Cognitive differences In United States preschool children and Mexico preschool children

Considerable cross-cultural work on adults and older children suggests that collectivist and individualist cultures are associated with different modes of cognitive processing involving holistic and analytic thinking styles. The current study examined cultural differences in holistic-analytic thinking styles in an understudied population—preschoolers—in the United States, a representative country for individualism, and in Mexico, a representative country for collectivism. Eighty-three preschoolers (United States: n = 41; Mexico n = 42) with an age range from 3 years to 6 years 1 month participated in this study. Two measures of cognitive style were given to each participant: the triad task and a modified version of the Preschool Embedded Figures Task (Coates, 1972). Results revealed no significant differences between Mexican and United States preschoolers in either the triad or the embedded figures task except in how quickly preschoolers identified the embedded figures, with Mexican preschoolers’ performance exceeding American preschoolers’ performance. An age effect was evident in preschooler performance in both tasks in both countries: older preschoolers were more likely to show thematic organization and field-independent thought than younger preschoolers. Results are discussed in terms of the need to re-evaluate monolithic concepts of both collectivism-individualism and cognitive style.PsychologyMastersUniversity of New Mexico. Dept. of PsychologyWitherington, DavidDelaney, HaroldRuthruff, Eri