I think our mentality is indeed affected by where we live. In the video below (at 7m27s), the presenter explains that some cultures count and think logarithmically. If you show them a number line from 1 to 9 and ask which number is in the middle, they will answer "3". The reason is because 3 is three times larger than 1, and 9 is three times larger than 3.
The thing is, you'll get the same answer from a young child. Because that's the way our brains naturally work. We must learn to count in a linear way.
This is just one example of many which illustrate how our thought processes are affected by our environment. Another, which springs to mind just now, is the saying that "Americans think 100 years is a long time. Europeans think 100 miles is a long way."
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