The present research supports a socioecological perspective that initially evolved from a relatively harsh environment and developed a unique type of self-assertive interdependence by comparing Mongolian and Han college students’ self-construal. Mongolian represent a major cultural group, yet one that is relatively neglected in cultural psychology. We hypothesize that Mongolian culture is characterized by a unique form of interdependence that is self-assertive. Mongolian cultural identity emerged historically in regions with harsh ecological and climatic environments in which it was necessary to protect the survival of tribal groups. Individuals in Mongolian cultures were honor-bound to be respectful and trustworthy group members. To support this hypothesis, the current study used a picture classification task, symbolic self-inflation task, causal attribution task, and implicit social orientation task to investigate whether Mongolian and Han college students’ socioecological environment and historic culture lead to differences in self-construal. In the picture classification task and causal attribution task, both Mongolian and Han participants show holistic cognition, holistic social cognition, and interdependence. However, Mongolians exhibited higher self-inflation and greater pride and self-esteem than Han participants in the symbolic self-inflation and implicit social orientation tasks. Thus, our finding suggests that Mongolian college students show the cultural and psychological characteristics of the coexistence of self-assertive and interdependence. The Mongolian socioecological environment and production modes have become essential ecological variables, affecting their descendants’ self-construal.
Biological evolution has led to more and more complex organisms, including humans with highly developed brains. This has facilitated adaptation to changing circumstances through conscious self-monitoring, allowing individuals to learn from experiences and to form cultural entities. More recently, a paralimbic brain network instrumental in self-awareness has been defined. It consists of two medially located hubs regulated by dopamine via GABAergic neurons. Its function requires multiple oscillations and is therefore highly oxygen dependent and vulnerable in penuria. This predicament may lead to major disorders like schizophrenia, addiction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism. Recent observations have shown that the relative activity in the medial paralimbic network of self-awareness and the angular gyri is different between Westerners and Orientals, with more angular activity in the latter group. The difference seems to reflect less egocentricity in oriental cultures compared to western culture. Alignment of activity pattern among individuals is a general feature of each culture, reflecting a continuum between intrinsic cognition and external environment. In disease, it is therefore important to focus not only on intrinsic cognition and external environment separately, but also on their interaction. We here propose that dopamine–gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) interacting hubs in the network are a cornerstone not only for health, but even human culture.
Prior research showed that people make inferences about personality traits based on facial features and that there is cross-cultural consensus concerning such face-based trait inferences. The current research tested whether there are cultural differences in the extent to which people ascribe traits to individuals based on facial features. We built Caucasian and Asian faces using a data-driven statistical model that represents two fundamental social dimensions—trustworthiness and dominance traits—and generated faces that vary on each dimension, ranging from − 4.5 SD to + 4.5 SD. By asking European American and Korean participants to judge these faces, we demonstrated that although trait evaluations tracked the trait intensity predicted by the computer models in both cultures, European American participants inferred more extreme traits from faces than did Korean participants. Cultural differences in the extent of trait ascription were partly explained by attention to situational information. In addition, participants made more differentiated trait ascription based on their own-race faces than other-race faces; this was more pronounced among European American participants.
Left-right confusion commonly occurs in neurologically intact individuals. This study aimed to investigate the real-life individual differences in left-right confusion among healthy Japanese young adults. The effects of gender and handedness were also examined in a balanced sample with similar numbers of left- and right-handed and female and male participants. Half of the 128 participants (32 of 64 males; 32 of 64 females) were left-handed. Participants were administered a self-rated confusability questionnaire and the Money Road-Map Test (MRMT). In the self-rated questionnaire, females reported a stronger degree of confusability. Although the main effects of handedness, the main effect of gender, and their interaction were non-significant in terms of the accuracy performance of the MRMT, there was a male-dominated gender difference in completion time. The results of this study confirm that there are individuals who are neurologically intact, but who show extreme left-right confusion—both subjectively and objectively. This issue must be understood in terms of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the broader community.
The divergence of Eastern and Western cultures signifies the two opposite, major branches that developed during human cultural evolution. While socioeconomic, historical, and geographical factors are thought to be responsible for this divergence, genetic factors may also contribute to the separation of Eastern and Western cultures. In an attempt to describe a potential biological basis for the differences between “Easterners” and “Westerners”, SNPs that were associated with personality/behavioral traits, were interrogated in different populations worldwide. For some but not all SNPs examined, a high correlation in their allelic frequencies in different racial groups was detected. Those that exhibited the highest difference in allelic frequencies between East Asians and European ancestry populations, were all highly correlated in pairwise comparisons and corresponded to traits that are aligned with typical characteristics that are thought to underscore Western and Eastern cultures. Genetic loci associated with these SNPs included CTNNA2 (rs7600563), OXTR (rs53576) LINC00461 (rs3814424) MTMR9 (rs2164273) and WSCD2 (rs1426371) that have been linked to excitement seeking, empathy, the perception of loneliness, conscientiousness, and extraversion. Among them, variations especially in LINC00461 in different populations correlated significantly with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions indices of the different countries. These findings highlight the potential role of genetic factors in cultural evolution and suggest that genetic differences may contribute to the divergence of Eastern and Western cultures.
