Cross-Cultural Mental State Reading Ability in Antillean Dutch, Moroccan Dutch, and Dutch Young Adults

Abstract

Understanding how bicultural and monocultural individuals are oriented toward the cultures they come into frequent contact with can increase insights into their adaptation and wellbeing. Previous research has shown a relation between culture and mental state reading in the form of the cultural in-group effect, which is defined as the advantage in reading mental states from the own cultural group compared with other groups. Thus, orientation toward cultures can be assessed not only in self-reported behavioral and psychological acculturation but also in the domain of social-cognitive abilities. The aim of the current research is to gain insight into acculturation in the social-cognitive ability of mental state reading. In addition, it explores how this facet of acculturation is related to the more traditionally studied behavioral and psychological acculturation. Cross-cultural mental state reading, language and possession of friends (behavioral acculturation), and cultural identification (psychological acculturation) were assessed in Antillean Dutch (n = 128), Moroccan Dutch (n = 204), and Dutch (n = 349) young adults between 19 and 24 years old (M = 21.57 years, SD = 1.38 years). For cross-cultural mental state reading, the in-group effect was confirmed for the Dutch but not for the Antillean Dutch and Moroccan Dutch participants. Furthermore, there were no consistent associations between mental state reading and behavioral and psychological acculturation in the three groups. The present results extend fundamental research on cross-cultural mental state reading and also help to further understand the orientation of these specific cultural groups.

Familiarity with children improves the ability to recognize children’s mental states: an fMRI study using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task and the Nencki Children Eyes Test

“…x, y, and z of the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) coordinates in the left-right, anterior-posterior, and inferior-superior dimensions, respectively. www.nature.com/scientificreports/ culture RMET and the Caucasian RMET, while Caucasian Dutch individuals performed worse on the other cultures' RMETs 9 . The authors of this study suggested that bicultural individuals need to adjust to the Dutch (majority) culture in situations such as work or school, while during interactions with their relatives, they still need to act according to their primary culture.…”

“…The increased activation of the pSTS when understanding the mental states of children might reflect the increased importance of such interactions in the WC group. The increased importance of these interactions was previously proposed as being responsible for the ability of teachers to better remember children's faces 17 and for better performance in RMETs of other cultures 9 . The other explanation would simply be a better ability to process sensory information derived from the eye region, in other words, sensory expertise caused by familiarity.…”

“…Therefore, adults who work with children could potentially become experts in understanding the mental states of children. This idea is supported by the fact that people who live in multi-ethnic societies can improve their ability to understand the mental states of people of other ethnic groups 8 , 9 .…”

“…Several studies showed the own-race bias in socio-perceptual component of TOM 7 – 9 —a tendency to better recognize mental states of members of the same race. At the same time, the own-race bias could also be observed in less complex processes, such as face recognition (correctly recalling and matching known vs unknown faces) 10 .…”

“…For example, in a group of East Asian residents of Canada, performance in the Caucasian RMET was positively associated with the amount of time the participants had lived in Canada, their experience interacting with Caucasians and a shift from their own cultural values towards Canadian values 8 . Similarly, Anatolian Dutch and Moroccan Dutch people were equally good at understanding the mental states of their own ethnic group as they were those of Caucasians 9 . These results indicate the occurrence of the own-race bias in TOM processes and that experience with other cultures can reduce this bias and improve the understanding of mental states of people from other cultural groups.…”