Contributions and challenges of cultural research on the development of social cognition

Drawing from our cross-cultural research on social attribution, interpersonal morality, and motivation, we identify contributions as well as challenges of cultural research in developmental psychology. Cultural research not only is valuable in enhancing awareness of diversity in developmental outcomes but in providing new conceptual insights into existing psychological claims and greater awareness of culturally variable developmental endpoints and pathways. We argue for the need to conduct cultural research that embodies sensitivity to contextual variation. We also focus on effective methodological strategies for cultural developmental research, including the use of projective measures and of interview approaches that involve both quantitative indices and empirical coding of open-ended qualitative responses. The cultural research that we have undertaken uncovers culturally variable age trends in social attribution, expands the scope of the moral domain, and identifies culturally variable meanings of deontic considerations in work on motivation. In terms of challenges, we point to the need to tap outlooks in more naturalistic ways that go beyond simple taxonomic schemes to embody a greater sensitivity to the meanings and practices of particular cultural groups.