Back to Blog
![]()
Umbra Students Crucial to Study
Umbra students have been helping with an intercultural research project for years as both research interns and subjects.
Umbra Institute students have been, for the past several years, participants as well as research interns for a research project on intercultural differences.
The project is a collaboration between Stefano Federici, University of Perugia; La Sapienza University in Rome, Aldo Stella, University for Foreigners in Perugia; La Sapienza University in Rome and John L Dennis, University of Perugia; Catholic University in Milan.
Previous research has demonstrated a between culture difference that Asians tend to process information more holistically than Westerners. The goal of the the current research project was to determine if there was a within-Western culture difference (IT vs. US) similar to the between culture differences in information processing. Data from Asians, Italians and US Americans were compared.
Given the excellent relationship between the University of Perugia, The University for Foreigners in Perugia and the Umbra Institute, Umbra students were asked to participate in the research project. Over the last two years more than 155 Umbra students have participated in the research, 140 as subjects and 15 as research interns. Results of the study were recently published in the Journal of Cognitive Processing. The findings indicate a within-Western culture difference in reasoning style (IT vs. US) and indicate that foreign context influences the reasoning style of US Umbra students.