Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 107, Issue 14, Pages 6192-6197Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1001911107
Keywords
culture; personality trait; cognitive style; social orientation
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Funding
- Russell Sage Foundation
- National Institute on Aging [5RO129509-02]
- National Science Foundation (NSF) [2007: BCS 0717982]
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We show that differences in social orientation and in cognition that exist between cultures and social classes do not necessarily have counterparts in individual differences within those groups. Evidence comes from a large-scale study conducted with 10 measures of independent vs. interdependent social orientation and 10 measures of analytic vs. holistic cognitive style. The social measures successfully distinguish between interdependence (viewing oneself as embedded in relations with others) and independence (viewing oneself as disconnected from others) at the group level. However, the correlations among the measures were negligible. Similar results were obtained for the cognitive measures, for which there are no coherent individual differences despite the validity of the construct at the group level. We conclude that behavioral constructs that distinguish among groups need not be valid as measures of individual differences.
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