Research

Research

In Collaboration with International Scholars, we are now conducting a variety of research projects as follows:

Previous Works

Project 9: Culture and Relationship

This project examines how cultures influence people’s experience in different social relationships. In order to have a comprehensive understanding, we use different perspectives in our studies. First, we, with collaboration with Dr. Kenichi Ito, examined whether perceived norms of help seeking and perceived norms of help seeking in one’s society affected expectations of closeness in friendships between East Asians and North Americans (Ito, Masuda, Komiya, & Hioki, under review). Specifically, we found the perception of relational costs was primarily important East Asians whey they considered about help seeking. In addition, the perceived norm of seeking help was positively associated with expectation of closeness in friendships. We extend our research on friendship experience to enemyship experience from a socio-ecological perspective. We are currently conducting research to examine the potential influence of relational mobility on enemyship strategies among East Asians and North Americans (Li & Masuda, in preparation).

Collaborators Affiliations
Liman Man Wai Li University of Alberta, Canada
Ken-Ichi Ito Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Project 10: Culture and Child Development–The Child-Parent Project 

Developmental psychologists have advocated theoretical frameworks of socialization processes (Azuma, 1994; Greenfield & Bruner, 1969; Rogoff, 1993, 2003; Vigotsky, 1930/1978), and cultural psychologists are now starting to demonstrate in what ways culturally divergent patterns of attention are developed through socialization practices (Imada, Carlson, & Itakura, 2013; Senzaki & Masuda, under review; Senzaki, Masuda, Shimizu, Takada, & Okada, 2013; Masuda, Shimizu, Senzaki, & Takada, 2013). For example, Senzaki et al. (2013) investigated the development and transmission of culturally specific attentional patterns, while focusing on parent–child socialization practices as the source of cultural differences in visual attention in Canada and Japan. The results indicated that when parents and children jointly engaged in the same visual attention task, cultural differences emerged, and this effect was especially strong in the case of 8-year-old and older children: Children showed cross-cultural differences in their attentional patterns, mirroring those of their parents (i.e., object-oriented in Canada and context-sensitive in Japan). This is indirect evidence of “scaffolding processes” (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). With their parents’ help, older children imitate the ways of attention held by mature members of the society. We further intend to investigate (1) when, and (2) how children internalize culturally unique attentional patterns. To answer these questions, we have assembled a research team in collaboration with three developmental psychologists both in Japan (Dr. Itakura, Dr. Shimizu) and in the US (Dr. Senzaki).

Collaborators Affiliations
Senzaki Sawa, PhD University of Alberta, Canada
Matt Russell University of Alberta, Canada
Kristina Nand University of Alberta, Canada
Yuki Shimizu, PhD Saitama University, Japan
Shoji Itakura, PhD Kyoto University, Japan
Akira Takada, PhD Kyoto University, Japan
Yukiko Uchida, PhD Kyoto University, Japan
Hiroyuki Okada, PhD Tamagawa University, Japan

Project 11: Culture and Attention

We have investigated cultural variations in visual attention, and examined whether East Asians are more likely than North Americans to attend to context. In a variety of experiments, we have demonstrated that East Asians are more attentive than North Americans to contextual and relational information (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; 2006; Nisbett & Masuda, 2003). We are continuing to investigate the underlying mechanisms of cultural variation in perception. For example, we have conducted eye-tracking studies in collaboration with Dr. Sawa Senzaki (University of Wisconsin, Green Bay), which support these differential patterns of attention (e.g. Senzaki, Masuda, & Ishii, 2013). These results suggest that cultural variations in basic perceptual processes may be deeply rooted.Currently, we are investigating these differences under the frameworks of culture and neuroscience (e.g. Masuda, Russell, Chen, Hioki, & Caplan, 2013)

Collaborators Affiliations
Matthew Russell University of Alberta, Canada
Jeremey Caplan University of Alberta, Canada
Keiko Ishii Kobe University, Japan
Yvonne Chen University of Alberta, Canada
Koichi Hioki Kobe University, Japan

Project 12: Culture and Judgment

his project extends our research on culture and perception to applied research. We obtained evidence that East Asians were more context-sensitive when they made attribution of others’ behaviors relative to North Americans (Masuda & Kitayama, 2004). Recently, we focus on how cultural variation on perception and attention may affect the judgment and decision-making processes. First, we found East Asians and North Americans used different strategy for information-searching process in decision making, in which East Asians searched both important and unimportant information (Li, Masuda, & Russell, in preparation). Secondly, East Asians were more likely to allocate resources for all possible alternatives whereas North Americans primarily allocated resources to the most possible alternative (Li & Masuda, in preparation). Finally, we found correlational and experimental evidence that showed cultural meaning system, dialecticism, affected indecisiveness among East Asians and North Americans (Li, Masuda, & Russell, in preparation).

Collaborators Affiliations
Liman Man Wai Li University of Alberta, Canada
Takashi Hamamura Chinese University of Hong Kong, China