Effects of schooling and literacy on linguistic abstraction: the role of holistic vs. analytic processing styles

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2010

Authors

Olivier Klein (Author) Other; Paulo Ventura (Author) Other; Tânia Fernandes (Author) FPCEUP; Leonel Garcia Marques (Author) Other; Laurent Licata (Author) Other; Gün R. Semin (Author) Other

Journal

Title: European Journal of Social Psychology

Vol. 40 No. 7

Pages: 1095-1102

ISSN: 0046-2772

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 3 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 3 Citations

PsycInfo

Scientific classification

FOS: Social sciences > Psychology

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-003-0FJ

DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.759

Abstract (EN): Schooling in a Western cultural environment has been shown to promote context-free (analytic) at the expense of context-dependent (holistic) processing. In the present study, we examined whether these differences in processing styles also induce a tendency to use more abstract (i.e., dispositional) language when describing human behaviors. Portuguese literate, illiterate, and ex-illiterates were asked to freely describe behaviors presented visually. Using the linguistic category model, we found that literates relied on more abstract descriptions than ex-illiterates and illiterates. This effect of schooling was strongly associated with their relative superiority on an analytic (vs. holistic) task. These findings suggest that schooling influences the elaboration of social information. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

Notes: <a href="http://gateway.isiknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=Alerting&SrcApp=Alerting&DestApp=WOS&DestLinkType=FullRecord&KeyUT=000285312200001">Acesso à Web of Science</a> <br> <a href="http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-78649556713&origin=resultslist">Acesso à Scopus</a>

No. of pages: 8