Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-30T17:08:46.075Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Determinants of cognitive variability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2010

Sangeet S. Khemlani
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540. khemlani@princeton.eduhttp://www.princeton.edu/~khemlani
N. Y. Louis Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR of China. louis@cuhk.edu.hkhttp://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/eps/people/leel.html
Monica Bucciarelli
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Torino, via Po, 14–10123, Torino, Italy. monica@psych.unito.ithttp://www.psych.unito.it/csc/pers/bucciarelli/bucciarelli.html

Abstract

Henrich et al. address how culture leads to cognitive variability and recommend that researchers be critical about the samples they investigate. However, there are other sources of variability, such as individual strategies in reasoning and the content and context on which processes operate. Because strategy and content drive variability, those factors are of primary interest, while culture is merely incidental.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bucciarelli, M. & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1999) Strategies in syllogistic reasoning. Cognitive Science 23:247303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucciarelli, M. & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2005) Naïve deontics: A theory of meaning, representation, and reasoning. Cognitive Psychology 50:159–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bucciarelli, M., Khemlani, S. & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2008) The psychology of moral reasoning. Judgment and Decision Making 3:121–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haritatos, J. & Benet-Martínez, V. (2002) Bicultural identities: The interface of cultural, personality, and socio-cognitive processes. Journal of Research in Personality 36:598606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, Y.-Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C.-Y. & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000) Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist 55:709–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2006) How we reason. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson-Laird, P. N., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V. & Legrenzi, M. (2000) Illusions in reasoning about consistency. Science 288:531–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacDonald, S., Nyberg, L. & Backman, L. (2006) Intra-individual variability in behavior: Links to brain structure, neurotransmission and neuronal activity. Trends in Neurosciences 29:474–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ng, S. H. & Lai, J. C. L. (2009) Effects of culture priming on the social connectedness of the bicultural self. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 40:170–86.Google Scholar
Pouliasi, K. & Verkuyten, M. (2007) Networks of meaning and the bicultural mind: A structural equation modeling approach. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43:955–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegler, R. S. (1996) Emerging minds: The process of change in children's thinking. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar