We were talking about cultural relativity in cognition -- basically, how individuals' cultural backgrounds influence how they think about the world. To demonstrate, our prof showed us the following images, and asked which two of the three are most closely related:
What do you think?
Most of my classmates grouped the monkey and the banana together on the basis that monkeys eat bananas.
But I disagreed. I raised my hand and very adamantly said something along the lines of, "But the panda and the monkey are both animals. They both move and breathe and they're fluffy!"
Then our prof nodded and moved on to the next slide. I had my head down and didn't notice what had just popped up on the screen till I heard laughter and a classmate say, "Oh my gosh, Kristen!" When I looked up, this is what I read:
"The American participants showed a marked preference for grouping on the basis of common category membership; Panda and monkey fit into the animal category...[as opposed to] grouping on the basis of thematic relationships..." (Ji, Zhang and Nisbett 2002)
Bam. Exactly what I said.
A nice little reminder that despite my new affinity for tea and biscuits, I am, in fact, American.
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