ABSTRACT

This chapter addresses the issue of cultural differences in thinking and reasoning between Westerners and Easterners. First, I introduce the differences in cognition in general (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). Next, I focus on the distinction between Westerners’ tendency for rule-based inference and Easterners’ tendency for dialectical inference (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). In the fourth section, two kinds of explanations for the cultural differences are introduced: the first is based on different notions of the self in different cultures and the second is based on different cultural traditions. A further explanation is added, which is based on context (Yama & Zakaria, 2012). In the fifth section, I discuss whether contemporary cognitive theories of reasoning can be applied to explain the cultural differences. Finally, I propose that dual process theories, which suppose the existence of an evolutionary old system and an evolutionary current system, are highly relevant to accounting for cultural differences in thinking.