Priming "Culture": culture as situated Cognition

Abstract

In this chapter we provide a brief summary of the mostly correlational evidence suggesting that a focus on individualism and collectivism captures at least some important aspects of culture and cross-cultural difference, highlighting what appear to be systematic differences between Western European and especially Anglo-Saxon-based and other cultures. We then examine gaps in causality that correlational evidence cannot address and propose that to understand the processes underlying how individualism and collectivism influence motivation, cognition, and behavior, more systematic experimental approaches are needed. We highlight light the efficacy of a particular experimental paradigm that involves priming or bringing to mind particular content or cognitive processes. We outline what the priming literature can tell us about the effects of culture (both as operationalized by individualism and collectivism, and as operationalized by other relevant axes, such as high power-low power and equality) on content and process of cognition. We suggest a situated cognition approach to culture and outline what the cultural syndrome priming literature tells us about how culture influences what we think and how we process information about ourselves and the world.