TY  - JOUR
A1  - Springer, Anne
A1  - Beyer, Juliane
A1  - Derrfuss, Jan
A1  - Volz, Kirsten G.
A1  - Hannover, Bettina
T1  - SEEING YOU OR THE SCENE? SELF-CONSTRUALS MODULATE INHIBITORY MECHANISMS OF ATTENTION
JF  - Social cognition : the journal of the International Social Cognition Network
N2  - It has often been shown that independent self-construals (emphasizing personal uniqueness) coincide with an analytic, context-independent style of information processing whereas interdependent self-construals (emphasizing relatedness with others) promote holistic, context-dependent processing. The present study suggests that these cognitive variations between different self-construals can be accounted for by higher order cognitive functions for the control of ongoing mental operations (i.e., executive functions). Using an experimental paradigm, we showed naturalistic pictures displaying a face and a place superimposed on each other. On each trial, one of these dimensions served as a target (depicted in magenta), while the other served as a distractor (depicted in gray). The results showed that independency primed participants were less affected by distractors appearing in the presence of a target (i.e., smaller interference effect) than interdependency primed participants. Importantly, the independency primed participants revealed evidence of mental inhibition of distractors, showing longer reaction times when previously ignored distractors subsequently became targets (i.e., a negatively signed priming effect). Thus, our study is the first to suggest that differences in fundamental processes of cognitive control, namely, the inhibition of automatically triggered (but inappropriate) response tendencies, are the driving force behind the many previously reported differences between individuals primed for independency versus interdependency.
Y1  - 2012
SN  - 0278-016X
VL  - 30
IS  - 2
SP  - 133
EP  - 152
PB  - Guilford Press
CY  - New York
ER  -