Most human beings fall pray to different cognitive illusions, but I've heard that some people don't fall prey to certain cognitive illusions as much, or at least are more aware of their own biases.

Both Americans and Japanese fall for the muller-lyer illusion because we live in doors for a long time, but many hunter-gatherer groups do not.
http://www.rit.edu/cla/gssp400/muller/muller.html

I've read that Americans(which includes me) fall for the "Donald-Kruger effect", and the "Fundamental Attribution Error"(attribution effect) which Japanese don't fall for, but I was wondering if someone had the names of the cognitive errors that Japanese fall for but Americans don't, and other ones that Americans fall for that Japanese do not.

aoeu256 Wrote:I've read that Americans(which includes me) fall for the "Donald-Kruger effect"

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

Sounds about right. American exceptionalism, the high level of nationalism/patriotism (compared to similar anglo-countries) and the American people's claim that they're no.1 when in reality they're no.10 in all of the measures that matter (education, health, etc). Heck, America isn't even no.1 in obesity anymore! (I think Mexico takes the top spot in obesity rates).

aoeu256 Wrote:and the "Fundamental Attribution Error"(attribution effect) which Japanese don't fall for,

I did a quick 10 second read and FAE is something like "I am completely rational and when I when I cross a red light, it is because I am rational and I have a good reason to do so (my wife is giving birth), please consider my situation. But when other people cross a red light, that's because they are irrational and bad drivers, I don't care about their situation, I don't even think about it."?

So I guess one could argue that Japanese people have empathy and Americans do not.

aoeu256 Wrote:but I was wondering if someone had the names of the cognitive errors that Japanese fall for but Americans don't, and other ones that Americans fall for that Japanese do not.

Americans are pretty (read: very) religious. Japanese are not even though they have their own unique religions (Shinto etc). Is there a name for this?

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Americans are pretty (read: very) religious. Japanese are not even though they have their own unique religions (Shinto etc). Is there a name for this?

Are you perhaps thinking of the term 'secular'?

EDIT:

Do not have any studies on hand, though speaking from personal experience, however relevant, D-K is something many, many Australians operate under.

You'll probably find this more or less most 'western' nations. Or, in respect to digital communication: any online gathering where people communicate in English. If there is one thing the Internet has in spades it is the infallible genius.