Language Clues Can Mislead Cultural Psychologists

Cultural psychologists like me examine similarities and differences across nationalities, especially those that relate to how and why people think the way they do.

Because human languages are remarkably diverse yet share many features in common, they can provide clues to the universal and culture-specific aspects of human behavior and cognition. These clues constitute weak evidence for the existence of a particular phenomenon. They’re enough to formulate a hypothesis but not enough to confirm a hypothesis. (To confirm a hypothesis, behavioral scientists need stronger kinds of evidence, the kinds that come from well-controlled studies.)

If you’re a fan of murder mysteries and detective stories, you know a clue might reveal the killer's identity–or point in the wrong direction! The same thing happens in cultural psychology. Linguistic clues sometimes lead us to fresh insights and fuller understandings, but sometimes they lead us astray.

Verb Tenses and Thinking About Time

Some languages–Japanese and Estonian, for example–lack a future tense. They have a present tense and past tense but no future tense. I don't speak Japanese, but I do speak a little Estonian. In Estonian, ma olen kodus means “I am at home.” Many English speakers are surprised to learn that it’s impossible to construct an Estonian sentence that literally means “I will be at home.”

Instead, Estonians indicate that something will happen in the future by using time-marking words such as varsti (shortly or soon) and homme (tomorrow). Ma olen varsti kodus literally means “I am shortly at home,” which has the same meaning in English as “I’ll be home soon.”

When we learn that a language lacks a future tense, we may be tempted to imagine that people who speak the language think differently about time. Maybe Estonians, for example, are less oriented toward the future than English speakers are. Maybe they’re less likely to save money and buy life insurance. Maybe Estonians are less punctual when meeting others because the “present” extends farther in time than it does for English speakers.

These are intriguing guesses, but in this case, we have a linguistic clue that has led us down the wrong path. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that the lack of a future tense is associated with differences in thinking about the future, planning for the future, or being punctual. All languages can clearly communicate when an action or event will occur. Some languages use verb tenses to perform this function, while others use time markers.

Words for "Me" and Conceptions of Self

Cultural psychologists have had better luck with other linguistic clues. The Japanese language has at least 10 words that mean “I” or “me,” depending on the audience and context. A young man often refers to himself as Boku with high school buddies. In the Kansai region, a young woman relaxing with girlfriends may refer to herself as Uchi. When giving a formal speech, the speaker customarily refers to himself or herself as Watashi. When a father talks to his child, he usually says Otosan (Dad). In military and sporting contexts, men and women sometimes refer to themselves as Jibun, which conveys the meaning of “my part or portion” (Coto Academy, 2019).

As an American, the “me” who plays Wordle every morning is the same “me” who lectures to students during the day, plays basketball with friends in the afternoon, and talks with my wife in the evening. But if I were Japanese, I would use different pronouns to refer to myself as I moved through the activities of the day. Japanese pronouns register the shifting relationships between individuals, others, and social situations.

This pattern of pronoun usage suggests that, in Japan, one's identity varies at least slightly across different situations. In other words, we can hypothesize that the typical Japanese sense of self is more sensitive to context and more dependent on others than the typical American sense of self.

In fact, Japanese and American researchers have conducted dozens of studies to examine self-concepts in Japan and the United States (White, 2020). In these studies, American participants typically experience and present a sense of self that is autonomous, stable, and separate from others. Japanese participants typically experience and present a sense of self that is flexible and contingent on others. In Japan, one’s self-image changes depending on the social situation (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

For example, when asked to describe themselves in one study, Japanese respondents were more willing to mention personality traits when the questionnaire specified the context or setting (with family, for example). American respondents were more comfortable with a version of the questionnaire that did not specify different contexts (Cousins, 1989). As a result, Americans tended to say things like “I am serious” or “I’m fun-loving,” period. Japanese tended to say things like “I am serious at work” or “I’m fun-loving with my friends.”

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Like detectives, cultural psychologists inspect features of language to provide clues about how people think and why they behave the way they do. Linguistic clues frequently mislead us, but sometimes they point us in very fruitful directions!