title: Exposure to an urban environment alters the local bias of a remote culture.
abstract: There is substantial evidence that populations in the Western world exhibit a local bias compared to East Asian populations that is widely ascribed to a difference between individualistic and collectivist societies. However, we report that traditional Himba - a remote interdependent society - exhibit a strong local bias compared to both Japanese and British participants in the Ebbinghaus illusion and in a similarity-matching task with hierarchical figures. Critically, we measured the effect of exposure to an urban environment on local bias in the Himba. Even a brief exposure to an urban environment caused a shift in processing style: the local bias was reduced in traditional Himba who had visited a local town and even more reduced in urbanised Himba who had moved to that town on a permanent basis. We therefore propose that exposure to an urban environment contributes to the global bias found in Western and Japanese populations.
authors.affiliation: Goldsmiths, University of London, London SE14 6NW, UK. s.caparos@gold.ac.uk
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Caparos
authors.forename: Lubna
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Bremner
authors.forename: Jan W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: de Fockert
authors.forename: Karina J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Linnell
authors.forename: Jules
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Davidoff
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D003469:Culture; D004777:Environment; D005202:Asia, Eastern; D005260:Female; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009276:Namibia; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012424:Rural Population; D012925:Social Conformity; D006113:United Kingdom; D014505:Urban Population; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult