ABSTRACT
East Asians in general remain much more interdependent in their social lives than are Americans and other Westerners. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall used the concept of “low context” vs. “high context” societies to describe differences in social relations. Westerners regard themselves as possessing traits, abilities, and preferences that are unchanging across social contexts. Morris and Peng and Lee, Hallahan, and Herzog have shown that Americans are inclined to explain murders and sports events respectively by invoking presumed traits, abilities, or other characteristics of the individual, whereas Chinese and Hong Kong citizens are more likely to explain the same events with reference to contextual factors, including historical ones. East Asians have been found to classify objects and events on the basis of relationships and family resemblance whereas Americans classify on the basis of rule-based category membership. Differences between East Asians and Westerners extend beyond cognition to encompass many tasks that are attentional and perceptual in nature.
