PMID- 28832602
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20171019
LR  - 20181113
IS  - 1932-6203 (Electronic)
IS  - 1932-6203 (Linking)
VI  - 12
IP  - 8
DP  - 2017
TI  - Do individualism and collectivism on three levels (country, individual, and 
      situation) influence theory-of-mind efficiency? A cross-country study.
PG  - e0183011
LID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0183011 [doi]
LID - e0183011
AB  - This study investigated whether individualism and collectivism (IC) at country, 
      individual, and situational level influence how quickly and accurately people can 
      infer mental states (i.e. theory of mind, or ToM), indexed by accuracy and 
      reaction time in a ToM task. We hypothesized that collectivism (having an 
      interdependent self and valuing group concerns), compared to individualism 
      (having an independent self and valuing personal concerns), is associated with 
      greater accuracy and speed in recognizing and understanding the thoughts and 
      feelings of others. Students (N = 207) from individualism-representative (the 
      Netherlands) and collectivism-representative (Vietnam) countries (Country IC) 
      answered an individualism-collectivism questionnaire (Individual IC) and were 
      randomly assigned to an individualism-primed, collectivism-primed, or no-prime 
      task (Situational IC) before performing a ToM task. The data showed vast 
      differences between the Dutch and Vietnamese groups that might not be 
      attributable to experimental manipulation. Therefore, we analyzed the data for 
      the groups separately and found that Individual IC did not predict ToM accuracy 
      or reaction time performance. Regarding Situational IC, when primed with 
      individualism, the accuracy performance of Vietnamese participants in affective 
      ToM trials decreased compared to when primed with collectivism and when no prime 
      was used. However, an interesting pattern emerged: Dutch participants were least 
      accurate in affective ToM trials, while Vietnamese participants were quickest in 
      affective ToM trials. Our research also highlights a dilemma faced by 
      cross-cultural researchers who use hard-to-reach populations but face the 
      challenge of disentangling experimental effects from biases that might emerge due 
      to an interaction between cultural differences and experimental settings. We 
      propose suggestions for overcoming such challenges.
FAU - Vu, Tuong-Van
AU  - Vu TV
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0001-6700-2439
AD  - Faculty of Behavioural & Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 
      Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
FAU - Finkenauer, Catrin
AU  - Finkenauer C
AD  - Department of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the 
      Netherlands.
FAU - Huizinga, Mariette
AU  - Huizinga M
AD  - Faculty of Behavioural & Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 
      Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
FAU - Novin, Sheida
AU  - Novin S
AD  - Department of Social, Health, and Organizational Psychology, Utrecht University, 
      Utrecht, the Netherlands.
FAU - Krabbendam, Lydia
AU  - Krabbendam L
AD  - Faculty of Behavioural & Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 
      Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20170823
PL  - United States
TA  - PLoS One
JT  - PloS one
JID - 101285081
SB  - IM
MH  - Humans
MH  - *Models, Psychological
MH  - Netherlands
MH  - Vietnam
PMC - PMC5568381
COIS- Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
EDAT- 2017/08/24 06:00
MHDA- 2017/10/20 06:00
PMCR- 2017/08/23
CRDT- 2017/08/24 06:00
PHST- 2016/09/08 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2017/07/28 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2017/08/24 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2017/08/24 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2017/10/20 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2017/08/23 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - PONE-D-16-27801 [pii]
AID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0183011 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - PLoS One. 2017 Aug 23;12(8):e0183011. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0183011. 
      eCollection 2017.