Do Cross-Cultural Psychological Differences Vary with Social Class, Age, and Gender? A Japan-U.S. Comparison of Cognitive Style and Social Orientation.

Previous work assessing psychological tendencies across cultures suggests that East Asians are more holistic in cognition (e.g., extending attention to the context in object perception) and interdependent in social orientation (e.g., feeling happy when connected with others) than European Americans. However, little is known about the possible moderation of these findings by age and social class because of this literature’s near-exclusive focus on young and highly educated segments of the respective populations. The neglect of these demographic variables has persisted even though different theories predict divergent effects of such variables. Here, we addressed this gap by testing a comprehensive set of eleven holistic cognition measures and six interdependent social orientation measures in random samples of Japanese and Americans who varied in age, educational attainment, and gender (N = 666). The previously reported cultural variation proved highly stable across the subpopulations. Though other demographic factors played a significant role for both cognitive style and social orientation, their combined contribution was 14-18 times smaller than the effects of national culture. We discuss implications for the existing theories of culture.