Within-culture variation in field dependence/independence: A region-level investigation across China

Abstract

Field dependence/independence (FDI), refers to one's preferred style in perceiving one's surroundings, either analytically and individually, or globally and collectively, and has been a popular topic in recent cross- and within-culture research. Previous researchers have suggested that members of individualist and collectivist cultures differ in the degree to which they perceive objects either analytically and context-independently or holistically and context-dependently. Cross-culture variation in FDI has been thoroughly studied, whereas within-culture investigations have seldom been undertaken. We explored the within-culture variation of FDI with 593 Chinese colleague students, via administering the Embedded Figures Test. As we predicted, results showed that participants from the more individualist north China area exhibited stronger degrees of field independence than did their more collectivist southern counterparts. We have supported and extended the notion that culture affects individual experiences on a basic perceptual level with new within-culture data.