Abstract
Research has noted well-being benefits to having a cultural fit between a person and the environment. The more a person fits the environment, the greater their reported well-being. We tested if cultural fit is also seen with neural patterns, which we term neural cultural fit. To address this question, we measured European Canadian (EC) and East Asian (EA) electroencephalography data during non-social (switches) and social (face emotions) flanker tasks. Participants were asked to categorize center switches (up–down) and faces (happy–sad) that were surrounded by other switches or faces. The flanker tasks involved congruent lineups, which showed the same directions or emotions between center and surrounding stimuli, and incongruent lineups, with different directions or emotions between center and surrounding stimuli. As the target neural measure, we calculated N2 event related potentials. Larger N2s to incongruent than congruent lineups suggest more conflict to incongruent lineups. We found larger N2s to incongruent than congruent lineups for EAs, as compared to ECs, replicating previous findings showing more context sensitivity for EAs. We also found evidence of neural cultural fit, with individuals with more difference from N2 neural pattern averages set by ECs in Canada in the social task, reporting less well-being. Cultural fit was also observed with social orientation beliefs, but did not explain neural cultural fit. These findings are important as they suggests that cultural fit depends not only on the subjective experience of what we believe (e.g., self-reports), but also on the objective experience of how we think (e.g., neural patterns).
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Notes
We also split the cultural findings by each group to see if cultural differences in well-being were driving the prediction of well-being by majority culture neural patterns. The relationship stood for both groups in the split analysis (majority neural patterns predicting well-being: EC (standardized) β = − .50, p = .02, EA β = − .39=, p = .07), although the East Asian relationship was not quite significant due to a smaller sample size than the combined analysis. This provides evidence that the relationship between N2 discrepancy scores and well-being was not driven by cultural differences in well-being, or by one cultural group.
In addition to the listed analyses, we also created a model including all factors (culture, condition, and discrepancy score) and all possible interactions. The culture by condition interaction (β = .09, p = .94) and the discrepancy by condition by culture interaction were not significant, β = .10, p = .42.
We also split the cultural findings by each group to see if cultural differences in well-being were driving the prediction of well-being by East Asian independence discrepancy scores and raw independence scores. The relationship stood for both groups in the split analysis (East Asian Independence discrepancy scores by well-being EC: r = .42, p = .005, EA: β = .33, p = .03; raw independence scores by well-being EC: r = .47, p = .002, EA: β = .41, p = .006). This provides evidence that the relationships between independence scores and well-being was not driven by cultural differences in well-being, or by one cultural group.
As an exploratory analysis, we calculated scores that reflect discrepancy from the behavioral cultural patterns. We calculated these patterns for the reaction time and accuracy incongruity effects, as these patterns are most conceptually similar to the N2 patterns (i.e., they index context sensitivity). We included all factors (culture, condition, and discrepancy score) and all possible interactions. For European Canadian discrepancy reaction time incongruity effects, all condition effects and interactions were not significant predictors of well-being. For East Asian discrepancy reaction time incongruity effects, all condition effects and interactions were not significant predictors of well-being, except across condition discrepancy scores (β = .24, p = .05). For European Canadian and East Asian discrepancy accuracy incongruity effects, all condition effects and interactions were not significant predictors of well-being. As a last step, to rule out if the East Asian discrepancy reaction time incongruity effects explained the neural cultural fit findings in the social condition, we performed a partial correlation for the social condition neural cultural fit finding, controlling for East Asian discrepancy reaction time incongruity scores. The neural cultural fit finding was still significant (r = − .44, p = .003, R2 = .20). This suggests that neural cultural fit may explain a part of well-being beyond behavioral fit.
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This research was partially funded by a Discovery Grant from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada held by Anthony Singhal, with trainee support by a CIHR Health System Impact Fellowship.
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Russell, M.J., Li, L.M.W., Lee, H. et al. Neural cultural fit: non-social and social flanker task N2s and well-being in Canada. Cult. Brain 8, 186–206 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40167-019-00089-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40167-019-00089-8