Paradoxical Cultural Categories and Paradoxical Social Relationships: The Case of Cooperation and Competition

Josh Keller, Jeffrey Loewenstein, Martin Kilduff, Jin Yan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

How individuals think about opposing or paradoxical categories influences their social relationships. We found that Chinese managers were more likely than US managers to categorize attempts to outperform others as an instance of both competition and cooperation. Further, the Chinese managers were more likely than the US managers to perceive a given working relationship as being both cooperative and competitive. The two findings were linked: culturally-guided beliefs about whether the cooperation-competition paradox should be integrated or kept separate influenced how individuals understood their social relationships. More broadly, the implication is that category membership and relations between categories are guided by cultural influences distinct from the particulars of the categories themselves that normally enter into cognitive science research on categories. In addition, those categorization choices are consequential for the network of social relationships individuals form.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCooperative Minds
Subtitle of host publicationSocial Interaction and Group Dynamics - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2013
EditorsMarkus Knauff, Natalie Sebanz, Michael Pauen, Ipke Wachsmuth
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages740-745
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780976831891
StatePublished - 2013
Event35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics, CogSci 2013 - Berlin, Germany
Duration: Jul 31 2013Aug 3 2013

Publication series

NameCooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2013

Conference

Conference35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics, CogSci 2013
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityBerlin
Period7/31/138/3/13

Keywords

  • Categories
  • China
  • competition
  • cooperation
  • culture
  • paradox
  • relationships

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

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