Cross-cultural differences in adult Theory of Mind abilities : a comparison of native-English speakers and native-Chinese speakers on the self/other differentiation task
Abstract
Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to compute and attribute mental states to ourselves and other people. It is currently unclear whether ToM abilities are universal or whether they can be culturally influenced. To address this question, this research explored potential differences in engagement of ToM processes between two different cultures, Western (individualist) and Chinese (collectivist), using a sample of healthy adults. Participants completed a computerized false-belief task, in which they attributed beliefs to either themselves or another person, in a matched design, allowing direct comparison between ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ oriented conditions. Results revealed that both native-English speakers and native-Chinese individuals responded significantly faster to selforiented than other-oriented questions. Results also showed that when a trial required a ‘perspective-shift’, participants from both cultures were slower to shift from Self-to-Other than from Other-to-Self. Results indicate that, despite differences in collectivism scores, culture does not influence task-performance, with similar results found for both Western and non-Western participants, suggesting core and potentially universal similarities in the ToM mechanism across these two cultures.
Citation
Bradford , E E F , Jentzsch , I , Gomez , J-C , Chen , Y , Zhang , D & Su , Y 2018 , ' Cross-cultural differences in adult Theory of Mind abilities : a comparison of native-English speakers and native-Chinese speakers on the self/other differentiation task ' , The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , vol. 71 , no. 12 , pp. 2665-2676 . https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021818757170
Publication
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1747-0218Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018 the Authors. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021818757170
Description
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500136/1] in the form of a three-year PhD studentship and an Overseas Institutional Visit Grant awarded to Elisabeth Bradford.Collections
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