| Two different styles of thought have been proposed for East Asians and European Americans (Nisbett et al., 2001), that is, East Asians are more holistic, and more sensitive to relationships and context, whereas European Americans are more analytic, and more sensitive to individual objects and their attributes. Studies 1 and 2 found that Chinese perceived stronger associations for relationship word pairs than for category word pairs, whereas Americans showed either no relationship preference or a category preference instead. Studies 3 and 4 showed, with a "triad" categorization paradigm in which participants were asked to select two out of the three things that were most closely related, that the cultural difference between Chinese and European Americans was independent of language of test and test locations, suggesting the prevalence of the cultural influence. In addition, the studies provided evidence that language of the tests may affect categorization. When tested in the Chinese language, the responses of Chinese bilinguals (in the U.S. or in China) showed a relationship preference, but when tested in English, their responses were shifted toward the pattern of European Americans, that is, exhibiting either no relationship preference or less relationship preference. However, this language effect occurred only for Mainland and Taiwan Chinese, who learned English at a relatively late age. No language effect was found for Hong Kong and Singapore Chinese, who learned English at an early age. Possible reasons for the language effect were discussed. |
