THE GEOGRAPHY OF THOUGHT (RICHARD E. NISBETT)

HOW ASIANS AND WESTERNERS THINK DIFFERENTLY...AND WHY

Course: Intercultural TeamsModule: Web & Cooperation, Winter Term 2014/2015Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Siegfried StumpfStudents: Esther Hentrich& Manisara Kositchaiwat Date: 11.12.2014

CONTENT1.Introduction 2.The Syllogism and the Tao Philosophy -Science, and Society in Ancient Greece and China

3.The Social Origins of Mind -Economics, Social Practices, and Thought

4.Living Together vs. Going It Alone -Social Life and Sense of Self in the Modern East and West

5."Eyes in Back of Your Head" or "Keep Your Eye on the Ball"? -Envisioning the World 6."The Bad Seed" or "The Other Boys Made Him Do It"? -Causal Attribution and Causal Modelling East and West

7.Is the World Made Up of Nouns or Verbs? -Categories and Rules vs. Relationships and Similarities

8."Ce N'est Pas Logique" or "You've Got a Point There"? -Logic and the Law of Non-contradiction vs. Dialectics and the Middle Way

9.And If the Nature of Thought Is Not Everywhere the Same? -Implications for Psychology, Philosophy, Education, and Everyday Life

10.The End of Psychology or the Clash of Mentalities? -The Longevity of Differences?

INTRODUCTION

WESTERNERS AND EASTERNERS ...HAVE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF THOUGHT.

❏ Do these differences lie in biology? Language? Economics? Social systems?

❏ What keeps them going today? Social practices? Education? Inertia?

❏ And where are we headed with the differences?

❏ Will they still be here fifty or five hundred years from now?

MAIN POINTS

❏ Human behavior is not “hard-wired” but a function of culture

❏ people think about the world differently because of ❏ differing ecologies❏ social structures❏ philosophies❏ educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China

❏ East Asian think “holistic”❏ drawn to the perceptual field and to relations among objects

❏ Westerners focus on salient objects or people

❏ use attributes to assign them to categories❏ apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior

Short Example (1/2)

Does the person in the middle look happy? Please just press the - Button or Button.

Short Example (2/2)

Does the person in the middle look happy? Please just press the - Button or Button.

CHAPTER 1THE SYLLOGISM AND THE TAO

CHINESE: TAO

Yin = (the feminine and dark and passive) alternates.Yang = (the male and light and active).

❏ Toward life was shaped by three different

philosophies: Taoism, Confucianism and

Buddhism.

❏ Chinese has sense of “collective agency”

through which individuals supplied their sense

of self through social relations, contributing

to group goals, and “carrying out

prescribed roles.”

❏ They emphasized holism, complexity, and

resonance. All things were to be understood

in terms of their relationship to and

embeddedness in their environments. -

Family, friend or parent etc.

❏ It means “The Way" to exist with nature and with one's fellow humans, consists of two forces in the form of a white and a black swirl.

❏ Physiology was explained on a symbolic level by the yin-yang principle and by the Five Elements (earth, fire, water, metal, and wood), which also provided the explanations behind magic, incantations, and aphrodisiacs

GREEK

❏ ** Methods of understanding objects in isolation that led to explanations of phenomena in terms of properties; For instances;

❏ a stone possessing “gravity”, a piece of wood possessing “levity.”

❏ ** Things do not change because things have properties, and properties cannot vary**

Aristotle

❏ Greeks were concerned with understanding the fundamental nature of the world.

❏ They had a highly unusual and unusually developed “sense of personal agency”.

❏ The sense of individualism coincided with an equally developed curiosity. ❏ >> led them to cultivate learning as an important social and leisure activity.

CHAPTER 2 THE SOCIAL ORIGINS OF MIND

THE SOCIAL ORIGINS OF MIND

children of Aristotle“Westerners”

descrendant of Confucios“East Asians”

personal freedom

individuality objective thought

- city-state / politics

- intellectual rebels were mobile

- education out of curiostiy

- Greek as a crossroad

- centralized political control

- ethnic homogeneity

- education as a route to power & wealth

SOCIO-COGNITIVE SYSTEMS

Schematic model of influences on cognitive processes.

Ecology (Economy and Social Structure)❏ People need to get along with one's

neighbors. (e.g. Chinese)❏ People did not need to live in the same stable

community with each other (e.g. fishing, herding, piracy, debating, trading)

Social Structure and Social Practice (Attention and Folk Metaphysics)❏ individuum is attended and linked in a

network of relationships of social world.❏ People plan relocation (e.g. of their herd)

independed from the rest of the network

….

THINK -DIFFERENTLY

East Asians Westerners

believe in constant change simpler, more deterministic world

things always moving back to some prior state. think they can control events because they know the rules that govern the behavior of objects

pay attention to a wide range of events focus on salient objects or people instead of the larger picture

search for relationships between things strong interest in categorization, which helps them to know what rules to apply to the objects in question

think you can't understand the part without understand- ing the whole

formal logic plays a role in problem solving

CHAPTER 3LIVING TOGETHER VS. GOING IT ALONE

RELATIONSHIP AMONG ITSELFIn-group = close circle of friends or familyOut-group = people who are mere acquaintances

East Asians❏ the person is connected,❏ in terms of relation such as the family, society, Tao

Principle, or Pure Consciousness." ❏ Easterners feel embedded in their in-groups and distant

from their out-groupsWesterners ❏ are independent of circumstances or particular personal

relations.❏ can move from group to group and to setting without

significant alteration.❏ feel relatively detached from their in-groups and tend

not to make as great distinctions between in-group and out-group.

INDEPENDENCE vs. INTERDEPENDENCE

Westerners East Asians

Insistence on freedom of individual action. A preference for collective action.

Desire for individual distinctiveness. A preference for blending harmoniously with the group.

A preference for egalitarianism and achieved status

Acceptance of hierarchy and ascribed status

A belief that the rules governing proper behavior should be universal

A preference for particularistic approaches that take into account the context and the nature of the relationships involved.

An "independent" version, the king had to choose the best individual for the job. -American, I & Mind

An "interdependent" version the general wanted to make a choice that would benefit his family. -Korean, We & Our

STYLES OF CONFLICT AND NEGOTIATION

CHAPTER 4“EYES IN BACK OF YOUR HEAD" OR "KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL"?

Holism vs AnalysisWhat shape is the ballon?

...

It’s round, Jason.

This is a pair of socks.Are they short or long?

Short.

This is a pair of pants. Are they…?

No, Jason, they’re long.

Short!

Example

This is a “dax”

Example

Which one is a “dax”?

1 2

Example

Which one is a “dax”?

Easterners Westerners / Americans

Example

Which one is a “dax”?

Easterners Westerners / Americans

World of ObjectsWorld of subtances

CHAPTER 5“THE BAD SEED” OR “THE OTHER BOYS MADE HIM DO IT”?

Example

Thomas McIlvane

- lost his job as a post worker

- failed to find a full-time replacement job

- 14. November 1991 he shot his supervisor, several fellow workers, bystanders and himself

- newspapers reported about this differently

CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION EAST AND WEST

personal disposition

attitudes & traits inferred from past

behavior”

situational factors that influenced the murder

“...gunman had been recently fired.”

“...post office supervisor was his enemy.”

“...influenced by example of a recent mass slaying in Texas” ...

“...repeatedly threatened violence...”

“...mentally unstable…”

CHAPTER 6IS THE WORLD MADE UP OF NOUNS OR VERBS?

QUIZ: CATEGORIES vs. RELATIONSHIPS INMODERN THOUGHT

Which two of the three are most closely related?

CATEGORIES vs. RELATIONSHIPS INMODERN THOUGHT

The left side is “a diagram to measure preference of groupping by categories & relationship”

Nisbett asked question to his college students about “What goes with C: A or B?” and the results are;

❏ American participants showed a marked preference for grouping by category (cow and chiken)

❏ In contrast, Chinese and Taiwanese participants were more inclined to group on the basis of thematic relationship (cow and grass).

So the studie prove the difference start out from childhood that…

❏ Western children learn nouns faster than verbs,❏ And Asian children learn verbs faster than

Western children.

CHAPTER 7 "CE N'EST PAS LOGIQUE" OR "YOU'VE GOT A POINT THERE"?

1

LOGIC vs. EXPERIENCE

Premise 1: No police dogs are old. Premise 2: Some highly trained dogs are old. Conclusion: Some highly trained dogs are not police dogs.

Premise 1: All things that are made from plants are good for health.Premise 2: Cigarettes are things that are made from plants.Conclusion: Cigarettes are good for health.

Premise 1: No A are B. Premise 2: Some C are B. Conclusion: Some C are not A.

2

3

meaningful

plausible

meaningful

not plausible

abstractno real meaning at all

LOGIC vs. EXPERIENCE

- Both were likely to rate syllogisms with plausibility in its conclusion as valid

- Korean participants were more influenced by plausibility than Americans

- Koreans and Americans made an equal number of errors on purely abstract syllogisms

→ Americans are simply more ‘trained’ to apply logical rules to ordinary events (therefore more capable of ignoring the plausibility of the conclusion)

→ Koreans are more likely to set logic aside in favor of typicality and plausibility of conclusion

CHAPTER 8AND IF THE NATURE OF THOUGHT IS NOT EVERYWHERE THE SAME?

NATURE OF THOUGHTThere are in fact many domains of life in which Easterners and Westerners think and behave quite differently and these differences are well understood in terms of our claims about holistic vs. analytic thought.

For instances,

Eastern medicine focuses on prevention

Western medicine focuses on cure and intervention.

Eastern ideas of legal isabout fairness and the complexity of circumstances.

Western legal rationalism has led to a focus on justice at odds.

Asians make decisions in all these fields with a focus on cooperative,holistic, flexible solutions.

Westerners focusing more on linguistic and logical devices that enable pursuit ofa single truth. ❏ For instances, international

relations, politics in general, contracts, and even human rights;

TEACHING AND TESTING

Denise Park and Trey Hedden at the University of Michigan and Qicheng Jing of Chinese Institute of Psycholog which tested the intelligence of American and Chinesein college students and elderly people in three different ways:

❏ Speed of memory test - correlated with IQ scores.

❏ Percentile scores of general information in relevant comparison population -highly correlated with IQ scores.

❏ The cattel culture faire intelligence test.

Example of culture-fair IQ test

The person being tested is to look at the first few objects in the matrix at the top and figure out what the next object, among the six options shown beneath the matrix, should be.

CHAPTER 9THE END OF PSYCHOLOGY OR THE CLASH OF MENTALITIES?

CONVERNGENCE

❏ There are a Indication that the West finds attractions in the East. While the rest of the world drinks Cokes and wears jeans.

❏ Westerners are rapidly combining their cuisines with Eastern ones.

❏ More example; Western doctors accept some of the general notions of holistic medicine, even recommending ancient Asian treatments substitute for modern Western ones ranging from headache to nausea.

❏ Evidence suggests that;❏ People do not merely have values and beliefs that are

intermediate between two cultures, ❏ BUT their cognitive processes can be intermediat!❏ Moreover, is the concrete finding that people are culturally

malleable, their minds and tendencies shifting toward the culture in which they reside.

Press commentary | Reception | Claims about nature of thoughts

Add-On

“Understanding the thought processes of other cultures may very well turn out to be critical to the survival of Western civilization....The Geography of Thought is a wake-up call.” - Providence Journal-Bulletin

“The Geography of Thought may mark the beginning of a new front in the science wars.” - Publishers Weekly

“Nisbett's findings pose provocative challenges to universalist assumptions about human thought and inference.” - Philadelphia Inquirer

PRESS COMMENTARY

RECEPTION

❏ most of the experimental subjects are college students -> sample bias

❏ no addressing within the categories, e.g.❏ gender❏ religion❏ ethnicity

❏ Europeans vs. Americans?

One last test (:

To which group does the flower on the bottom belong?

CLAIMS ABOUT NATURE OF THOUGHT

❏ Members of different cultures differ in their "metaphysics," or fundamental beliefs about the nature of the world.

❏ The characteristic thought processes of different groups differ greatly.

❏ The thought processes are of a piece with beliefs about the nature of the world.

FURTHER REFERENCES❏ Swanbrow, Diane http://ns.umich.edu/Releases/2003/Feb03/r022703a.html ❏ Linge, Olle - Review of the book http://www.hackingchinese.com/review-the-geography-of-

thought-how-east-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why/ ❏ RICHARD E. NISBETT, THE GEOGRAPHY OF THOUGHT How Asians and Westerners Think

Differently . . . and Why

Documentary East and West: ❏ Part I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoDtoB9Abck ❏ Part II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLh4QZDyNUA

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!