Results of a study involving 340 Japanese and 272 U.S. college students and another study with 206 Japanese and 681 U.S. college students found that 21 scenarios did contain different Japanese and American behavioral rules. Results of the second study showed the multidimensionality of the behavioral rules and the difficulties of intercultural…

Noting that one means of better understanding the nature of cultural differences is to elucidate the cognitive differences between members of differing cultures, this paper examines Alexander Luria's sociohistorical theory of functional cognitive systems. The paper first describes Luria's notion of functional systems, the crux of which postulates…

The problem of meaning in cross-cultural situations, resulting from differing patterns of thought, requires comprehension of the basic rules or patterns of these thought systems. This comprehension can be sought through Vygotsky's unit of analysis, a unit being a product of analysis which, unlike elements, retains all the basic properties of the…

This project was designed to study the process of parents teaching preschool age children using a direct observational method. Six mothers and their own three-year-old sons from seven ethnic groups participated: middle-class Anglo, lower-class Anglo, English-speaking Mexican-American, bilingual Mexican-American; Spanish-Speaking Mexican-American,…