Collaboration or negotiation: two ways of interacting suggest how shared thinking develops

This paper contrasts two ways that shared thinking can be conceptualized: as negotiation, where individuals join their separate ideas, or collaboration, as people mutually engage together in a unified process, as an ensemble. We argue that these paradigms are culturally based, with the negotiation model fitting within an assumption system of separate entities - an assumption system we believe to be common in psychology and in middle-class European American society - and the collaboration model fitting within a holistic worldview that appears to be common in Indigenous-heritage communities of the Americas. We discuss cultural differences in children's interactions - as negotiation or collaboration - that suggest how these distinct paradigms develop.