Mind Focus in Western White Cultures, Behavior Focus in East Asian Cultures: An Integrative Review

One fundamental characteristic of humans is that we have both “exteriors” (i.e., behavior) and “interiors” (i.e., mental states). This distinction between the mind and behavior is critical for our understanding of human nature, bearing consequences for moral deliberation, societal functioning, and social lives in general. Culture influences the extent to which people attend to mental states and behaviors. In this review, we propose that the mind carries greater significance in Western White cultural contexts (i.e., a mind focus) and behavior carries greater significance in East Asian contexts (i.e., a behavior focus). Focusing specifically on East Asian societies, we first examine local cultural models of the mind-versus-behavior focus in Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. We then draw on three established culture-level constructs—self- construal, relational mobility, and cultural tightness-looseness—to examine their potential role in mind-versus-behavior foci. Synthesizing these theoretical models, we propose a novel historical- evolutionary theoretical framework to explain cultural differences in the mind-versus-behavior focus beyond an East-West comparison. Rooted in the notion of cultural evolution of theory of mind, our theoretical framework links cultural tendencies to foster a mind or behavior focus to social ecologies that place varying demands on the mind in facilitating human sociality. Finally, we review empirical evidence of cross-cultural differences in the mind-versus-behavior focus, drawing from three fields—theory of mind, parenting, and alexithymia. This review not only provides preliminary evidence supporting different cultural emphases on mind versus behavior in Western White and East Asian societies, but also presents a theoretical framework for investigating similar phenomena across other societies.