 203 happiness-​enhancing interventions, 564 Harris, D. R., 472 Harris, P. L., 158 Harter, S., 520 health, Chinese on, 575 heaven-​human integration, 39, 46–​47 Heckhausen, J., 312, 313–​314, 577 Hedden, T., 189 hedonic emotional regulation, 368 Hegel, G. W. F., dialectic logic, 11–​12, 44, 45f, 137–​138 Basseches on, 145 exogenous, 50 vs. yin-​yang balancing, 44, 45f, 49–​51, 63, 140–​141 Hegelian dialectical thinking, 271–​273, 272t creativity and, research, 278–​281 naïve, vs. naïve dialectical thinking and insight, 283 vs. naïve dialectical thinking, 283 naïve dialectical thinking and, 298 Hegelian dialecticism, 11–​12, 44, 45f, 271–​272, 272t

vs. naïve dialecticism vs. linear thinking, reactions, 275–​277, 277f vs. yin-​yang balancing, 44, 45f, 49–​51, 63, 140–​141 Heine, S. J., 222, 393, 430, 552 Hellenistic philosophy, dialecticism from, 136–​137 Heller, D., 527 helplessness, learned, 577 Hemenover, S. H., 519 Hepper, E. G., 520 Heraclitus, 137 heuristic, 42 Hindu philosophy, 139 Hitlin, S., 473 Hoffman, L., 341 Holbrook, A. L., 559 holism, 7, 354 change, 299–​300 cognitive, 2, 3 definition, 385 relationship cognitions, 370–​373 theory (principle) of, 215, 274, 321, 343, 385, 412, 492, 510, 547–​548 on control orientations, 322–​323, 323f holistic cognition (thinking), 2, 181–​182. see also cognition, analytic vs. holistic attributional tendency, East Asian, 578–​579 component processes, cultural variations, 182 definition, 105, 215, 385 vs. dialectical thinking, 106 ecological constraints, 182 elements and context, 577 interdependent self-​construal, 106, 148–​149, 202 interdependent social orientation, 148–​149 lay theories of change, 82–​83 manipulation, 19–​22 measurement, 13–​19

Index 

| 623

holistic cognition (thinking) (cont.) Analysis-​Holism Scale, 17–​18 (see also Analysis-​Holism Scale (AHS)) pictorial holism measure (holistic self), 18–​19 priming, 10t, 19 quiet ego, 122t, 124 holistic cognition (thinking), cultural neuroscience, 181–​205 arithmetic processing, 195–​200, 198f, 199f attention/​cognitive control, 187–​190 background, 181–​183 causal attributions and trait inferences, 190–​193 future directions, 200–​205 dialectical thinking and tolerance for contradiction, 202–​205 holism and interdependent self-​construals, 202 plasticity, 200–​202 incongruity and integrative processing, reconciling, 183–​184 moral decision-​making, 193–​195, 194f neural substrates, 184–​187 holistic content, 47–​48 holistic self, 18–​19 holistic thinking, 574–​576 Holt, G., 371 Holt, K., 455–​456 Hong, E., 116 Hong, J., 159 Hong, Y., 187, 578 Hormes, J. M., 518 Hoshino-​Browne, E., 393, 400–​401 hot hands fallacy, 493 Hou, Y., 450–​451, 496–​497, 550, 552, 554 Hsieh, G., 112 Hui, C. M., 98, 310–​311, 522 Hynie, M., 225 I Ching, 46, 59, 491 identity consistency, 431 law of, 43

624 

| 

Index

malleable racial, 465–​483, 467 (see also racial identity, malleable) multiple (race and identity), 465 among domains, shifting between, 465 single domain, shifting between, 465 shifting, 469 ignorance, learned, 40 illness attributions, 549–​550 Chinese on, 575 mental health (see mental health, dialecticism and) Implicit Association Test (IAT), 17, 421 ambivalence on, 389–​390 implicit attitudes. see also specific types definition, 390–​391 dual-​process models, 391 implicit beliefs, 81 cultural, 214 over time, 82 (see also lay theories) implicit dualism, 51–​52 implicit meaning systems, 81 implicit theories, creativity, 270 Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (IOSS), 415 incongruity, integrative processing and, cultural neuroscience, 183–​184 inconsistencies attitudinal naïve dialecticism and cultural origins, 384–​385 structural, cultural differences, 390–​392 dialectical cultures, 383–​384 evaluative, 383 self-​concept, 419–​421, 553 self-​evaluation, 552–​553 situational, 384, 399–​400 structural, 383 temporal, 384, 399–​400 incremental theory of self, 432 indecisiveness, cultural differences, 221–​222 dialecticism and, 225–​227

independence-​interdependence, 13, 106, 345 self-​construal, 106, 481 independent self, 106 Indian philosophy, classic, 139–​140 indigenous concepts, dialectic thought, 161–​162 indirect personal control, 318, 323–​324 in communication, 324–​325, 325f individualism, 13 definition, 106, 342 literature, 335 as naïve ontology, 346 individualism-​collectivism, 12–​13, 106, 148 Individual-​Oriented and Socially Oriented Cultural Conceptions of Subjective Well-​Being Scales (ISSWB), 552 individuals, 335 perceptions of, cultural, 336–​339 ingroups vs. outgroups, attitudes towards, 387–​390 self-​esteem, 387–​388 self involvement and distinctions, 345 innovation, 270. see also creativity insight, 39 neuroscience of, 66–​67 integration, 286. see also specific types coping, 584f, 585–​586 duality-​rooted, 48, 56 geocentric, 63, 64–​65 heaven-​human, 39, 46–​47 West–​East, 68 integrative complexity, 272t, 285–​286 integrative dialectical thinking, 271–​273, 272t integrative thinking, 286 interconnectedness, perception of, 3, 7 interdependent self, 106 interdependent self-​construal holism, cultural neuroscience, and, 202 holistic cognitive style, 106, 148–​149, 202 self-​in-​relation-​to-​other, 412–​413

interdependent social orientation, holistic thinking, 148–​149 interdisciplinary meta-​hypothesis, 67 intergroup relationships, 98–​99 international business, 499–​500 interpersonal relationship predictions, 86 intracultural cognition, 489, 495 differences, 489 within-​culture variation, research, 494–​495 intuition, 39 expertise, 47 intuitive imagination, 39 intuitive process, 47 Inukai, K., 123t Ishii, K., 186, 393 Ishii, S., 393 Jainism, 139–​140 Jaspars, J., 89 Jenkins, L. J., 187 Jenkins-​Smith, H., 502–​503 Jetten, J., 348 Ji, L. J., 83–​87, 89, 92–​93, 92f, 97, 109, 113, 116, 163–​164, 492–​493, 549, 580–​581 Ji, L.-​J., 219 John, D. R., 120t, 121t, 126, 127 Johnson, T. P., 559 judgment of causal relevance task, 112 judgments, dialecticism and, 228–​235 attention and memory judgments, 231–​232 consistency and judgments, 229–​231, 231f memory performance and N400 ERP, analysis of variance, 233 memory performance and N400 ERP, regressions, 233–​234, 234f resource allocation, 228–​229 summary and implications, 234–​235 judgments, explicit, 269–​270 Kahan, D. M., 502–​503 Kahlbaugh, P. E., 153 Kallio, E., 286

Index 

| 625

Kant, Immanuel, 137 Kaplan, K. J., 515 karma, 7 Kashima, Y., 337, 338, 346 Kawamura, T., 116, 117, 119 Kestenbaum, R., 158 Kim, B. J., 110 Kim, H., 121t, 124 Kim, Y.-​H., 419 Kim-​Prieto, C., 219, 221, 224 Kitayama, S., 13, 116, 117, 119, 188, 189, 192–​193, 203, 481–​482 Knowles, E. D., 191 Kojima, H., 318 Konrath, S., 119, 121t, 124 Koo, M., 93–​94, 111–​112, 113–​116, 114f–​115f, 116–​119, 117f, 118f, 120t, 122t, 504 Koslowski, S. M., 293 Kramer, D. A., 146, 151, 153 Kreibig, S. D., 519 Kross, E., 169–​170 Kurebayashi, K., 341 Kurman, J., 98, 310–​311, 315, 318–​320 Kutas, M., 184 Kwan, V. S. Y., 20, 21, 94, 399, 497–​498, 499, 575, 588 Labouvie-​Vief, G., 151, 152, 157–​158, 172n1 Lalljee, M., 89 Lalwani, A. K., 108, 127 Lam, C. Y., 560, 561 language experimental setting, on thinking style, 121t, 127 as prime, 20–​21 language, Chinese, 59–​62 meta-​hypothesis of the cognition-​ language-​brain causal chain, 61–​62 whole-​brain thinking, 59, 60–​61 yin-​yang balancing, 58–​61 Larsen, J. T., 116, 117, 119, 158–​159, 513, 516–​521, 523 law of excluded middle, 43 law of identity, 43

626 

| 

Index

law of non-​contradiction, 43 Lawrence, P. R., 66 lay dialecticism, 147, 149–​150, 273–​274 lay theories, 81, 214 lay theories of change, culture and, 81–​99 cultural and developmental underpinnings, 91–​96 culture and psychological processes, 91 education and training, 93–​94 environmental affordance and multicultural experience, 94–​95 socialization, 92–​93, 92f temporal focus, 95–​96 definition and scope, 82–​83 East Asian vs. European American, 82–​83 expected relationship between events, 88–​91 appearance and reality, correspondence, 90–​91 cause and effect, correspondence in magnitude, 89–​90 cause and effect, linear vs. cyclical view, 88–​89 future directions gambling behavior, 97 intergroup relationships, 98–​99 risk prediction and preventative behavior, 97–​98 implicit beliefs and meaning systems, 81 supporting evidence, 83–​88 financial judgment and decision-​making, 87–​88 interpersonal relationships, predictions, 86 life events, predictions and responses, 84–​86 personal development over time, predictions, 83–​84 regression toward the mean, reasoning about, 86–​87 subjective well-​being, predictions, 84 learned helplessness, theory of, 577

learned ignorance, 40 Lechuga, J., 111, 121t Lee, A. Y., 90, 159, 496 Lehman, D. R., 393 Lenton, A. P., 122t, 125 Leu, J., 523, 527–​528, 554, 558 Leung, A., 290 Li, L. M. W., 220, 222–​223, 225, 227 Li, P. P., 20–​21 Li, Y., 86–​87, 89 life and death, attitudes toward, meaning-​making and, 393–​396 life events, predictions and responses, 84–​86 Lin, M. H., 112 linear-​dialectical, 12 linear thinking, 2, 272t, 491 vs. dialectical thinking, cross-​cultural views, 492–​494 vs. Hegelian dialecticism vs. naïve dialecticism, reactions, 275–​277, 277f priming, in East Asians, 503–​504 Lockhart, K. L., 83–​84 locus of attention. see attention, locus of logic, formal Aristotle, 43, 45f, 51 geocentric integration, 63, 64–​65 laws, 412 logical positivism, 38 loose-​coupling, 66 Lorsch, J. W., 66 Lu, K. W., 122t Lu, L., 551, 579, 580 Luk, C., 549–​550 Lun, V. M.-​C., 282 Ma, X., 533–​534 Maddux, W. W., 96 Magai, 160C. Ma-​Kellams, C., 22, 121t, 124–​125, 346, 389–​390, 391, 394, 395–​396, 397 malleability close relationships, 359–​365 change and fluctuation, perception of, 365–​366

change or adjust, willingness to, 363–​365, 364f Chinese, 359–​360 European Americans, 360 Japanese, 359–​360 mate selection, 360–​363 cultural, 60 self-​concept, 553 malleable racial identity. see racial identity, malleable manipulation, of dialectical thinking, 19–​22. see also priming Mao, L., 191–​192 March, J. G., 37, 40–​41, 66 Markus, H. R., 13, 444, 447, 473–​474, 481–​482 marriage, close, dialecticism in, 353–​374. see also relationships, close, dialecticism in Marx, K., 11–​12, 138–​139 Masuda, T., 94, 186, 220, 222–​223, 225, 227, 232, 252, 530 mate selection, malleability or similarity, 360–​363 Mayr, U., 521 McAuliffe, B. J., 348 McBride, L. R., 153 McClure, J., 89 McGraw, A. P., 523 meaning-​making life and death, attitudes toward, 393–​396 processes, 213–​214 meaning systems, 213–​214 mechanistic system, 43, 51 medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), 201 Melchior, J., 146, 153 memory cognitive style, multitasking and, 123t, 125 judgments, attention and, 231–​232 performance, N400 ERP analysis of variance, 233 regressions, 233–​234, 234f Menon, T., 339, 397

Index 

| 627

mental health, dialecticism and, 547–​566 clinical interventions, 562–​565 conceptualizing and assessing, 558–​562 conceptual bases, non-​dialectical, 561 Euro-​American liberal individualistic cultural influences, 558 measures, methodological adjustments, 559–​561 response styles, self-​report, 560–​561 dialecticism, 547–​548 on lay beliefs about mental health, 549–​551 attributions for illness and well-​being, 549–​550 balance and equilibrium, 550 beliefs and appraisal of well-​being, on actual well-​being, 550–​551 effects, 549 limitations and future research, 551–​552 outcomes, influences on, 552–​558 context, 557 limitations and future research, 555–​556 lower subjective well-​being, East Asian, 552–​554 meanings of emotions, 554 positive and negative affect, coexistence, 553–​554 psychological benefits of dialecticism, 555–​556 self-​concept, malleability and inconsistency, 553 self-​evaluation, inconsistency, 552–​553 recommendations and conclusion, 565–​566 terminology, 547–​548 yin-​yang, 547 meta-​hypothesis of the cognition-​language-​brain causal chain, 61–​62 metaphor, 47 metaphysics, defined, 590n2 middle road, 492, 494, 500

628 

| 

Index

middle way, 6, 14, 275, 277f, 278, 326, 329, 368, 603 relationships, close, 368–​369 mind-​as-​machine (mind-​as-​mirror), 38 mind-​as-​organism (mind-​as-​lamp), 38 mindfulness, dialecticism and, 537 mindfulness-​based therapies, 537, 563 mindfulness meditation, 140 Miron-​Spektor, E., 283, 289–​290, 291, 294 mixed emotions. see also ambiguity; contradiction age on, 521 within individuals, culture on, 528–​529 measurement, 513–​514 Miyamoto, Y., 525, 528, 529, 533–​534, 555–​556 moderate contradiction, 51 Monga, A. B., 120t, 121t, 126, 127 monism position, 56 moral decision-​making, holistic thinking and cultural neuroscience, 193–​195, 194f, 196f Mori, S. C., 338 Morin, E., 37–​38 Morio, H., 385–​386 Morita therapy, 563 Morling, B., 309, 310, 312–​313, 316–​317 Morris, M. W., 339–​340 mortality salience, life enjoyment and, 121t, 124–​125 motives, universality, 314–​315 multicultural defined, 466 experience, lay theories of change, 94–​95 multinational strategy, 66 multiracial people. see also racial identity, malleable definition, 466 malleable racial identity, 470–​475 contextual factors, 471–​472 culture and dialecticism, 474–​475 phenotype and social status, 472–​474 prevalence and growth, 466

socioeconomic status and racial identification, 473–​474 Murayama, A., 341 mutual affirmation, in relative terms, 48 mutual negative, in relative terms, 48 N400 event-​related potential (ERP), 184–​187, 193, 232. see also specific applications Na, J., 192–​193 naïve dialectical thinking, 272t, 273–​275 vs. collectivism/​interdependence, 12–​13 creativity and, research, 281–​282, 281–​285 vs. Hegelian dialectical thinking and insight, 283 problem finding, 282–​283 Hegelian dialectical thinking and, 298 naïve dialecticism, 147, 311, 566. see also dialecticism attitudinal inconsistency and, cultural origins of, 384–​385 central beliefs theory of change, 215, 274, 320–​321, 343, 384, 412, 491, 509–​510, 547 theory of contradiction, 215, 274, 320, 343, 384–​385, 412, 491–​492, 510, 547 theory of holism, 215, 274, 321, 343, 385, 412, 492, 510, 547–​548 vs. collectivism/​interdependence, 12–​13 compromise, 6 control orientations, 311, 320–​327 (see also under control orientations, dialectical thinking in) definitions, 2, 214, 320, 336, 547 distinguishing features, 321 as domain-​specific construct, 345–​347 East Asians vs. North Americans, 214–​216 on entitativity, 335–​336, 343 (see also entitativity) vs. Hegelian dialecticism, 11–​12, 44, 45f

vs. linear thinking, reactions, 275–​277, 277f intergroup attitudes, related constructs, and, 396–​399 nomenclature issues, 3 origins, 1–​2 from Taoism, 5, 384 narcissism, analytic thinking, 119, 121t, 124 nature–​nurture debate, 60 Needham puzzle, 64, 67 negation, mutual, in relative terms, 48 negative acceleration model (NAM), 420 negotiable fate, 581 neither/​nor system, 54 neo-​Piagetians, dialecticism, 12 Nesselroade, J. R., 521 Nestler, S., 122t neural substrates, of holistic thinking, 184–​187 neuroscience, cultural, holistic thinking, 181–​205. see also holistic cognition (thinking), cultural neuroscience Ng, A. H., 225, 400 Ng, J. C. K., 434 Nisbett, R. E., 1–​2, 6, 17–​18, 93, 94, 110, 113, 116, 147, 232, 252, 254, 273–​274, 285, 343, 354, 509, 530, 565 Nobarany, S., 112 Noel, H., 123t, 127 Nonaka, I., 66 non-​contradiction dialecticism, 137 law of, 43 non-​dialectical thinking definition, 215–​216 vs. dialectical thinking, 490–​492 non-​dialecticism, 215–​216 Norbeck, E., 393 Norenzayan, A., 110 nostalgia, 519–​520 Nurius, P., 447 objectifying descriptions, of individuals, 337

Index 

| 629

objective-​subjective duality, 47 objectivity, challenges to, 558 Oceja, L., 516 O’Connor, D. B., 579 O’Dowd, M. C., 121t, 127, 420, 433–​434 Oeberst, A., 122t Oishi, S., 369, 416, 524–​525 oneness, 161 online decision-​making process, 220–​235. see also decision-​making process, online opposing forces. see contradiction opposite (contradictory) emotions, 509–​510 balance between, 510–​512 opposites, real, 42 optimism, 85–​86 organicism, 47 organic system, 46, 51. see also specific types organizational ambidexterity, 52 organizational learning, 66 orientation toward others, in elderly, 170 Orth, U. R., 122t, 125–​126 outgroups distinctions, self involvement and, 345 vs. ingroups, attitudes towards, 387–​390 Paletz, S. B. F., 282, 283, 293 paradox, 50 definition, 42, 288 dualism, duality, and, 49–​54 epistemological thinking, 42 unique challenge, 42–​43 paradoxical frames, 272t, 287–​291 Park, D. C., 187 Park, H., 219, 221, 224 Parmenides, 490–​491 Pasupathi, M., 521 Paulhus, D. L., 222, 552 Peng, K., 1–​2, 5, 6, 22, 147, 191, 254, 273–​274, 282, 283, 285, 335, 338–​ 340, 343, 354, 389–​391, 444, 509, 518, 525, 552, 554, 565 Peng, S., 419

630 

| 

Index

Pepper, C. M., 560, 561 perceptions causal, analytic vs. holistic cognition, 107–​108 of change analytic vs. holistic cognition, 108–​109 close relationships, 365–​366 cultural conceptions of groups, 339–​341 of individuals, 336–​339 of interconnectedness, 3, 7 of self-​inconsistency, culture, dialecticism, and, 477–​481 self-​ vs. partner, in close relationships, 355–​358, 357t, 358f styles, 573–​574 perceptual-​cognitive processes culture and decision-​making, 218–​220 perceptual-​cognitive processes, empirical evidence, 216–​218 personal control, 309. see also control orientations cultural differences, 579–​581 coping outcomes and, 580–​581 dialectical thinking and, 576–​579 attributional tendency, East Asians’ holistic thinking, 578–​579 indirect, 318, 323–​324 in communication, 324–​325, 325f personal development over time, predictions, 83–​84 personality on dialectical emotions, 521–​523 entity theory of, 578 incremental theory of, 578 person × situation, 427 Perunovic, W. Q. E., 527 Petermann, A. G., 533 Phaedrus (Plato), 11 phenotype, social status and, 472–​474 Piaget, J., 12, 142–​143, 273 pictorial holism measure (holistic self), 18–​19

plasticity brain, 60 holistic thinking, 200–​202 plastic paradox, 60, 68 Plato’s dialectic, Phaedrus, 11 polarization, 42 Pons, F., 158 Porras, J. I., 65 positive ambiguity, 41 positive and negative emotions. see also emotions, dialectical; mixed emotions associations, 512–​513 coexistence, 553–​554 positive bias, European American couples, 357, 357t positive psychology, 564 positivism, logical, 38 possible selves, 444 postformalist operations, dialecticism and, 141–​147, 151 definitions, 146–​147 empirical psychology, 141–​144 Piaget, 142–​143 Riegel, 141–​144 schemata-​oriented representation, 144–​145 Postmes, T., 348 pragmatics, Baltes on, 151–​152 Prahalad, C. K., 66 preventative behavior, risk prediction and, 97–​98 primary control, 312–​313 development of, lifespan, 313–​314 plus secondary control, 310–​311 vs. secondary control, 309–​310 intermediate choice between, 326–​327 via proxies, 316–​318 prime-​ability, 416 priming. see also specific topics analytic thinking, 19 dialectical thinking, 9t–​10t, 19–​22, 20 holistic thinking, 10t, 19 language, 20–​21 linear thinking, in East Asians, 503–​504

principle of complementarity, 56 principle of relationship, 7 pro-​active adjustment, 364 problem finding creativity and, 269 naïve dialectical thinking and, 282–​283 problem-​focused strategies, coping, 583 problem–​solution co-​evolution, 42 problem–​solution duality, 41 proxy control, 316 holism in, 322 psychological essentialism, 339 psychological interventions, 562–​565 psychological processes, culture and, 91 punishment, 501–​502 Pyszczynski, T., 455–​456 Qin, J., 191–​192 quiet ego, 122t, 124 Quintana, S., 562 race, 466 racial identification, malleable, 467 racial identity, malleable, 465–​483, 467 culture, dialecticism, and perceptions of self-​inconsistency, 477–​481 dialectical self-​views on malleable racial identity on well-​being effect, 479–​480 definition, 466 fundamentals, 465–​467 future research, 481–​482 malleable racial identity and psychological well-​being, 475–​477 psychological benefits, evidence, 475–​477 psychological detriments, evidence, 477 malleable racial identity for multiracial people, 470–​475 contextual factors, 471–​472 culture and dialecticism, 474–​475 phenotype and social status, 472–​474 racial identity in context, 467–​470 context and racial identity meanings, 468–​469

Index 

| 631

racial identity, malleable (cont.) contextual cues and racial and ethnic self-​categorization, 469–​470 situational factors on, 467 Rafaeli, E., 521–​522, 527, 534 realized strategy, 66 recombination, 268–​269 reference point adaptation, 88 regression toward the mean applications, 86 reasoning about, lay theories of change, 86–​87 regulatory foci, double, 98 rehabilitation, 501–​502 relationship, principle of, 7 relationship between events, expected, 88–​91 appearance and reality, correspondence, 90–​91 cause and effect linear vs. cyclical view, 88–​89 magnitude and correspondence, 89–​90 relationships, close, dialecticism in, 353–​374 dialectical emotions, 366–​370 dialectical thinking in close relationship contexts, 353–​359 ambivalent views of close others, 354–​359, 357t, 358f background, 353–​354 self-​ vs. partner perceptions, 355–​358, 357t, 358f holism and relationship cognitions, 370–​373 malleability, adjustment, and change, 359–​365 Chinese, 359–​360 European Americans, 360 Japanese, 359–​360 mate selection, malleability or similarity, 360–​363 perception of change and fluctuation, 365–​366 willingness to change or adjust, 363–​365, 364f

632 

| 

Index

relationships, interpersonal, predictions, 86 relative term, 49 relativistic concepts, 151 relativistic thinking, 146 Remote Associates Test (RAT), 289, 290, 291 Ren, X. P., 122t renewal effects, 247–​248 AAB renewal, 248–​250, 248t, 253, 255, 258, 259 ABA renewal, 247–​250, 248t, 253, 255, 258, 259 ABC renewal, 248–​250, 248t, 253, 255, 258, 259 representational theory of contextualized evaluation (RTCE), 245–​251 context during encoding, attention to, 249–​251 core assumptions, 244, 245 evaluative representations context and activation of, 247–​249, 248t context and formation of, 245–​247 memory traces, positive and negative, 245 representations, mental context-​free, 246 contextualization of, 243–​262 (see also contextualization, of mental representations and evaluative responses) contextualized, 246 schemata-​oriented, 144–​145 resource allocation, judgments, 228–​229 Riecken, H. W., 393 Riegel, K. F., 8, 12, 135, 141–​144, 151 ripple effect, 96 risk prediction, preventative behavior and, 97–​98 Rogers, Carl, 563 Rosenberg, M., 418 Rosenberg Self-​Esteem Scale (RSES), 24–​25 dialectical self in bilingual context, 433 self-​evaluative ambivalence, 418–​419

Ross, C. E., 579, 580 Ross, M., 86–​87, 89 Rothbaum, F. M., 312, 315–​316, 579 Rothenberg, A., 279 routine expertise, 292 Rozin, P., 518 Russell, M. J., 220, 222–​223, 225, 227 Ryabchenko, K. A., 560, 561 Ryan, C. S., 341 Ryan, R. M., 576 Rydell, R. J., 249, 250–​251, 256–​257 Ryff, C. D., 525, 555–​556 Samson, A. C., 519 Sanada, T., 393 Sanchez, D. T., 399 Sanna, L. J., 85 Santos, B. M., 111, 121t Sar, S., 123t, 125 Sastry, J., 579, 580 Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE), 456–​459, 457f Schacter, S., 393 schemata-​oriented representation, 144–​145 Schimmack, U., 416, 519, 524–​525 Schulz, R., 312, 313–​314, 577 Schumpeter, J. A., 66 Schwartz, C. E., 582 Schwartz, J. C, 367 Scollon, C. N., 526–​527 secondary control, 312–​313, 329–​330 in close relationships, 360 plus primary control, 310–​311 vs. primary control, 309–​310 intermediate choice between, 326–​327 Sedikides, C., 122t, 125 seed, 66 selective optimization with compensation (SOC), 151–​152 self cultural construction, 450 cultural differences, 90–​91 episodic future, 444, 449–​455, 453f self, dialectical, 411–​437, 427–​429

ambivalence, self-​evaluative, 418–​419 Analysis-​Holism Scale, 415 bilingual and bicultural context, 432–​435 consequences, 432–​436 consistency, cross-​role and cross-​ situational, 421–​425 constructs, 429–​432 entity vs. incremental theories of self, 432 high vs. low self-​monitoring, 431 self-​concept clarity and certainty, 429–​430, 477 self-​criticism and self-​effacement, 430–​431 Dialectical Self Scale, 414–​416 emotions, coping, and psychological well-​being, 436 extension of, 412–​413 Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale, 415 inconsistency, self-​concept, 419–​421 interdependent self-​construal, 412 measurement and manipulation, 414–​416 self-​adjustment and accommodation, 412 self-​evaluations, 417–​418, 417f self-​in-​relation-​to-​others, 412–​413 self-​perfection and self-​improvement, 413 self-​verification, 427–​429 temporal stability, 425–​427 self-​categorization, racial and ethnic, context on, 469–​470 self-​complexity theory, 475 self-​concept, 446 certainty, 429–​430 clarity, 429–​430, 477 dialectical, 15, 345, 411–​437 Americans vs. Chinese, 13 dialecticism, 411–​412 future, 444, 446–​449, 448f individualistic vs. collectivist cultures, 411 malleability and inconsistency, 553

Index 

| 633

self-​consistency, 229–​230 perceived, 338 self-​construal independence-​interdependence, 106, 481 interdependent, 412 holistic cognitive style, 106, 148–​149, 202 self-​in-​relation-​to-​other, 412–​413 Self Construal Scale, Americans vs. Chinese, 13 self-​criticism, 430–​431 self-​determination theory, 426, 576 self-​distancing, in elderly, 169–​170 self-​effacement, 430–​431 self-​esteem, 345, 455 in Chinese couples vs. European Americans, 355–​357, 357t ingroups and, 387–​388 self-​improvement, 413 control via, 318–​320, 581 orientation, 555 self-​inconsistency, 230. see also inconsistencies; specific types culture, dialecticism, and perceptions of, 477–​481 self involvement, ingroup/​outgroup distinctions, 345 self-​monitoring, high vs. low, 431 Self-​Monitoring Scale, 431 self-​perfection, 413 self-​report inventories, 14 self-​restraint adjustment, 364–​365 self-​verification, 427–​429 self-​views, 345 cultural differences, 338 dialectical, 417–​418, 417f inconsistency, 552–​553 situation-​specific, 428–​429 world views and, correlation, 444 Sengupta, J., 109 separation, spatial or temporal, 42 serotonin system genotypes, cognitive style, 121t, 124 Shao, Y., 447, 454 Shaver, P. R., 367

634 

| 

Index

Shavitt, S., 108, 127, 559 Shih, N., 399 Shimizu, M., 579 Shiota, M. N., 369 sickness attributions for, 549–​550 Chinese on, 575 mental health (see mental health, dialecticism and) Sim, J. J., 472 similarity, in mate selection, 361–​362 similarity-​intensity model (SIM), 515 simultaneous emotions development, 520–​521 measurement, 515–​516 single truth, 149–​150, 320, 491 situation on dialectical emotions, 517–​518 culture and, 527–​529 on self-​views, 428–​429 situational inconsistency, 384, 399–​400 Slabu, L., 122t, 125 Smith, E. E., 110 social assurance, 316 holism in, 322 social identity, social context, 467–​468 socialization, on lay theories of change, 92–​93, 92f social orientation, 106. see also collectivism; individualism interdependent, holism and, 148–​149 Social Paradigms Belief Inventory (SPBI), 153, 274–​275 social status, phenotype and, 472–​474 socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), 156–​157 Song, L., 112, 123t spatial separation, 42 Spencer-​Rodgers, J., 2, 5, 17, 20, 22, 25, 328, 335, 338, 340, 345, 389–​ 390, 391, 397–​398, 420, 421, 428, 430–​431, 444, 445, 455, 458, 494–​ 495, 496–​497, 518, 525, 548, 552, 554, 565 Spina, R. R., 86–​87, 89 split fovea theory, 61

standardized low-​resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA), 193–​195, 195f, 196f Stastny, B. J., 519 Staudinger, U. M., 494 stereotype life, 469 stereotyping, 398–​399 of entitativity, group and individual, 343–​344 stigma consciousness, 476 stimuli, on dialectical emotions, 518–​519 stress, yin-​yang of, 573–​590 cognitive dissonance theory, 575 coping flexibility, dialectical thinking and, 582–​587 coping outcomes, 582–​584 motivational impetus and cognitive processes underlying, 584–​587, 584f coping flexibility, dialectical thinking on, 587–​588 health and sickness, Chinese on, 575 holistic and dialectical thinking, 574–​576 personal control, cultural differences, 579–​581 coping outcome association, 580–​581 personal control, dialectical thinking and, 576–​579 attributional tendency, East Asians’ holistic thinking, 578–​579 strong contradiction, 51 structural inconsistencies, 383 structuration, 66 Su, R., 595, 596, 597t, 600, 601, 604, 605, 606 Su, Y., 113, 116 sublation, 44, 50 Suh, E. M., 337, 423, 553 Sui, D., 193–​194 Swaminathan, S., 112, 123t Sylaska, K., 122t, 124 synchrony, affective, 522 synthesis-​oriented thinking, 2

system justification, 388 systems of thought, 214 Tabora, B. L., 550 tacit content, 47 Tajfel, H., 387 Tang, H., 450–​451 Tang, Y., 193–​194 Tao (Taoism), 2, 38–​39, 173, 273 complexity, 39, 40 dialectical thinking, 2, 140–​141, 445, 596, 603 dialecticism, 509, 547 full circle, 4 heaven-​human integration, 39, 46–​47 I Ching, 46 learned ignorance, 40 mental lives, 589 naïve dialecticism, 5, 214, 384, 413 objective-​subjective duality, 47 self-​complexity theory, 475 wu-​wei, 65, 577 yin-​yang, 5, 7, 140, 547, 574–​575 (see also yin-​yang) balancing, 46–​47, 57, 58 wu, and, 37–​42 target types, 345 temporal focus, 95–​96 temporal inconsistency, 384, 399–​400 temporal separation, 42 temporal stability, 425–​427 temporary dialectical thinking, 489–​505 culture and, stability, 489 dialectical thinking vs. linear thinking, cross-​cultural views, 492–​494 vs. non-​dialectical thinking, 490–​492 extracultural cognition, 490, 495–​499 biculturals, shifting between cognitive styles, 495–​496 empirical evidence, recent research, 496–​499 exposure to diverse cultures, 496 globalization on culture, 490 implications and future directions, 499–​504

Index 

| 635

temporary dialectical thinking (cont.) disasters, coping with, 501 dispute resolution, 500 global climate change, 502–​503 international business, 499–​500 priming linear thinking, in East Asians, 503–​504 punishment and rehabilitation, 501–​502 intracultural cognition, 489, 495 within-​culture variation, research, 494–​495 terror management theory, 394, 396 Terry, R. L., 472 theory of change, 215, 274, 320–​321, 343, 384, 412, 437, 491, 509–​510 theory of contradiction, 215, 274, 320, 343, 384–​385, 412, 491–​492, 510, 547 theory of holism, 215, 274, 321, 343, 385, 412, 492, 510, 547–​548 on control orientations, 322–​323, 323f theory of learned helplessness, 577 thesis-​antithesis-​synthesis, 11, 137, 145 Thompson, S., 203 threshold, 54, 66 To, Y. M., 158–​159, 520–​521 “too-​much-​of-​a-​good-​thing” effect, 53 Townsend, S. S. M., 473–​474 training, on lay theories of change, 93–​94 trait authenticity, culture, thinking style, and, 122t, 125 trait inferences, holistic thinking and cultural neuroscience, 192–​193 transactional theory of coping, 583 transitional balancing, 53–​54, 55f trans-​modern era, 63–​64 Tucker, L. R., 364 Tuerdi, M., 122t Twenty Statements Test (TST), 17, 18, 413, 417–​418 Uchida, Y., 528, 529 uncertainty, 40 universality, challenges to, 558

636 

| 

Index

universal motive, strategies for achieving, 313–​315 unlearning, 40 U-​shaped life model, 491, 493 utopia, Confucian, 491 Uzzi, B., 65 various control, 316 Varnum, M. E. W., 495 vicarious control, 316 holism in, 322 Villarreal, R., 111, 121t von der Beck, I., 122t Wald, H., 274 Wampold, B. E., 562 Wang, D., 537 Wang, H., 112, 123t Wang, L., 298–​299, 338, 496–​497, 518, 525, 552, 554 Wang, Q., 447, 450–​451, 454 Wang, Y., 193–​194 Ward, C., 282 Watt, A. W., 38 way. see Tao Wayment, H. A., 122t, 124 Weick, K. E., 66 Weisz, J. R., 318, 579 well-​being, psychological, 443–​460 attributions, 549–​550 beliefs and appraisal of, on actual well-​being, 550–​551 control orientations, 328–​329 dialectical model, 561–​562 dialectical self, 436 dialectical self-​views on malleable racial identity effect, 479–​480 in East Asians, lower levels, 552 Euro-​American liberal individualistic cultural influences, 558 future self and, 455–​459, 457f malleable racial identity and, 475–​477 psychological benefits, evidence, 475–​477 psychological detriments, evidence, 477

predictions, 84 yin-​yang of, 547–​566 (see also mental health, dialecticism and) West, defined, 36 West–​East balance, 35 West–​East integration, 68 Western epistemological systems. see also specific types Aristotle formal logic, 43, 45f, 51 geocentric integration, 63, 64–​65 law of excluded middle, 43 law of identity, 43 law of non-​contradiction, 43 mechanistic system, 43, 51 weaknesses, 43–​44, 45f both/​or system (Hegel’s dialectic logic), 44, 45f, 54–​55 (see also Hegel) either/​or system, 35, 43, 54 Western philosophy, 36 European, dialecticism and, 137–​139 of knowledge, 37–​38 whole-​brain thinking, 59, 60–​61, 64 cross-​cultural research, 69 partial-​brain thinking, 68 Wilken , B., 530, 531 Wilkins, C. L., 473–​474 Williams, M. J., 5 Williams, O., 535 Williams, P., 20, 159 willingness to change or adjust, close relationships, 363–​365, 364f Winston, C. E., 472 Wiprovnick, A., 450–​451 wisdom definition, 40 Eastern philosophy of, 40 wisdom-​related thought, 154–​155, 172n2 Wong, N., 15 Wong, W.-​C., 271, 297 Wong, Y. J., 551 Woodruff, D. S., 153 world views, 214 fixed world, belief in, 82 self views and, correlation, 444 wu, 39–​42, 47, 66–​67

definition, 47 yin-​yang balancing, 58 Wu, S., 367 Wu, T.-​F., 362–​363 wu-​wei, 65, 577 Yamaguchi, S., 309, 310, 315–​316 yang, 5, 7 Yang, C.-​C., 280 Yang, Q., 298–​299 Yang, Y., 187 Yao, X., 298–​299, 447, 454 Ye, Y., 256–​257 Yeo, T., 112 Yijing (Book of Changes), 46, 59 Yik, M., 526–​527 yin, 5, 7 yin-​yang, 5, 7, 39, 140, 355, 394–​395, 547 of well-​being, 547–​566 (see also mental health, dialecticism and) worldview, 566 wu, and, 37–​42 yin-​yang balancing, 35–​70, 57, 58 vs. Aristotle’s formal logic, 43, 45f, 51, 63 asymmetrical balance, 36 background, 35–​36 Confucianism, 46, 57 content and process, 55f core tenets duality-​rooted integration, 48, 56 dynamic process, 48 holistic content, 47–​48 creation of novel knowledge, 37 East Asian, 42–​57 both/​and vs. either/​and, 54–​57, 55f Eastern epistemological systems’ strengths, 46–​48 paradox, dualism, and duality interrelationships, 49–​54 paradox, unique challenge, 42–​43 Western epistemological systems’ weaknesses, 43–​44, 45f endogenous, 50 evaluation, extant knowledge, 37

Index 

| 637

yin-​yang balancing (cont.) sources, indigenous, 57–​62 geocentric meta-​paradigm (-​system), 35–​ Tao, yin-​yang, and wu, 37–​42 threshold, 54, 66 36, 62–​69, 67–​68 Yip, T., 469 geocentric yin-​yang balancing, 67 Yoshizaki, S., 393 vs. Hegel’s dialectic logic, 44, 45f, yuan, 371 49–​51, 63, 140–​141 Yuki, M., 96, 341 language, Chinese, 58–​60 Needham puzzle, 64 operating mechanisms and core Zaehner, R. C., 139 assumptions, 55f Zajdel, R. T., 521 asymmetrical balancing, 52–​53, 55f Zell, E., 414, 595, 596, 597t, 600, 601, 604, curvilinear balancing, 53, 55f 605, 606 transitional balancing, 53–​54, 55f Zhang, Z., 86–​87, 89, 109, 219 pre-​modern era, 63 Zhong, N., 2 relative term, 49 Zhong Yong, 298–​299 seed, 66 Zhong-​Yong inventories, 14–​15

638 

| 

Index