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Some of the early findings recent indicate, may have resulted from the nonequivalence of research situations to individuals from different cultural backgrounds rather than from differences in individuals" cognitive orientations.
It has been demonstrated that subjects exposed to various modernizing influences, such as schooling or urbanization, display more abstract modes of classification only on the types tasks emphasized in those settings rather than on all types of tasks. It may also be noted that objects or events may be classified as similar because of their prescriptive cultural significance, even though they do not share a particular set of correlated attributes.
An alternative interpretation of age and cultural diversity in dispositional attributions focuses on contrasting culturally derived conceptions of the person, which influence attributors" interpretations of experience. Cultural differences in dispositional attributions are seen as resulting, in part , from the more individualistic cultural conceptions of the person acquired by individuals over development in Western Cultures, as contrasted with the more holistic cultural conception of the person adopted by individuals over development in non0Western cultures.
Emphasizing the situational variability of behavior and treating the social role rather than the individual as the primary normative unit, such cultural conceptions are seen as heightening non -Western attributors" sensitivity to the contextual determinants of action.
In particular, the age increase in reference to general dispositions documented to occur in Western Cultures would be seen as arising from children's" relatively gradual adoption, through processes of enculturation, of the individualistic views of the person stressed in such societies.
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Hypotheses Underlining .
Present Investigation.
