After living in Korea, I feel like my family life was more similar to a Korean family than an American one at times. For the Americans, including the background was no help; they had never even seen it. In one study, Michigan's Taka Masuda showed Japanese and American students pictures of aquariums containing one big fast-moving fish, several other finned swimmers, plants, rock and bubbles. Elsewhere he acknowledges distinctions among various Asian and Western nationalities. If you’re a Westerner like me you were probably in no doubt that the person in the middle is happy. In the latter world, being polite makes you stand out from the crowd. Did you make your choice? "we do not 'have' or 'possess' language, [...] we learn to use it and to 'live in it'" (van Lier, 2000, p253). Moreover, in a few experiments in which the groups were broken down further by specific nationalities, the differences between Asians and Westerners became very fuzzy indeed. But it is not a matter of being upset. They call both casual acquaintances and intimate companions “friends.’’ They are often at ease when chatting with strangers. Nisbett seems to think this is a minor issue. Little wonder, then, that West and East see North Korea's nuclear threats very differently. It makes you whatever you want to be You might be the exception! I suppose results just vary… The problem, however, is that Nisbett doesn't make it easy to enter into the logic of his book, either in terms of its methodology or in terms of the Asian/Western dichotomy. ''EAST is East and West is West.'' Power distance and face saving. When it comes to etiquette and ways of doing things, there are some key differences between how the Chinese operate versus how Westerners do so. This question is never answered, even though some experiments seem to show relatively small differences. My family moved around a lot, were really tight-knit and kind of had the whole keeping the honor of the family thing because my dad was military, and while I did grow up in the US, I always felt my family life was different than most other Americans. That's a model that workplaces might do well to emulate, says Prof. Nisbett: The more cultural diversity and, hence, thinking styles in a workforce, the likelier it is to see problems clearly and solve them. He then takes the wide-angle-lens-vs.-tunnel-vision contrast to be one manifestation of the larger harmonious-vs.-individualistic contrast supposedly characterizing the vast difference between Eastern and Western thought. I suppose I do have a little bit of that Western individuality in my thinking , Why is everyone going monkey banana? Do Westerner and Asian people actually think differently at a fundemental level, or is it just a perceived difference? But anthropologists have learned the hard way that this kind of … You committed to an answer now? To the Asians, changing circumstances dictated changes in agreements; to the Westerners, a deal was a deal. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. The conclusion of the study goes like this: If you’re a Westerner you will probably have paired the pictures that have shared features, saying that since the panda and monkey are both animals they belong together. It is common knowledge, for example, that the vast majority of subjects in psychology experiments are college students; in fact, they are the subjects of most of the studies discussed in this book. For example, when researchers in the Netherlands asked people what to do about an employee whose work has been subpar for a year after 15 years of exemplary service, more than 75% of Americans and Canadians said to let her go; only 20% of Singaporeans and Koreans agreed. He also mentions religious and ethnic differences (with ''the white Protestants among the American participants'' showing ''the most 'Western' patterns of behavior'' while ''Catholics and minority group members . (1) mailto:[email protected] After all, they didn’t ask for a panoramic view of the area, just of themselves. I would do just that: take a picture of them. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. I really see the value in the “us” view and wish I acted more like it, but still end up thinking about “me”! Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. The book is set up as a relentless attempt to cram everything into the Asian/Western dichotomy. are shifted somewhat toward Eastern patterns''). The Japanese were close to the Koreans and Singaporeans at 30 percent. Ok, good. The difference was even more striking when the participants were asked which, of 96 objects, had been in the scene. It is hard not to feel that this is precisely the trap into which ''The Geography of Thought'' has fallen. I thought the sadness around him just made it seem like he was even happier because there is an apparent difference. What did the students recall? By SHARON BEGLEY You hit the nail on the head. ''The Geography of Thought'' consists of chapters showing how this large contrast plays out in different cognitive dimensions (logic, causality, categorization, etc.). ( Log Out / The doctor was concerned about my excessive mocking, so she gave me some anti-gloating cream. One way I can see this is in the way my wife and I take photos. Does this kind of argument create divisions where there are none, or is it a real phenomenon? Yet every time internal differences are noted, we are quickly told that they ''shouldn't blind us to the fact that the East and West are in general quite different from each other.''. She gets equally annoyed when I go to take a photo of her and stick the camera right in her face. The second set of problems follows closely from this point. SCIENCE JOURNAL The Japanese spontaneously remembered 60% more background elements than did the Americans. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB104881491132002400,00.html. Apparently this discrepancy in thought can affect anything from settling disputes, recruiting new employees and even the way a mother talks to her baby. Did I phrase the whole thing wrong or something?! I just can't wait to rub it in. When the test object was shown in the context of its original surroundings, the Japanese did much better at remembering correctly whether they had seen it before. Instead, he says, "the characteristic thought processes of Asians and Westerners differ greatly." Like many scholars of human thought since at least Hume and Locke, today's cognitive psychologists tend to be "universalists," assuming that everyone perceives, thinks and reasons the same way. WPExplorer. The question of differences within the categories is occasionally acknowledged, but generally set aside. They also referred twice as often to relationships involving background objects ("the little frog was above the pink rock"). Although there have always been dissenters, the prevailing wisdom held that a Masai hunter, a corporate raider and a milkmaid all see, remember, infer and think the same way. I didn’t even realise that the people behind him weren’t smiling. One striking east-west difference centers on drawing inferences. It might be a portrait shot or a full body shot, but it would be what they asked for. For the first one I chose monkey and banana and for the second picture I thought happy. What do you think? March 28, 2003 ( Log Out / While observing a math … Didn’t think so. Differences Between Chinese and Western Thinking. The book is written in a chatty and reader-friendly style. Remember it! On the methodology: for an anthropologist like me, what counts as meaningful research is what is called ''participant observation,'' joining as deeply as possible in local social and cultural worlds to try to figure out what is going on for those who live within those worlds. This time, look at the picture and decide what emotion the person in the centre is feeling. Happy or sad? At the beginning of the book he ''apologizes'' to those readers who might be ''upset'' to see ''billions of people labeled with the single term 'East Asian' and treated as if they are identical.''
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