Control deprivation and styles of thinking.

Abstract

Westerners habitually think in analytical ways, whereas East Asians tend to favor holistic styles of thinking. We replicated this difference but showed that it disappeared after control deprivation (Experiment 1). Brief experiences of control deprivation, which stimulate increased desire for control, caused Chinese participants to shift toward Western-style analytical thinking in multiple ways (Experiments 2-5). Western Caucasian participants also increased their use of analytical thinking after control deprivation (Experiment 6). Manipulations that required Chinese participants to think in Western, analytical ways caused their sense of personal control to increase (Experiments 7-9). Prolonged experiences of control deprivation, which past work suggested foster an attitude more akin to learned helplessness than striving for control, had the opposite effect of causing Chinese participants to shift back toward a strongly holistic style of thinking (Experiments 10-12). Taken together, the results support the reality of cultural differences in cognition but also the cross-cultural similarity of using analytical thinking when seeking to enhance personal control.

How Do Different Ways of Measuring Individual Differences in Zero‐Acquaintance Personality Judgment Accuracy Correlate With Each Other?

“…One cognitive style dimension that may distinguish the two kinds of accuracy is analytical versus holistic. This dimension has been discussed often in relation to information‐processing styles that differ between cultures (e.g., East Asian vs. Western; Masuda & Nisbett, ; Zhou, He, Yang, Lao, & Baumeister, ). Someone using an analytic style will segregate features of a scene or setting in order to focus narrowly on a particular feature and selectively screen out nonrelevant aspects, whereas someone using a holistic style will process all of the information simultaneously, in context, in order to grasp a total meaning, or the relations of all the elements in relation to each other.…”

Loss of control stimulates approach motivation

“…For example, people exposed to uncontrollable aversive tones spend more time -not less -on challenging cognitive tasks like solving anagrams (Hiroto & Seligman, 1975). Control deprivation also changes people's cognitive style, causing them to process information in a more effortful and deliberate manner (Zhou, He, Lao, & Baumeister, 2012), which can improve performance on cognitive tasks (Pittman & D'Agostino, 1989). These initial boosts in activity appear to be short-lived: While brief experiences of no control facilitate ability and persistence on challenging puzzles, repeated control deprivation elicits learned helplessness (Roth & Kubal, 1975).…”

Seeing the forest and not the trees: When impact uncertainty heightens causal complexity

“…Past research has largely focused on differentiating between the effects of lacking (or possessing) outcome control on dependent variables (e.g. Whitson & Galinsky, ; Zhou et al, ). The results of this study demonstrate the unique effects of impact uncertainty—where individuals have outcome control, but the extent to which their actions can shape outcomes is uncertain.…”

“…The relationship between outcome control and causal complexity is complicated: past research suggests that when people experience brief experience with outcome control deprivation, they shift to a more analytical (rather than holistic) thinking style to reassert their sense of control. However, after the experience of prolonged outcome control deprivation, they shift back towards focusing on “big picture” by displaying a holistic thinking style (Zhou et al, ). Given that people who face impact uncertainty can still have outcome control, this research extends upon past research by attempting to isolate the effects of impact uncertainty on causal complexity.…”