Social Anxiety and Holistic Cognition: Self-Focused Social Anxiety in the United States and Other-Focused Social Anxiety in Japan

Previous cultural psychological studies suggest that East Asians tend to think more holistically than Westerners and that these cultural differences in cognition are accounted for, in part, by psychological processes associated with a predominant social orientation of the self as independent in the West and as interdependent in the East. In addition to examining these self-construal variables as predictors of holistic cognition, the current study also examined the role that a self-focused manifestation of social anxiety (social phobia tendencies) common in the United States and the role that an other-focused manifestation of social anxiety (taijin kyofusho, or TKS tendencies) common in Japan play in holistic cognition. Samples of 142 Japanese and 125 Americans completed an instrument that measures degree of skill in holistic cognition and then completed measures of self-construal, social phobia, and TKS. The current study found that, in unpackaging cultural differences in holistic cognition, social phobia tendencies, given their self-focused nature, were associated with decreased levels of holistic cognition while TKS tendencies, given their other-focused nature, were associated with increased levels of holistic cognition. Thus, holistic cognition served as an important basic cognitive feature which distinguishes between the two culturally divergent versions of social anxiety. Furthermore, independent self-construal was found to be more strongly associated with the self-focused component of social anxiety while interdependent self-construal was only associated with the other-focused component of social anxiety.