WIREDGOV

Have you ever wondered whether all people think the same way, or whether cultural differences across the world mean people's minds work differently? A new app, 'Global Village: Discover Your Thinking Style', lets you compare your own thinking style with the rest of the world. Devised by researchers at Durham University and Queen Mary University of London, and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the free app lets users discover which nationality they most think like.

Previous research has shown that people from Western societies like the US and UK often think differently to 'non-Westerners' from countries like Japan and China. For example, they tend to group objects according to formal categories, while non-Westerners instead group according to the relationships between objects. When asked whether a cow should be paired with grass or a chicken, people from the US tend to choose the chicken because cows and chickens are both farmyard animals. People from China tend to choose the grass, because cows eat grass.

In social relationships, Westerners tend to be more individualistic, which means that they see themselves as separate from others and are motivated more by personal goals and achievements. Non-Westerners, on the other hand, are more collectivistic; they see themselves as part of larger social groups and are motivated more by the success of their family or social group.

The Global Village app works out thinking styles through a mixture of games and quizzes. After completing the tasks the app gives users a score and allows them to compare this to the average score recorded in different countries, to reveal which nationality they most think like.

The app has been devised by a team led by Dr Alex Mesoudi from Durham University as a way of expanding the small sample sizes of previous studies. It will provide more information about the thinking styles of people who don’t fit into simple notions of East and West, such as people living in countries other than the US, Western Europe or East Asia, or immigrants who grew up in one place and later moved to another. The app is part of Dr Mesoudi's wider Thinking Styles project, which aims to unpick the reasons why people from different cultures think differently.

In a previous study, Dr Mesoudi and his colleagues measured the thinking styles of British Bangladeshi immigrants living in East London to see how exposure to Western culture affects the way migrants see the world.

"We have found that first-generation British Bangladeshi migrants, that is people who were born in Bangladesh but have since moved to Britain, often tend to think in a 'non-Western' way, as expected," says Dr Mesoudi.

"However, second generation British Bangladeshis who were born in Britain to Bangladeshi-born parents are largely indistinguishable from native Londoners' Western thinking styles, showing that variation in thinking patterns is certainly not genetic, but more likely a product of cultural factors such as schooling or exposure to Western media. One of the aims of our Global Village App is to see whether similar cultural factors shape variation in thinking styles in other migrant communities, too."

The Global Village app, compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, is available as a free download from the iTunes store.

Further information

• Dr Alex Mesoudi, Durham University 
  Email: a.a.mesoudi@durham.ac.uk
  Telephone: 0191 334 0248
• Sarah Nichols, ESRC press office 
  Email: sarah.nichols@esrc.ac.uk
  Telephone: 01793 413049

Notes for editors

• The Global Village app is available to download free from the iTunes store, requiring iOS 8.0 or later.
• The Thinking Styles project, funded by the ESRC and based at Durham University and Queen Mary University of London, aims to document and explain cultural variation in thinking styles.
• The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest funder of research on the social and economic questions facing us today. It supports the development and training of the UK’s future social scientists and also funds major studies that provide the infrastructure for research. ESRC-funded research informs policymakers and practitioners and helps make businesses, voluntary bodies and other organisations more effective. The ESRC also works collaboratively with six other UK research councils and Innovate UK to fund cross-disciplinary research and innovation addressing major societal challenges. The ESRC is an independent organisation, established by Royal Charter in 1965, and funded mainly by the Government. In 2015 it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
• About Durham University
   
  • A world top 100 university with a global reputation and performance in research and education
  • A member of the Russell Group of leading research-intensive UK universities
  • Research at Durham shapes local, national and international agendas, and directly informs the teaching of our students
  • Ranked in the world's top 100 universities for reputation (Times Higher Education World Reputation Review rankings 2015).
  • Ranked in the world top 25 for the employability of its students by blue-chip companies world-wide (QS World University Rankings 2014/15)
  • In the global top 50 for Arts and Humanities (THE World University Rankings 2013/14)
  • In the 2016 Complete University Guide, Durham was ranked fifth in the UK.
     
• About Queen Mary University of London
  • Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) is one of the UK’s leading universities, and one of the largest institutions in the University of London, with 20,260 students from more than 150 countries.
  • A member of the Russell Group, we work across the humanities and social sciences, medicine and dentistry, and science and engineering, with inspirational teaching directly informed by our research - in the most recent national assessment of the quality of research, we were placed ninth in the UK (REF 2014).
  • We also offer something no other university can: a stunning self-contained residential campus in London's East End. As well as our home at Mile End, we have campuses at Whitechapel, Charterhouse Square and West Smithfield dedicated to the study of medicine, and a base for legal studies at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
  • We have a rich history in London with roots in Europe’s first public hospital, St Barts; England’s first medical school, The London; one of the first colleges to provide higher education to women, Westfield College; and the Victorian philanthropic project, the People’s Palace at Mile End.
  • Today, as well as retaining these close connections to our local community, we are known for our international activities, and have research and teaching partnerships with leading universities around the world. This includes two very successful and long-standing joint partnerships with the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Nanchang University.
  • QMUL has an annual turnover of £350 million, a research income worth £100 million, and generates employment and output worth £700 million to the UK economy each year.