High‐status people are more individualistic and analytic‐thinking in the west and wheat‐farming areas, but not rice‐farming areas

Abstract

Previous studies have found that high-status people are more individualistic and think more analytically than people of lower social status. We find new evidence that this is not always the case. We tested a large sample (N = 1,418) of people across China on analytic thought and the friend-stranger distinction. In China's more individualistic wheat-farming regions, social status patterns replicated findings from the West: highstatus people thought more analytically and drew smaller distinctions between friends and strangers. But in more interdependent rice-farming regions, high-status people thought more holistically and drew a larger distinction between friends and strangers. This suggests that culture shapes social status differences in thought style and individualism. The data also showed that STEM majors thought more analytically than non-STEM majors. STEM differences in thought style were larger among older students, which is consistent with the idea that STEM training encourages analytic thinking over time.

Distinct Conceptions of Freedom in East Asia and the Protestant West Underpin Unique Pathways of Societal Development

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Expressive suppression, confucian Zhong Yong thinking, and psychosocial adjustment among Chinese young adults

“…However, longitudinal studies are needed to examine this possibility. Further, more heterogeneous samples are also necessary as they may adopt different thinking styles and cultural orientations (Miyamoto et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2021). For example, it is likely that people with a lower education level or from rural areas may endorse a different level of ZY thinking comparing to young college students.…”

Cognitive entailments among “the true, the good, the beautiful”: a mainland Chinese sample

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