proof of your article attached, please read carefully ... - CiteSeerX

JOHN WILEY & SONS, LTD., THE ATRIUM, SOUTHERN GATE, CHICHESTER P019 8SQ, UK

*** PROOF OF YOUR ARTICLE ATTACHED, PLEASE READ CAREFULLY *** After receipt of your corrections your article will be published initially within the online version of the journal.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE PROMPT RETURN OF YOUR PROOF CORRECTIONS WILL ENSURE THAT THERE ARE NO UNNECESSARY DELAYS IN THE PUBLICATION OF YOUR ARTICLE READ PROOFS CAREFULLY ONCE PUBLISHED ONLINE OR IN PRINT IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO MAKE ANY FURTHER CORRECTIONS TO YOUR ARTICLE § §

This will be your only chance to correct your proof Please note that the volume and page numbers shown on the proofs are for position only

ANSWER ALL QUERIES ON PROOFS (Queries are attached as the last page of your proof.) §

List all corrections and send back via e-mail to the production contact as detailed in the covering e-mail, or mark all corrections directly on the proofs and send the scanned copy via e-mail. Please do not send corrections by fax or post

CHECK FIGURES AND TABLES CAREFULLY § §

Check sizes, numbering, and orientation of figures All images in the PDF are downsampled (reduced to lower resolution and file size) to facilitate Internet delivery. These images will appear at higher resolution and sharpness in the printed article Review figure legends to ensure that they are complete Check all tables. Review layout, titles, and footnotes

§ §

COMPLETE COPYRIGHT TRANSFER AGREEMENT (CTA) if you have not already signed one §

Please send a scanned signed copy with your proofs by e-mail.Your article cannot be published unless we we have received the signed CTA

AUTHOR SERVICES §

If you have registered this article in Wiley-Blackwell Author Services, the article's status will be updated shortly after you have returned your proof corrections (you will also receive an e-mail alert if you have opted to receive them). You are entitled to free access to the PDF from Author Services when your article is published online. This free access is considered your PDF offprint, and you will only have access from within Author Services; you will not be sent a PDF. You may also nominate up to 10 colleagues for free access. All accesses from Author Services count towards the usage of your article. For options to order print copies or additional electronic access, please see below.

OFFPRINTS §

Free access to the final PDF offprint of your article will be available via Author Services only. Please therefore sign up for Author Services if you would like to access your article PDF offprint and enjoy the many other benefits the service offers

Additional reprint and journal issue purchases § §

§ §

Should you wish to purchas e a minim um of 100 c opie s of your ar ticl e, pleas e contact http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/aboutus/contact_reprint_sales.html To purchas e r eprints in small er qu antities, pleas e visit http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/aboutus/pp v-articles elec t.ht ml. R estrictions apply to the use of reprints – if you have a specific query, please c ontac t [email protected] Corresponding authors are invited to inform their co-authors of the reprint options available To purchas e a c opy of the issue in whic h your ar ticle appears, please c ontact cs-journals@ wil ey.c o.uk upon publication, quoting the article and volume/issue details Pleas e note that r egardl ess of the f or m in whic h they are ac quired, reprints should not be r es old, nor further disseminated in electronic or print form, nor deployed in part or in whole in any marketing, promotional or educ ati onal c ont exts without auth or izati on from W iley. P ermissi ons r equ ests should b e directed to mailto: [email protected]

European Journal of Social Psychology Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 40, 1–8 (2010) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.759

Fast track report

FS

Effects of schooling and literacy on linguistic abstraction: the role of holistic vs. analytic processing styles

O

OLIVIER KLEIN1*, PAULO VENTURA2, LAURENT LICATA3 ¨ N R. SEMIN4 AND GU 1

O

Universite´ Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Taˆnia Fernandes and Leonel Garcia-Marques, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal 3 Universite´ Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium 4 Utrecht Univerity, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Netherlands

D

PR

2

TE

Abstract

CO

RR

EC

Schooling in a Western cultural environment has been shown to promote context-free (analytic) at the expense of contextdependent (holistic) processing. In the present study, we examined whether these differences in processing styles also induce a tendency to use more abstract (i.e., dispositional) language when describing interpersonal behaviors. Portuguese literate, illiterate, and ex-illiterates were asked to freely describe interpersonal behaviors presented visually. Using the linguistic category model (LCM), we found that literates relied on more abstract descriptions than ex-illiterates and illiterates. This effect of schooling was strongly associated with their relative superiority on an analytic (vs. holistic) task. These findings suggest that schooling influences the elaboration of social information. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

When attending to a complex visual scene such as e.g., Picasso’s Guernica, it is possible to either focus on salient objects (e.g., the bull’s head) and to perceptually isolate them from the context. Alternatively, an observer can appraise the scene globally by concentrating on the interrelations between the elements of the scene (e.g., the divergent orientations of the figures, which yield an impression of chaos). Obviously, depending on their processing goals, perceivers may adopt the first, ‘‘analytic,’’ or the second, ‘‘holistic,’’ style. Yet, over time, people generally tend to rely on one style more often than on the other. These individual differences have been extensively studied as a function of culture (see Nisbett & Masuda, 2003; Norenzayan, Choi, & Peng, 2007 for reviews). Thus, cognitive processing is more holistic in East Asian cultures compared to Western cultures where an analytical style predominates (for a review, see Nisbett & Masuda, 2003). Research on processing style has been almost exclusively conducted in relation with cross-cultural differences. In the present paper, we consider two additional factors that may play an equally important role: Schooling and literacy. Two reasons motivate our interest for these factors. First, schooling, which we will define here as undergoing, at a proper age, a full time primary education in the context of an educational institution, is one of the main socialization practices for children, especially in Western cultures. It may be one of the channels through which Westerners develop an analytic processing style. Hence, moving from the observation

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

*Correspondence to: Olivier Klein, Unite´ de Psychologie Sociale CP 122, Universite´ Libre de Bruxelles, B-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 12 October 2009 Accepted 29 March 2010

2

Olivier Klein et al.

CO

RR

EC

TE

D

PR

O

O

FS

that Westerners tend to adopt an analytic processing style to understanding how they develop such an analytic processing style demands to consider the possible influence of schooling on processing style. Second, although close to a billion adults in the world are illiterate (UNESCO, 2009), social psychological knowledge is grounded almost exclusively on data gathered among schooled and literate individuals. Yet, there are reasons to believe that basic social cognitive processes, including those affecting processing styles, are deeply influenced by schooling and literacy (see Morais & Kolinsky, 2000 for a review). Thus, Kolinsky et al. (Kolinsky, Morais, & Brito-Mendes, 1990; Kolinsky, Morais, Content, & Cary, 1987) have tested unschooled people, either illiterates or ex-illiterates (people of the same socio-cultural origin as illiterates but who learned to read and write at adult age in special alphabetization classes), on a part-in-a-figure detection task that requires abstraction from contextual information. These participants were unable to find the part when this was either embedded or fragmented in the figure, whereas second graders performed near ceiling. More recently, Ventura, Pattamadilok, Fernandes, Klein, Morais, and Kolinsky (2008) identified differences between cognitive styles as a function of schooling. These authors administered the Framed Line Test (FLT: Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003) to Portuguese schooled (literate) and unschooled (both illiterates and ex-illiterates) participants. In this task, participants view a vertical line fitted within a square. Subsequently, they are shown an empty square of a different size and have to reproduce the line. There are two versions of this task: In the relative task, participants must draw a line that respects the relative proportion between the line and the square in the original stimulus. In the absolute task, participants are told to draw a line of the same absolute length. Schooled Portuguese participants were more accurate in the absolute task than in the relative task, which is indicative of an ‘‘analytic’’ processing style. By contrast, unschooled Portuguese participants (i.e., both illiterates and ex-illiterates) displayed the reverse pattern, which is suggestive of a ‘‘holistic’’ processing style. Thus, schooling in a Western culture (rather than literacy per se) seemed to encourage the use of analytic processing style. While the FLT presents a creative method to distinguish processing styles, it is not necessarily clear whether these differences in processing styles influence the appraisal of socially situated events, which persons encounter in everyday life. The primary goal of the present study is to examine if Ventura et al.’s (2008) earlier findings generalize to people’s responses to actual persons’ behaviors (i.e., social cognition). In order to do so, we propose to investigate whether the language used to describe human behaviors shows systematic differences as a function of schooling. Language use may indeed be affected by processing styles and may therefore prove to be an adequate medium for studying the consequences of these styles on social cognition and communicational behavior. Kashima, Kashima, Kim, and Gelfand (2006; see also Maass, Karasawa, Politi, & Suga, 2006) indeed suggest that abstract language (e.g., adjectives) can be viewed as reflecting analytic processing as it tends to focus on the actor and to isolate this actor from the context in which the behavior takes place. By contrast, they suggest that more concrete verb-based descriptions focus on the process in which the actor is involved and thereby retain more contextual information, which reflects a more holistic processing. Consider for example the two following descriptions of the same scene: ‘‘John is handing a five Euros tip to the waiter’’ (concrete description) ‘‘John is generous’’ (abstract description)

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

In the first case, the behavior is embedded within a limited context—there is another person, the action takes place in a restaurant—whereas in the second, the only available information pertains to an actor who is isolated from the context. Hence, we may expect a describer more attuned to the context in which the behavior took place (e.g., the meal was excellent, the waiter was helpful, high tips are the norm, etc.) to preferably rely on the first type of description whereas a describer engaged in more analytical processing may prefer the second. Consistent with this assumption, studies (e.g., Kashima et al., 2006; Maass et al., 2006; Semin, Go¨rts, Nandram, & Semin-Goossens, 2002) have shown that members of more (holistic) East Asian cultures rely on more concrete language to describe persons, emotions, or social events than members of (analytic) Western cultures. However, although these studies are built on the assumption that there is a relation between processing style and linguistic abstraction, this relation has not been demonstrated. The second goal of the paper is precisely to empirically substantiate this assumption. If this relationship exists, a difference in linguistic abstraction may be observed as a function of schooling. More specifically, abstraction should be affected by schooling and this effect should be mediated by processing style. Indeed, we may expect schooled individuals, with more analytic processing styles, to rely on more abstract language than unschooled individuals. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 40, 1–8 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

Schooling and linguistic abstraction

3

Overview and Hypotheses

O

O

FS

In line with earlier research on the effects of schooling and literacy (see e.g., Ventura, Kolinsky, Fernandes, Querido, & Morais, 2007), the present study had three groups of Portuguese participants who were either illiterate, ex-illiterate, or literate (which allowed us to disentangle the effects of schooling from those of literacy). They were shown pictures of social events and were asked to describe them. Their answers were coded in terms of the level of abstraction based on the LCM (Semin & Fiedler, 1988). Further, they completed a computerized version of the FLT, to obtain an index of analytic vs. holistic processing style. The hypothesis under examination was that while the literate group was more likely to rely on abstract predicates in their descriptions of social events, ex-literates and illiterates were expected to use more concrete terms. Moreover, we expected that these systematic differences in linguistic abstraction would be mediated by processing styles as measured by the FLT. Finally, an auxiliary goal of the study was to examine whether people responded differently to situations involving interpersonal (social) interactions vs. non-social situations.

PR

METHOD Participants

EC

TE

D

The three groups (illiterate, ex-illiterate, literate) of 10 participants each were matched on age (M ¼ 59; SD ¼ 11.6, F(2, 29) < 1.5), and socioeconomic and residential background.1 Literates had on average 8 years of schooling (SD ¼ 3.3). Illiterates were either recruited through non-governmental agencies or were attending alphabetization classes. In the latter case, they were tested during the first 2 weeks of alphabetization classes, when the only information they had received was about civil rights and the available courses. Ex-illiterates were engaged in or already had finished the final level of the adult alphabetization course. Procedure

CO

RR

All participants were first presented with letter recognition and (words and pseudo-words) reading test.2 Illiterates were able to identify, on average, eight letters out of the 23 letters of the Portuguese alphabet, but no illiterate participant was able to read a single stimulus of the reading test. All ex-illiterates correctly identified the 23 letters and attained at least 85% of correct responses in the reading test (mean reading accuracy: 98%). To evaluate language abstraction, participants were presented with 12 single-frame drawings that had been pre-tested (Kervyn, Yzerbyt, & Judd, 2010) and which represented behaviors varying in (1) valence (positive vs. negative) and (2) the sociality of the behaviors (interpersonal such as X hits Y vs. individual such as X cleans up). Participants were asked to imagine that they had to tell another person what was happening on the pictures. The drawings were presented in a fixed random order. To compare language use as a function of schooling and literacy, we relied on the LCM (Semin & Fiedler, 1988). The LCM is a model of interpersonal language that furnishes the means to investigate the type of linguistic devices that are used to represent social events. In this model adjectives and interpersonal verbs are ordered on a dimension from concrete to abstract. On the most concrete end of the LCM continuum are Action Verbs. These terms describe a single, observable event and preserve perceptual features of the event (e.g., ‘‘A punches B’’). The most abstract category in the LCM is Adjectives. Adjectives refer to properties that generalize across specific events and objects and describe only the subject (e.g., ‘‘A is aggressive’’). The properties described by adjectives show low contextual dependence. The use of adjectives is governed by abstract, semantic relations and not by the contingencies of contextual factors. The opposite is true for action verbs. Action verbs refer to contextual and situated features of an event. In addition, the LCM provides a dimension ranging from situational to dispositional information. Adjectives are the most dispositionally laden, State Verbs (SV)

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

1 Illiterates, ex-illiterates, and literates were selected to be as close as possible in terms of their professional activity (or if they were already retired, their previous profession); they also lived in the same neighborhood. 2 Note that illiterate and ex-illiterate participants had already participated in studies on the cognitive effects of literacy and were familiar with the procedure, which was unlikely to generate much stress. They were also aware that they had been selected based on their literacy level.



4


CO

RR

EC

TE

D

PR

O

O

FS

contain more information on the protagonist than Interpretive Action Verbs (IAV) and Descriptive Action Verbs (DAV). Finally, IAVs contain more dispositional information than DAVs (Geeraerts, Yzerbyt, Corneille, & Wigboldus, 2004; Kashima et al., 2006, Semin & Fiedler, 1992). Prior to the experimental trials, participants were presented with four pictures (two individual, either positive or negative, and two interpersonal, either positive or negative). The experimenter described half of the pictures starting with DAV and proceeding to end with adjectives. For the other half of the pictures, the experimenter used the reverse order of description. Participants then had to describe the 12 subsequent photos. Their descriptions were recorded verbatim. Based on the procedure recommended by Semin and Fiedler (1989), a language abstraction score was calculated for each participant with high interrater reliability between two independent coders (Cronbach’s a ¼ .88 for the score, Cohen’s k ¼ .82 for the classification in the LCM). Participant’s cognitive processing style was assessed by means of an on-line, same-different, sequential classification version of the FLT (cf. Fernandes, Ventura, Morais, & Kolinsky, 2009 for details), with order of tasks counterbalanced between participants and within-group. Prior to performing each task, participants received specific instructions and performed eight practice trials with feedback on their performance. Stimulus presentation, response duration, and data collection were controlled by E-Prime Professional 2.0 (Schneider, Eschman, & Zuccolotto, 2002). In the relative task, participants had to judge whether the line and the frame of the second stimuli matched the proportional scaling of the standard stimulus. In the absolute task, they had to judge whether the line of the second stimuli was exactly of the same length as the line of the standard stimulus. The entire FLT task consisted of 48 trials. Compared to the original paper and pencil version, the use of this task allows more accurate measurement of participant’s performance through reaction times and is also more reliable than the original version of the FLT given that it involves a larger number of trials. Each trial started with a fixation cross presented for 250 milliseconds, after which the two stimuli were sequentially presented at the center of a computer screen, separated by a 500 milliseconds white-screen. The first, standard stimulus was always presented for 500 milliseconds, followed by the second stimulus that remained on the screen until a response was given; if no answer was given after a maximum of 4000 milliseconds then participants received the next trial. They responded by pressing one of two buttons of a PST SRB 200A button box, with ‘‘same’’ responses given with the right index finger (and different responses with the left index finger). Participants were instructed to respond as fast as possible. Response latencies were measured from the onset of the second stimulus. All stimuli consisted of two features: A square frame, with a vertical line located from the center of the upper edge of the square. The six stimuli used by Kitayama et al. (2003; Study 2) were presented on each trial as the first, standard stimulus (see an example in Figure 1). For each participant an index of cognitive processing style was calculated by subtracting reaction times between the two tasks (RT-holistic task–RT-analytic task). A holistic processing style would correspond to negative values (smaller

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Figure 1. Example stimuli used in the computerized version of the framed line test. Note: Each line presents the four types of stimuli used for each task. On the left side are the two stimuli for which ‘‘same’’ was the correct answer. On the right side are stimuli for which ‘‘different’’ was the correct answer. We did not distinguish the four types of trials of either the absolute or the relative task Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.



5

FS

RTs in the holistic task and higher RTs in the analytic task). An analytic style corresponded to positive values (higher RTs in the holistic task and smaller RTs in the analytic task). The use of this index controlled for overall differences in processing speed between participants. The order of the two tasks (description and FLT) was not the same for all subjects. Half the subjects were tested on the FLT immediately after the description task. For the other half, this order was reversed with an interval of several months between the two tasks.3 This procedural difference had no effect on either of the two focal dependent variables or on their correlation.

RESULTS

O

Language Abstraction

TE

D

PR

O

The hypothesis that literates would describe the behaviors in the photos more abstractly than illiterates and ex-literates was analyzed with an ANOVA with group (illiterate vs. ex-illiterate vs. literate) as the between participants variable and type of scene (interpersonal vs. individual) as a repeated factor. This analysis yielded the predicted effect of schooling, F(2, 27) ¼ 7.31, p < .05, partial h2 ¼ .35. More specifically, Tukey post hoc comparisons revealed, as hypothesized, that literates described the behaviors more abstractly (M ¼ 2.05, SE ¼ .11) than the other two groups ( p < .05). There was no difference in abstraction between illiterates (M ¼ 1.65, SE ¼ .08) and ex-illiterates (M ¼ 1.67, SE ¼ .04, p ¼ .91). There was also a main effect of the type of scene, F(1, 27) ¼ 65.08, p < .0001, partial h2 ¼ .71 with higher abstraction for interpersonal (M ¼ 1.94, SE ¼ 0.056) than individual scenes (M ¼ 1.63, SE ¼ 0.062). No other effect involving this factor approached significance.

EC

Processing Style

CO

RR

After excluding an outlier (Z > 34), we next analyzed whether processing style was affected by schooling by submitting reaction times on correct responses to the computerized FLT to an analysis of variance, which revealed this to be the case, F(2,26) ¼ 6.59, p ¼ .005, partial h2 ¼ .39. Multiple comparisons (using Tukey’s HSD) showed that schooled participants were more ‘‘analytic’’ (M ¼ 340.67, SE ¼ 76.85) than illiterates (M ¼ 763.81, SE ¼ 285.38) and ex-literates (M ¼ 977.16, SE ¼ 344.03), whose scores did not differ. We also performed a similar analysis on the overall proportion of correct responses, which only revealed an effect of schooling, F(2,27) ¼ 6.61, p < .05: Illiterates provided fewer correct responses (M ¼ .53, SD ¼ .12) than ex-illiterates (M ¼ .63, SD ¼ .10) and literates (M ¼ .67, SD ¼ .10) who did not differ (using Tukey’s HSD). Finally, we examined whether differences in linguistic abstraction are related to cognitive processing styles within each of the three groups. The correlations between abstraction and processing style were substantial across all three groups (for literates: r ¼ .67, p < .05; for illiterates: r ¼ .83, p < .005; for ex-illiterates r ¼ .75, p < .02). The more specific prediction we made suggested that systematic variations in linguistic abstraction could be explained by differences in processing style. We performed a mediation analysis (Baron & Kenny, 1986) using schooling as the independent variable: The latter was operationalized as a dummy variable contrasting the schooling group (coded as 1) with literates and ex-illiterates (coded as 1). The processing style index was used as a mediator. Linear regression (see Figure 2) revealed that the effect of schooling on linguistic abstraction was non-significant when processing style (which also predicted linguistic abstraction) was entered in the regression. Finally, and as we have seen, the schooled group used a more analytic processing style than unschooled participants. Thus all conditions for achieving mediation were fulfilled (as confirmed by a Sobel test, Z ¼ 2.58, p ¼ .01). In order to further examine the directionality of these effects, we also conducted a reverse mediation by swapping the mediator and the dependent variable (Kenny, Kashy, & Bogler, 1998). For this second mediation, full mediation was also achieved (Sobel Z ¼ 2.56, p ¼ .01), making it difficult to assess the directionality of the effects.

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

3 4

This is because this measure was also used in an independent study. If anything, inclusion of this case enhanced the pattern observed in the rest of the sample.




PR

O

O

FS

6

TE

D

Figure 2. Mediation (a) of the effect of schooling on linguistic abstraction by processing style and (b) of the effect of schooling on processing style by linguistic abstraction. The numbers are standardized regression coefficients p < .01

EC

DISCUSSION

CO

RR

The current findings extend earlier work (Ventura et al., 2008) by showing that schooling enhances abstract language use in the representation of social events. In contrast to illiterates and ex-illiterates, literates use more abstract terms focusing less on contextual features of a social situation and more on predicates that emphasize stable or enduring characteristics of a protagonist in a social situation. Furthermore, our results reveal that these systematic differences in language use as a function of schooling are associated with cognitive processing. The latter finding suggests that the effect of schooling on linguistic abstraction observed in the present study is not due to a superficial effect of schooling on habitual language use (e.g., just as immersion in a new professional environment may require to learn a particular jargon) but seems to be grounded in cognitive processing. To our knowledge, the present study also provides the first empirical demonstration that differences in cognitive style are associated with differences in linguistic abstraction. Note also, that effect of schooling and literacy was not moderated by the nature of the scene (social vs. individual). While we find evidence that the effect of schooling on linguistic abstraction is mediated by processing style, the direction of causality is difficult to establish as abstraction also mediates the effect of schooling on processing style. Such a direction would be consistent with recent findings by Stapel and Semin (2007) who have observed that priming abstract language leads to more ‘‘analytical’’ performance on the FLT. Hence, there may be a reciprocal relation between these two variables. Although we expected to observe a correlation, we were actually surprised by its unusual strength, which may be precisely due to a mutually reinforcing influence. While we find evidence that schooling affects processing style, we ca not pinpoint the exact aspects of schooling that drive this effect. In this respect, the present research resembles early studies on cross-cultural differences in processing styles (cf. e.g., Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). Yet, one may consider two general explanations: One type of explanation would suggest that specific skills learnt at school foster an analytical processing style. While some mathematical skills appear like likely candidates, it should be kept in mind that, in earlier studies (e.g., Kitayama et al., 2003; Nisbett & Masuda, 2003Q1; Ventura et al., 2007), schooled Q1 Asians displayed a holistic style, in spite of a training in mathematics. Alternatively, the effect of schooling may be due to its role as a socialization practice. Socialization in school may demand to appraise and interpret the world in certain ways consistent with the local culture. This process may in turn facilitate the use of the ‘‘cognitive tools’’ that are prevalent

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56




7

CO

RR

EC

TE

D

PR

O

O

FS

within this culture. Further research should address these possibilities by considering how specific forms of social influence (e.g., from teachers and peers) map onto pupils’ evolving processing styles. The present design is standard in schooling/literacy research (see Morais & Kolinsky, 2000Q2, for a review) because it Q2 allows to disentangle the effect of schooling from the effect of literacy. However, it cannot exclude the possibility that differences between literates and the two other groups are not driven by schooling per se as by the age at which reading is acquired. On the one hand, this would not explain why an effect of schooling on processing styles was not observed in a Thai sample used in our previous study (Ventura et al., 2008) although literate Thais also underwent schooling at an early age. On the other hand, previous studies (Duffy, Toriyama, Itakura, & Kitayama, 2009) suggest that the shift from holistic to analytical processing occurs at around 5 for Western children. Similarly, another study by Fernandes et al. (2009) conducted with a Portuguese sample finds no difference between highly educated individuals and schooled Portuguese with 4–12 years of schooling, suggesting that the influence of schooling occurs early. Altogether, these findings suggest that an interaction between age and schooling in a Western environment may be present. Further research should consider these possibilities and examine more precisely the aspects of the curriculum that may drive differences in processing styles by comparing children as a function of the age at which they enter school. This study only investigated the effect of schooling in a Western cultural environment. Further research should address whether this effect also holds in an Eastern cultural environment. Given that earlier studies have reported the use of more concrete language among schooled Westerners than Easterners (Kashima et al., 2006; Maass et al., 2006), such an effect of schooling is likely to be smaller. The present findings should therefore not be construed as warranting the conclusion that education necessarily leads to a more analytical processing style. Finally, the present results open perspectives for further research on person perception. Given that the aspects of language use investigated here are closely tied with attributional processes, a logical next step involves examining whether the differences observed in this study also manifest themselves on more direct measures of attribution. Specifically, one may wonder whether schooling increases people’s tendency to make dispositional attributions and/or spontaneous trait inferences (Uleman, 1987). Such a study may shed light on important controversies in the attribution literature. Research has suggested that people naturally attribute behavior to internal dispositions (for a review, see Gilbert & Malone, 1995) and that cognitive effort needs to be expended to counter this initial tendency. According to this view, dispositionalism is the ‘‘default’’ tendency and it can only be countered by learning to inhibit one’s biases. However, such lay dispositionalism may actually be limited to schooled Western individuals. Cross-cultural studies (Chua, Boland, & Nisbett, 2005Q3, Q3 Ventura et al., 2008) indeed suggest that a holistic processing style (likely to promote situational attributions) is a ‘‘default’’ or ‘‘natural’’ processing style. Similarly, the present findings hint at the possibility that it is by acquiring an analytic processing style through schooling that Westerners ‘‘learn’’ to become dispositional.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The preparation of this paper was supported by a grant of Fundaçaõ para a Cieˆncia e a Tecnologia—Ministe´rio da Cieˆncia, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior—(Projects PTDC/PSI/66077/2006, ‘‘Cognitive consequences of literacy’’ and PTDC/PSIPCO/099526/2008 ‘‘Analytic vs. holistic thinking’’), by the Centro de Psicologia Clıńica e Experimental—Desenvolvimento, Cogniçaõ e Personalidade of the Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal and by Concerted Research Action 06/11-342 titled ‘‘Culturally modified organisms: What it means to be human in the age of culture,’’ financed by the Ministe`re de la Communaute´ Française (Belgium). We thank Nicolas and Gauthier Kervyn for giving us access to the stimuli.

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

REFERENCES Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182. Duffy, S., Toriyama, R., Itakura, S., & Kitayama, S. (2009). Development of cultural strategies of attention in North American and Japanese children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 351–359. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


8

Olivier Klein et al. Q4 Q5

Q6

CO

RR

EC

TE

D

PR

O

O

FS

FernandesQ4, T., Ventura, P., Morais, J., & Kolinsky, R. (2009). Cultural attentional strategies in the framed-line test: West water drops begin inside the East rainstorm. Manuscript submitted for publication. FiskeQ5, A., Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). The cultural matrix of social psychology. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 915–981). San Francisco: McGraw Hill. Geeraert, N., Yzerbyt, V. Y., Corneille, O., & Wigboldus, D. (2004). The return of dispositionalism: On the linguistic consequences of dispositional suppression. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 264–272. Gilbert, D. T., & Malone, P. S. (1995). The Correspondence Bias. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 21–21. JiQ6, L. J., Peng, K. P., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 943–955. Kashima, Y., Kashima, E. S., Kim, U., & Gelfand, M. (2006). Describing the social world: How is a person, a group, and a relationship described in the East and the West? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 388–396. Kenny, D. A., Kashy, D. A., & Bolger, N. (1998). Data analysis in social psychology. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 233–265). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill. Kervyn, N., Yzerbyt, V., & Judd, C. (2010). When compensation guides inferences: Direct and indirect measures of the compensation effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 1–11. Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., & Larsen, J. T. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural look at New Look. Psychological Science, 14, 201–206. Kolinsky, R., Morais, J., & Brito-Mendes, C. (1990). Embeddedness effects on part verification in children and unschooled adults. Psychologica Belgica, 30, 49–64. Kolinsky, R., Morais, J., Content, A., & Cary, L. (1987). Finding parts within figures: A developmental study. Perception, 16, 399–407. Maass, A., Karasawa, M., Politi, F., & Sauga, S. (2006). Do verbs and adjectives play different roles in different cultures? A crosslinguistic analysis of person representation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 734–750. MarkusQ7, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 20, 568–579. MasudaQ8, T., Gonzalez, R., Kwan, L., & Nisbett, R. E. (2008). Culture and aesthetic preference: Comparing the attention to context of East Asians and Americans. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1260–1275. Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically vs. analytically: Comparing the context Sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922–934. Morais, J., & Kolinsky, R. (2000). Biology and culture in the literate mind. Brain and Cognition, 42, 47–49. MorrisQ9, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause—American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 949–971. Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2003). Culture and point of view. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100, 11163–11170. NisbettQ10, R. E., & Miyamoto, Y. (2005). The influence of culture: holistic versus analytic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 467–473. Norenzayan, A., Choi, I., & Peng, K. (2007). Perception and cognition. In S. Kitayama, & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 569–594). New York: Guilford Press. NorenzayanQ11, A., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture and causal cognition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 132–135. PengQ12, K., & Choi, I. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291–310. Schneider, W., Eschman, A., & ZuccolotoQ13, A. (2002). E-Prime reference guide. Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools Inc. Semin, G. R., & Fiedler, K. (1988). The cognitive functions of linguistic categories in describing persons: social cognition and language. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 558–568. Semin, G. R., & Fiedler, K. (1989). Relocating attributional phenomena within the language-cognition interface: The case of actorobserver perspectives. European Journal of Social Psychology, 19, 491–508. Semin, G. R., & Fiedler, K. (1992). The inferential properties of interpersonal verbs. In G. Semin, & K. Fiedler (Eds.), Language, interaction and social cognition (pp. 58–78). Newbury Park: Sage. Semin, G. R., Gorts, C. A., Nandram, S., & Semin-Goossens, A. (2002). Cultural perspectives on the linguistic representation of emotion and emotion events. Cognition and Emotion, 16, 11–28. Stapel, D. A., & Semin, G. R. (2007). The magic spell of language: Linguistic categories and their perceptual consequences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 23–33. Uleman, J. S. (1987). Consciousness and control: The case of spontaneous inferences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13, 337–354. UNESCO. (2009). Literacy worldwide Retrieved 9 February 2009, from http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=32635&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html Ventura, P., Kolinsky, R., Fernandes, S., Querido, L., & Morais, J. (2007). Lexical restructuring in the absence of literacy. Cognition, 105, 334–361. Ventura, P., Pattamadilok, C., Fernandes, T., Klein, O., Morais, J., & Kolinsky, R. (2008). Schooling in western culture promotes context-free processing. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 100, 79–88.

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56



Q7 Q8

Q9 Q10

Q11 Q12 Q13

Author Query Form (EJSP/759) Special Instruction: Author please include responses to queries with your other corrections and return by e-mail.

CO

RR

EC

TE

D

PR

O

O

FS

Q1: Author: Please check the change made in reference. Q2: Author: Please check the change made in the reference. Q3: Author: ‘‘Chua, Boland, & Nisbett, 2005’’ is not given in the reference list. Please provide it suitably within the list. Q4: Author: Please update the reference. Q5: Author: Reference is not cited in the text. Please cite it suitably within the text. Q6: Author: Reference is not cited in the text. Please cite it suitably within the text. Q7: Author: Reference is not cited in the text. Please cite it suitably within the text. Q8: Author: Reference is not cited in the text. Please cite it suitably within the text. Q9: Author: Reference is not cited in the text. Please cite it suitably within the text. Q10: Author: Reference is not cited in the text. Please cite it suitably within the text. Q11: Author: Reference is not cited in the text. Please cite it suitably within the text. Q12: Author: Reference is not cited in the text. Please cite it suitably within the text. Q13: Author: Please verify the author name.

UN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

WILEY AUTHOR DISCOUNT CLUB We would like to show our appreciation to you, a highly valued contributor to Wiley’s publications, by offering a unique 25% discount off the published price of any of our books*. All you need to do is apply for the Wiley Author Discount Card by completing the attached form and returning it to us at the following address: The Database Group (Author Club) John Wiley & Sons Ltd The Atrium Southern Gate Chichester PO19 8SQ UK Alternatively, you can register online at www.wileyeurope.com/go/authordiscount Please pass on details of this offer to any co-authors or fellow contributors. After registering you will receive your Wiley Author Discount Card with a special promotion code, which you will need to quote whenever you order books direct from us. The quickest way to order your books from us is via our European website at:

http://www.wileyeurope.com Key benefits to using the site and ordering online include: • Real-time SECURE on-line ordering • Easy catalogue browsing • Dedicated Author resource centre • Opportunity to sign up for subject-orientated e-mail alerts Alternatively, you can order direct through Customer Services at: [email protected], or call +44 (0)1243 843294, fax +44 (0)1243 843303 So take advantage of this great offer and return your completed form today. Yours sincerely,

Verity Leaver Group Marketing Manager [email protected]

*TERMS AND CONDITIONS

This offer is exclusive to Wiley Authors, Editors, Contributors and Editorial Board Members in acquiring books for their personal use. There must be no resale through any channel. The offer is subject to stock availability and cannot be applied retrospectively. This entitlement cannot be used in conjunction with any other special offer. Wiley reserves the right to amend the terms of the offer at any time.

REGISTRATION FORM

For Wiley Author Club Discount Card To enjoy your 25% discount, tell us your areas of interest and you will receive relevant catalogues or leaflets from which to select your books. Please indicate your specific subject areas below. Accounting • Public • Corporate

[] [] []

Architecture

[]

Business/Management

[]

Chemistry • Analytical • Industrial/Safety • Organic • Inorganic • Polymer • Spectroscopy

[ [ [ [ [ [ [

] ] ] ] ] ] ]

Computer Science • Database/Data Warehouse • Internet Business • Networking • Programming/Software Development • Object Technology

[ [ [ [ [

Encyclopedia/Reference • Business/Finance • Life Sciences • Medical Sciences • Physical Sciences • Technology

[ [ [ [ [ [

] ] ] ] ] ]

Engineering • Civil • Communications Technology • Electronic • Environmental • Industrial • Mechanical

[ [ [ [ [ [ [

] ] ] ] ] ] ]

Earth & Environmental Science

[]

Hospitality

[]

Finance/Investing • Economics • Institutional • Personal Finance

[ [ [ [

] ] ] ]

Genetics • Bioinformatics/ Computational Biology • Proteomics • Genomics • Gene Mapping • Clinical Genetics

[] []

Life Science

[]

Landscape Architecture

[]

Mathematics Statistics

[]

[ [ [ [

] ] ] ]

Manufacturing Materials Science

Medical Science • Cardiovascular • Diabetes • Endocrinology • Imaging • Obstetrics/Gynaecology • Oncology • Pharmacology • Psychiatry

[ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [

] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ]

Non-Profit

[]

] ] ] ] ]

[]

[] []

Psychology • Clinical • Forensic • Social & Personality • Health & Sport • Cognitive • Organizational • Developmental & Special Ed • Child Welfare • Self-Help

[ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [

] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ]

Physics/Physical Science

[]

Please complete the next page /

I confirm that I am (*delete where not applicable): a Wiley Book Author/Editor/Contributor* of the following book(s): ISBN: ISBN: a Wiley Journal Editor/Contributor/Editorial Board Member* of the following journal(s):

SIGNATURE: ……………………………………………………………………………………

Date: ………………………………………

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING DETAILS IN BLOCK CAPITALS: TITLE: (e.g. Mr, Mrs, Dr) …………………… FULL NAME: …………………………………………………………………………….… JOB TITLE (or Occupation):

..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

DEPARTMENT: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. COMPANY/INSTITUTION: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ADDRESS: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… TOWN/CITY: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… COUNTY/STATE: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. COUNTRY: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. POSTCODE/ZIP CODE: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… DAYTIME TEL: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… FAX: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… E-MAIL: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… YOUR PERSONAL DATA We, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, will use the information you have provided to fulfil your request. In addition, we would like to: 1.

Use your information to keep you informed by post of titles and offers of interest to you and available from us or other Wiley Group companies worldwide, and may supply your details to members of the Wiley Group for this purpose. [ ] Please tick the box if you do NOT wish to receive this information

2.

Share your information with other carefully selected companies so that they may contact you by post with details of titles and offers that may be of interest to you. [ ] Please tick the box if you do NOT wish to receive this information.

E-MAIL ALERTING SERVICE We also offer an alerting service to our author base via e-mail, with regular special offers and competitions. If you DO wish to receive these, please opt in by ticking the box [ ]. If, at any time, you wish to stop receiving information, please contact the Database Group ([email protected]) at John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, PO19 8SQ, UK.

TERMS & CONDITIONS This offer is exclusive to Wiley Authors, Editors, Contributors and Editorial Board Members in acquiring books for their personal use. There should be no resale through any channel. The offer is subject to stock availability and may not be applied retrospectively. This entitlement cannot be used in conjunction with any other special offer. Wiley reserves the right to vary the terms of the offer at any time.

PLEASE RETURN THIS FORM TO: Database Group (Author Club), John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, PO19 8SQ, UK [email protected] Fax: +44 (0)1243 770154