Situational evaluation method of the Chinese people’s holistic thinking characteristics and their application

Abstract

The Chinese method of thinking includes dialectical and holistic thinking. Holistic thinking refers to people’s tendency to think in a holistic manner and focus on the relationship between things, which has no effective measurement method at present. Numerous studies have speculated on the relationship between Chinese thinking and creativity, but no known empirical research has focused on exploring their relationship. An uncertain aspect is whether and how Chinese thinking styles make an impact on creativity. The present study developed a situation assessment test to measure holistic thinking and explored its relationship with creative tendency. We hypothesize that (1) holistic thinking may be (1) correlated with field-dependence cognitive style and (2) may prohibit creative tendency. To verify the preceding hypothesis, idiom stories with typical Chinese thinking styles are first selected. Thereafter, an idiom riddle cultural park with transformation of form and meaning, situation, and context was constructed using virtual reality technology. By recording and coding idioms reported by participants when they visited the park, their level of holistic thinking could be measured. Lastly, cognitive style was evaluated using embedded figure test, personality traits were evaluated using the Chinese Big Five Personality Inventory brief version, and creativity tendency was evaluated by utilizing the Williams Prefer Measurement Forms. SPSS 18.0 was used for statistical analyses. Reliability and validity research has shown that the coefficient of homogeneity is high. Results showed that under an experimental condition, holistic thinking was significantly positively correlated with field-dependence cognitive style, the proportion of subjective words was significantly negatively correlated with neuroticism, the proportion of words with deep meaning was significantly negatively correlated with agreeableness, and the proportion of words that focus on the overall effect was significantly negatively correlated with openness. These results proved that the developed test has good calibration validity. Cluster analysis indicated two types of participants: (1) people with strong holistic thinking (i.e., report words with deep meaning, considerably self-involved, and focus on overall effect) will report numerous words and are considerably unreasonable, and (2) people with weak holistic thinking (i.e., report words with plain meaning, minimally self-involved, and focus on details) will report a few words and are substantially reasonable. The independent sample T-test on the creativity tendency of the two types of participants showed that the curiosity of people with strong holistic thinking was significantly higher than that of people with weak holistic thinking. Moreover, no significant difference was observed in other aspects of creativity tendency. Results support our hypothesis. The situation assessment test we developed has good reliability and validity and a useful method to measure Chinese holistic thinking. Compared with previous test methods, the current test has better ecological validity, can measure Chinese thinking in the natural cultural mood, and provide reference for other cultural tests. The current study can also contribute to an improved understanding of Chinese thinking styles and creativity tendency. This research is the first to realize the relationship between the two concepts in a virtual reality environment. Lastly, this method provides new ideas for a follow-up research on thinking and creativity.