Beyond East and West: Cognitive Style in Latin America

Research on culture and cognition suggests that East Asians are relatively holistic and North Americans are relatively analytic. Social orientation and philosophical traditions have been linked to those differences; collectivism and Confucian tradition are associated with holistic thinking whereas individualism and Western philosophy are associated with analytic thinking. We tested whether Brazilians, who are Western such as North Americans and collectivistic such as East Asians, would more closely resemble U.S. Americans or Chinese participants in various measures of cognitive style. Across five studies, Brazilians were always more holistic than Americans and sometimes more holistic than Chinese participants. Brazilians differed from Chinese participants in that they were particularly optimistic in their judgments about the future (Study 3) and reported varying their emotion expressivity more by context (Study 5). Results build on previous East/West comparisons by identifying a non-Confucian, Western group that may be as holistic as East Asians.