Keywords:
Rice theory; Mode of thinking; Cultural Differences
水稻理论;思维方式;文化差异
Abstract:
According to cultural psychology, culture is an important factor affecting thinking, and there
are systematic differences in people's way of thinking under different cultural backgrounds. Tollham
et al. recently put forward the “rice theory”, which holds that the main ecological basis for the cultural
and psychological differences between the East and the West is the difference between rice cultivation
and wheat cultivation, and these two different ways of living are important explanatory factors for
the cultural and psychological differences between the East and the West, including the differences in
ways of thinking. In this paper, we systematically compare the thinking patterns of college students in
rice and wheat growing areas in China by using cognitive tasks such as concept classification, concept
representation, behavioral attribution and belief bias effect, and expandably test the “rice theory”. The
results showed that college students in wheat and rice areas did not show the same difference pattern in
various cognitive tasks of thinking styles, and college students in rice area did not show more obvious
holistic thinking tendency compared with college students in wheat area. The research results did not
support the basic hypothesis of “rice theory”.
文化心理学认为,文化是影响思维的重要因素,不同文化背景下人们的思维方式存在系统差异。托尔汉姆等人新近提出了“水稻理论”,认为东西方文化心理差异的主要生态基础是水稻种植和小麦种植的区别,这两种不同的生存方式是东西方文化心理差异,包括思维方式差异的重要解释因素。运用概念分类、概念表征、行为归因和信念偏差效应等认知作业对中国水稻和小麦种植区大学生的思维方式进行系统比较,对“水稻理论”进行了扩展性重复检验。研究结果表明,小麦区和水稻区大学生在多种思维方式认知作业中没有表现出一致的差异模式,和小麦区大学生相比,水稻区大学生没有表现出更为显明的整体性思维倾向,研究结果不支持“水稻理论”的基本假设。