The cultural construction of "executive function".

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Cross-Cultural Psychology
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Executive function (EF) is theorized as universal cognitive capacities.
• Typical EF measures often rely on decontextualized processing, which develops in industrialized, schooled societies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether skills measured by typical executive function tasks are universal or culturally specific.
• To compare EF task performance between children from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds.

Main Methods:

• Compared performance on standard executive function tasks among children aged 5-18.
• Included participants from a postindustrial, universally schooled context (UK) and a nonindustrialized, unschooled rural context (Kunene region, Namibia/Angola).
• Included two additional samples with intermediate schooling exposure.

Main Results:

• Children with limited or no formal schooling demonstrated significant, sometimes qualitative, differences in EF task performance compared to schooled peers.
• Performance on typical EF tasks did not show universal development across cultural contexts.
• Results align with prior research on decontextualized processing across different societal types.

Conclusions:

• Typical executive function tasks likely measure culturally specific cognitive skills rather than universal capacities.
• The definition of executive function may need to be reconsidered to distinguish between universal capacities and culturally-bound skill sets.
• Future research should re-evaluate current EF measurement practices and their cultural implications.