The Differences Of Culture And Causal Cognition By Ara Nisbett

There are many differences between cultures around the world. The way individuals perceive and go about their daily lives are affected by their culture. Culture and Causal Cognition by Ara Norenzayan and Richard E. Nisbett reveals the dissimilarities between America and East Asia cultural influences on reasoning. Fundamental attribution error is the phenomenon that is mentioned in this study. The fundamental attribution error states that individuals usually are inclined to see actions and behaviors as a result of temperaments equivalent to the nature of the individual. An experiment described in this research article stated that when participants were given an essay to read, they automatically assumed that the person who wrote the essay shared the same views in which they wrote about. This study was one with American participants and it showed American participants inferred that the individual who was given instructions to write about a specific subject shared the same belief in which they wrote about. For example, a participant can be instructed to write about the Republican Party, and how a republican president would make America a better country. Reading the article, an

Culture definitely plays a huge role in influencing how a particular individual thinks and behaves. As mentioned in the article, Americans tend to characterize attributes internally, while cultures from East Asia, such as China, Korea, and Japan, tend to characterize attributes according to external or situational circumstances. The western way of thinking is considered analytic, attributing characteristics and categorizing to internal factors and societal rules. On the other hand, East Asia way of thinking is more of a holistic approach, putting more of an emphasis on the area or field in which the object is and basing the characteristics of the object on its location (Norenzayan, A., & Nisbett, R.