PSY321H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Laozi, Fundamental Attribution Error, Categorical Perception
Document Summary
Masuda observed that horizons in landscape scenes were painted higher in east asian pictures, figure in portraits were larger in western pictures. He and colleagues argued that these different artistic styles reflect some fundamental differences in basic cognitive and perceptual processes. Analytic thinking is characterized by a focus on objects, that exist independent of their context, and their attributes, which are used as a basis for categorizing them. Holistic thinking is characterized by an orientation to the context as a whole; attention on the relations among objects and among the objects and the surrounding context. Origins of analytic/holistic thinking are argued to arise from the different social experiences people have within individualistic/collectivist societies. Then lead people to have primarily independent or interdependent self-concepts. Nisbett and colleagues argue that these cultural differences in ways of understanding people also shape the kinds of information people attend to in their physical environment.
