Geography of Thought: Cognitive Styles, Institutions, and the Future of AI

This article explores the geography of thought, drawing on Richard E. Nisbett's research on differences in human cognition. The author examines how distinct sociocognitive systems—the Western analytical model and the Eastern holistic model—influence our perception, categorization, and attribution errors. The text goes beyond psychology, pointing to the real-world consequences of these differences in areas such as legal systems, institutional structures, and the design of artificial intelligence algorithms. In the age of globalization, understanding relational ontology and contextualism becomes crucial to avoiding naive universalism. This book provides insight into why the future of AI technology must accommodate the diversity of human cognitive styles to effectively serve a global society and address the challenges of the contemporary economy.