Question: Have you found any cultural differences in rational thinking/biases?

Stephen Baillargeon answered on 14 Jun 2018:

Yes, there’s some research on self serving bias that has different results in China and other Asian countries. One interesting aspect of Asian culture is that an individual’s actions are seen as a reflection of the quality of the family. You can see this clumsily portrayed in the film Mulan as Mulan is motivated to bring honor to her family. This means that their sense of self is more closely tied to their family and many biases that trick us into thinking we are smarter and more competent than we really are seem to be much smaller in these cultures. It might be because their sense of self worth is tied to their family rather than their perceived competence. It also might be because of difference in how Western vs Eastern cultures value humility. Buddhism is more common in Eastern countries and there are some Buddhist doctrines that describe Annata, or the not-self. Basically, many believe that it is somewhat useless to call anything your self because no aspect of who we are is under our own control. I’m oversimplifying it a bit, but I’m very interested to find out if the prevalence of this doctrine is one reason that the self serving bias is so small in Eastern countries.