Describing the social world: How is a person, a group, and a relationship described in the East and the West?

The cross-cultural research on person description has shown that Westerners are more likely to describe both the self and other by personality trait words than do East Asians. Although this finding has been interpreted as an indication of the Western emphasis on the individual person, it can also be interpreted as Westerners’ preference for objectifying descriptions (preference for nouns and adjectives rather than verbs) of the social world. To provide a competitive test between these two interpretations, Koreans and Australians were asked to describe three types of social targets: person (self and friend), group (one’s and friend’s family), and relationship (one’s and friend’s relationship). English speakers used more objectifying descriptions than Korean speakers whether a self or other is described at the individual, interpersonal, or group level. Furthermore, objectifying language use could statistically account for the cultural difference in trait ascription to the individual. The results were discussed in terms of the role of language in cultural dynamics.