동아시아의 평화와 화해의 정치학 Scrapbook: The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently - and Why : Nisbett, Richard E.: Amazon.com.au: Books

2021-11-02

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently - and Why : Nisbett, Richard E.: Amazon.com.au: Books

See this image

Follow the Author

Richard E. Nisbett
Follow

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently - and Why Paperback – 9 July 2019
by Richard E. Nisbett (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 261 ratings
====

'The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.'

-Malcolm Gladwell

"One of the world's leading thinkers" Daily Telegraph

When Richard Nisbett showed an animated underwater scene to his American students, they zeroed in on a big fish swimming among smaller fish. Japanese subjects, on the other hand, made observations about the background environment...and the different "seeings" are a clue to profound underlying cognitive differences between Westerners and East Asians.

As Professor Nisbett shows in THE GEOGRAPHY OF THOUGHT people actually think - and even see - the world differently, because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China, and that have survived into the modern world. As a result, East Asian thought is "holistic" - drawn to the perceptual field as a whole, and to relations among objects and events within that field.

By comparison to Western modes of reasoning, East Asian thought relies far less on categories, or on formal logic; it is fundamentally dialectic, seeking a "middle way" between opposing thoughts. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to categories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behaviour.

====

Kindle
$12.99Read with Our Free App
Paperback
$20.25
16 New from $20.25

====
Product description

Review
The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world. -- Malcolm Gladwell

[A] landmark book. The Geography of Thought shows that understanding of how individuals in eastern cultures think is not just nice, but necessary, if we wish to solve the problems we confront in the world today. We ignore the lessons of this book at our peril. -- Robert J. Sternberg, president of the American Psychological Association

Westerners and Easterners see the world differently. Nisbett hopes that his work will change the way the cultures view each other. ― New Scientist

Geography of Thought compares people from East Asia (Korea, China and Japan) with Westerners (from Europe, the British commonwealth and North America). Westerners typically see categories where Asians typically see relationships. Such differences in thinking can trip up business and political relationships ― Wall Street Journal

A psychology professor dares to compare how Asians and Americans think. The upshot of Nisbett's research is that differences are real. They might not always be for the better, but they matter. ― Forbes

The man whose ideas led to Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and to Nudge ― The Times

Nisbett's results indicate fundamental differences in the ways Westerners and East Asians view the word. -- Kate Volpe, Association for Psychological Science

The fascinating cultural reason why Westerners and East Asians have polar opposite understandings of truth ― Business Insider

One of the world's leading thinkers ― Daily Telegraph
Review
A psychology professor dares to compare how Asians and Americans think. The upshot of Nisbett's research is that differences are real. They might not always be for the better, but they matter. - Forbes

The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.

The man whose ideas led to Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and to Nudge - The Times

[A] landmark book. The Geography of Thought shows that understanding of how individuals in eastern cultures think is not just nice, but necessary, if we wish to solve the problems we confront in the world today. We ignore the lessons of this book at our peril.

Nisbett's results indicate fundamental differences in the ways Westerners and East Asians view the word.

Ground-breaking work
Read more

Start reading The Geography of Thought on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

AUDIBLE FREE TRIAL
Includes your first audiobook free, a bonus book selected by our editors, unlimited access to exclusive podcasts and more. $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime. Learn more >

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Nicholas Brealey Publishing; 1st edition (9 July 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529309417
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529309416
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 2.4 x 19.6 cm
Best Sellers Rank: 72,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
108 in Psychology of Learning
667 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)
9,964 in Social Sciences (Books)
Customer Reviews:
4.5 out of 5 stars 261 ratings

Richard E. Nisbett

Richard E. Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished University Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Michigan and one of the world's most respected psychologists. He received the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions from the American Psychological Association and many other national and international awards. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His books The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . and Why and Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count have won multiple awards and have been translated into many languages. Most recently, he published Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking and Thinking: A Memoir.

"The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world."

Malcolm Gladwell, The New York Times Book Review

Customer reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars

Top reviews from other countries

Baby Platypus
5.0 out of 5 stars Totally recommended to understand the Far Eastern Asian mind...Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 December 2012
Verified Purchase

... and the Far Eastern Asian mind is beautiful in the way it works in apprehending the world and relating with each other. I discovered I had several Asian/Chinese traits in my own way of thinking and understanding things, perhaps because I am Brazilian.

On the Brazilian note, the book works on the bulk of research applied to North Americans and Europeans and although it mentions Latin Americans (with very good precision), the Western mind in discussion here is mainly North American and European. This doesn't mean the book will not be useful for everyone else, this book reveals a lot about mental processes which will be useful for oneself to improve their own and understand our Asian overlords, to whom I would like to welcome :).

Another thing to take into consideration is that this book is not written as Freakonomics, in the sense that information is masticated and de-jargonised for a wide audience. The focus on the book is cognition and a little read or previous knowledge of that topic might be required to enjoy the book even more.

My advice to Richard Nesbitt is to work on a version of his book that is even easier to digest as I believe the West needs more books that brave through the prejudice and fear of the unknown.
Read less

3 people found this helpfulReport abuse

MM
4.0 out of 5 stars Informative...Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 February 2013
Verified Purchase

I've always been fascinated with Eastern culture, and since I plan to move to China, I thought this book a Malaysian friend recommended would help me understand my future peers.
There is no effort to justify stereotypes of Easterners or Westerners, thankfully. The evidential results the book mention are broad in nature, and the author insists these findings should be taken with a culturally-sensitive pinch of salt.
It could just be me, but the constant referencing of very similar experiments every second page can get a bit repetitive and tedious. Apart from that, it was an enlightening read.

2 people found this helpfulReport abuse

Little Squirrel
5.0 out of 5 stars This book really opened my mind about different cultural backgrounds ...Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 February 2017
Verified Purchase

This book really opened my mind about different cultural backgrounds and how this can affect how we as people understand each-other. Helps to be more openminded when encountering issues.

One person found this helpfulReport abuse

Lifelong learning freelancer
5.0 out of 5 stars InterestingReviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 December 2019
Verified Purchase

Great read ! Two sides of story between Asian and Western !
Report abuse

a reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Five StarsReviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 February 2018
Verified Purchase

Very good
Report abuse

=====

Sep 22, 2013 Matthew Vacca rated it really liked it
While this book certainly sheds a lot of light on the different approaches in the thinking of Easterners and Westerners (and the origins of both), that does not necessarily add up to an enjoyable or engaging read. This book comes off a bit like a graduate thesis and certainly has done the homework to back everything up.

Having lived in South Korea for the last two years, I have often wondered about (and even laughed out loud at) the subtle cultural differences in my day-to-day life here that touch many aspects of life. What has up until now seemed to me like a case of inconsiderate behavior, can now be more easily explained and understood in the context of Eastern thought as outlined early on in this book. I have often times referred to Koreans as completely UN-considerate (sic) as a whole while at the same time being polite (often to a fault) on an individual or professional basis.

For example, my ability to enter or exit elevators, escalators, and public transportation easily is sublimated (i.e. trampled) for the greater good of everyone else to get on or off quickly and with little fanfare. What I have for so long perceived as a rude and thoughtless lack of common courtesy is actually a much larger perspective of societal harmony at work. Ironically, this is something I had always thought I wanted. Once I learned to literally go with the flow and not take the overall absence of any awareness of me as an individual, I began to not only release my anger and outrage, but I have been able to use their Eastern logic to my advantage moving forward. It is everyone for themselves, so if you are late for the elevator or too slow in grabbing a seat, too bad.

What the book does not address, however, and what I still cannot understand is the paradox that results when traditional Eastern philosophy clashes with South Korea's extreme focus on appearance and the unabashed vanity that results from it. Traditional appearances masked by rampant plastic surgery, excessive make-up, and all-out worship of brand-name fashions seem to directly contradict Eastern logic and instead embrace the Greek-based idea of agency or individuality. I also have likened it to an entire country of purebreds that sadly want to remove distinctive traces of their genetic heritage and in fact be mutts modeled after the unattainable ideal of Western beauty.

My line of thought before reading this book was a desire to understand what real difference appearance makes if you are all simply cogs in the machine, forever linked to your part in society? Why is individual attractiveness important when Asians do not view people out of the context of the particular role they happen to be in? It seems to me now it is actually the result of a desire to not stand out and therefore going to drastic lengths to NOT be different from anyone else.

I have also felt that South Korea as a country suffers from a massive inferiority complex and that chip lives largest on the shoulders of the post-war generation. Given the tumultuous history of the peninsula, this is understandable, and may have been the driving force behind the amazing success of their economy since then. However, the second-class status of women in this society and the don't ask-don't tell taboo and double standards of sexuality and prostitution, makes the generalizations of this book all the more confusing.

What's even more interesting is that neither philosophy seems to have led to a society filled with happy and contented citizens. Koreans seem work very hard to live lives centered on the good of the family. While overall, Korea does seem to be harmonious as a society, most of my co-workers seem to dread time spent with their family and truly resent the expectations that erase their individual desires and freedom. Most Salary Men (life-long corporate employees) and people I encounter walk around like tortured mindless zombies, incapable of even imagining an escape from their sad destinies.

Westerners on the other hand maintain relationships with their families in relation to their status as free thinking and self-motivated individuals. As a result, American society is in the final stages of a massive collapse as a result of greed, corruption, and unchecked selfishness. Depression, health issues, obesity, and massive consumer debt are all the direct result of the failure to think of the good of the whole versus the rights and perspective of the individual.

Ultimately, I came away with the feeling that both sides have something to learn from each other, especially with regard to what some would call "common sense." It turns out that depending on how you were raised and where you are from, this term can mean two completely different things, and that explains why my particular version of it is always in short supply while traveling throughout Asia. It also explains why now I will have a whole new definition of it should I ever return to the United States.
(less)
flag 53 likes · Like · 3 comments · see review

Mar 31, 2008 Joseph rated it it was amazing
i think the crux of the book is

(1) object-based thinking vs (2) context-based thinking and how through the years, the Westerners and the Easterners have differed in their thinking process

i think the idea can be equally applied to all of us, as some are more bound to object-based thinking vs context-based.

if you have to choose 2 things out of the following 3 things:
(1) monkey
(2) banana
(3) lion

and you choose
(1) monkey and banana - u are more likely a context-based thinking person
(2) monkey and lion - object-based (less)
flag 20 likes · Like · 4 comments · see review

Jul 25, 2013 Kalin rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: reviewed-in-english
For much of my life, I've been a bridge: trying to connect people into communities and communities into networks, helping our world hold together. I was born with/grew into a dislike for arguments (of the quarrel variety) and an affinity for transforming conflicts. Often, I've felt uneasy with the values of my own country or other parts of the West I've been to.

This book helped me understand why.

Among the brighter insights were:

- why I say 'I' so much--and often still feel disconnected from othe ...more
flag 18 likes · Like · 7 comments · see review

Apr 30, 2017 汗屍勞 rated it did not like it
Shelves: horrible
I think it is interesting to scientifically examine the well-known myths about how the East and the West think differently.

However, the book fails (or neglects) to address that much of these myths were originated in the 19th century to justify European superiority (recommend reading Keevak (2011) Becoming Yellow). And indeed, the book reads very much like something written by a 19th century anthropologist, who felt the need justify Western military dominance over the 'lesser' races in terms of culture. Interestingly, America was in a similar position (though not to the same extend, thank heaven) that the European powers were in, at the time when this book was published.

For a start, what is the West and what is the East? It wasn't well defined in the book, cultural differences between the Chinese, the Korean and the Japanese changes over time. And each of these countries differ to each other significantly, in terms of size, racial makeup, geography, etc in one way or the other, which led to different socio-economics. It is true that the Greek culture influenced the Western world significantly, but so was the many cultures that the West was exposed to; Algebra, for example, was invented in India, without it, could scientific development in the West be what it is today? And does that mean European are Indian in origin? Since Americans behave so differently to Continental European, can American be called Westerners? Can Anglo-Amercian and Continental Europe be generalised in one single category?

The book claims from the start Westerners (whatever that means) are better at logical thinking than Easterners (again, whatever that means). It argues that it is because of the differences in socioeconomics in ancient times. Then it starts comparing Chinese political thinkers from the Spring-and-Autume-period with Western philosophers, mathematicians.... *facepalm* Some might argue "But surely China (since apparently Japanese and Korean are not Easterners) had no scientists!", whoever said that cannot be more wrong, they were just not well known, since understanding their work would require a high level understanding of classical Chinese, which I don't think Nisbett possessed. For example, Chinese inventors invented compass, gunpowder, paper and printing (amongst other things), and the book does not even attempt to mention these inventions, let alone name the inventors. Perhaps it is because the inventions and the applications do not require logic, or perhaps it is because they don't fit into the narrative. It is true that ancient Chinese inventors, philosophers, logicians were not highly celebrated for their work, but that does not they didn't exist or inferior to their Western counterparts. Arguing that point would need a more comprehensive review of ancient Asian scientific work than what is offered in the book.

The experiments mentioned in the second part of the book are mostly, anecdotal psychology nonsense that cannot be replicated or have problems in selection bias, endogeneity and heterogeneity sample. For example, can you generalise East Asian languages? Written Chinese are not phonetic, Japanese and Korean are. And how do you compare these languages to Western languages, which language is the most representative of Western culture? Or indeed, how do you ensure it is only cultural differences that drove the results?

I really don't think it is a book to be taken seriously, I think it is overly ambitious and fails in every discipline it tries to use to justify its point. In terms of history, it is not comprehensive; a chinese primary school pupil could give stronger evidence than this book does. In terms of psychology, the motivation is unclear and doesn't seem to justify making the argument. In terms of research method, it is really lacking, it doesn't define the parameters well, experiments do not seem to be scientific at all.

I think this book is really great if your table or chair has a leg that is shorter than the rest, or if you really can't find anything else put in the book shelve and your friends are not serious scientists, or the inevitable nuclear winter has finally come and you have to burn something to keep warm. (less)
flag 16 likes · Like · 4 comments · see review

Jan 17, 2019 ☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ rated it it was amazing
Some interesting points made in here. Even though the overgeneralization seems to be sort of pervasive.

Q
A few years back, a brilliant student from China began to work with me on questions of social psychology and reasoning. One day early in our acquaintance, he said, “You know, the difference between you and me is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it’s a line.” Unfazed by what must have been a startled expression on my face, he expounded on that theme. “The Chinese believe in constant change, but with things always moving back to some prior state. They pay attention to a wide range of events; they search for relationships between things; and they think you can’t understand the part without understanding the whole. Westerners live in a simpler, more deterministic world; they focus on salient objects or people instead of the larger picture; and they think they can control events because they know the rules that govern the behavior of objects.” (c)
Q:
Science and Mathematics Why would the ancient Chinese have excelled at algebra and arithmetic but not geometry, which was the forte of the Greeks? Why do modern Asians excel at math and science but produce less in the way of revolutionary science than Westerners?
Attention and Perception Why are East Asians better able to see relationships among events than Westerners are? Why do East Asians find it relatively difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings?
Causal Inference Why are Westerners so likely to overlook the influence of context on the behavior of objects and even of people? Why are Easterners more susceptible to the “hindsight bias,” which allows them to believe that they “knew it all along”?
Organization of Knowledge Why do Western infants learn nouns at a much more rapid rate than verbs, whereas Eastern infants learn verbs at a more rapid rate than nouns? Why do East Asians group objects and events based on how they relate to one another, whereas Westerners are more likely to rely on categories?
Reasoning Why are Westerners more likely to apply formal logic when reasoning about everyday events, and why does their insistence on logic sometimes cause them to make errors? Why are Easterners so willing to entertain apparently contradictory propositions and how can this sometimes be helpful in getting at the truth?
Where to look for the causes of such vastly different systems of thought? Do they 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? (c)
Q:
The Greeks, more than any other ancient peoples, and in fact more than most people on the planet today, had a remarkable sense of personal agency—the sense that they were in charge of their own lives and free to act as they chose. One definition of happiness for the Greeks was that it consisted of being able to exercise their powers in pursuit of excellence in a life free from constraints. (c)
Q:
Exploring these principles was a source of pleasure for the Greeks. Our word “school” comes from the Greek-scholē, meaning “leisure.” Leisure meant for the Greeks, among other things, the freedom to pursue knowledge. The merchants of Athens were happy to send their sons to school so that they could indulge their curiosity. (c) This just might mean something else: maybe they just wanted to make it clear that school is place where you don’t work and obtain only knowledge that you would be expected to use elsewhere, at work. Though, of course, the ‘pleasure theory’ I like better.
Q:
As the British philosopher of science Geoffrey Lloyd has written, “In philosophy, in medicine, and elsewhere there is criticism of other points of view … [but] the Chinese generally conceded far more readily than did the Greeks, that other opinions had something to be said for them …” (c)
Q:
But, as philosopher Hajime Nakamura notes, the Chinese advances reflected a genius for practicality, not a penchant for scientific theory and investigation. And as philosopher and sinologist Donald Munro has written, “In Confucianism there was no thought of knowing that did not entail some consequence for action.” (c)
Q:
The Chinese approach to understanding the natural world was as different from that of the Greeks as their understanding of themselves. Early in their study of the heavens, the Chinese believed that cosmic events such as comets and eclipses could predict important occurrences on earth, such as the birth of conquerors. But when they discovered the regularities in these events, so far from building models of them, they lost interest in them. (c) (less)
flag 7 likes · Like · comment · see review

Jul 04, 2013 Tim Pendry rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: cultural-studies, north-american, science, religion-spiritual, consciousness, east-asian, philosophy, public-policy, psychology, history-of-science
This is an important work in the undermining of the universalism that has afflicted private discourse and public policy in the West since the age of Plato.

Nisbett explores a simple issue - whether, how and why East Asians and Americans (though he insists on referring to them as Westerners) think in different ways.

It is more exploratory than decisive. There is no psychological experiment that is not contingent in time and space by the very nature of its subject matter but much of his material is persuasive.

In essence, Nisbett is suggesting that East Asians in general and Americans more particularly have different modes of thought and different ways of seeing the world that inform their actions.

The implications are important in international relations but also in the types of respect we accord the 'other'.

The book dates from 2003 and, of course, is a thesis not a proof. It demands more research from a social science perspective but anyone involved in inter-cultural relations does not have to wait on the intellectuals.

Common sense and praxis teaches us that, while the situation is always as variable as the number of persons in the world, systems do approach problems in different ways that are fundamentally cultural.

There is, of course, little or no evidence (perhaps some at the margins in rare cases not covered in this book) that actual brain structures have evolved differently. This is not the issue by any means.

Nisbett's evidence seems to suggest quite the contrary - that people from one culture aculturate to the norms of thought of another with some ease if obliged to by circumstances.

This leads to an interesting short debate at the end about the degree to which one mode of thought (Western or East Asian) is functionally superior. It also raises questions about the benefits of cultural hybridisation that he does not address.

Naturally, there is no simple answer to 'superiority' because the types of situation that humans find themselves in could suggest an either/or or perhaps a neither/nor. Nisbett does not look into European distinctiveness, 'Latin' or Russian or African thought processes.

However, what is clear is that, once we accept one simple universal - the huge variability in problem-solving and ways of seeing the world - most of the other claimed universals start to disappear.

A paradox intrudes here. The lack of universalism in ways of seeing and thinking reinforces mutual respect at the most basic level of humanity - we really are all equal just differently circumstanced.

It also condemns all forms of aggressive mental imperialism and forces each side to adapt to the other if it wants to solve a problem involving both.

Again, we must say that Nisbett is hypothesising for further research and the social sciences are not like the hard sciences in that they are contingent and probabilistic. We must always be cautious.

We are currently in the middle of a series of crises where international relations has not yet caught up with these findings. There is often a thirty year lag between knowing amongst the few and doing amongst the many.

Most senior American policymakers, for example, are still embedded in the enlightenment liberal universalism of their schooling in the 1970s and 1980s.

The result has been the twin lunacies of multiculturalism (which is patronising) and the exports of rights ideology, sometimes through the barrel of a gun.

The last has been a consistent foreign policy disaster where it is clear that its proponents are inadequately equipped to understand why. They simply continue, creating negative reactions that undermine their own security.

The coup in Egypt and the protests in Turkey that are happening as I write this suggest that there is no simple equation between rights, democracy and freedom where democracy simply aids the arrival of obscurantism and authoritarian soldiers may be defenders of freedom.

The Middle East is distinctive but it still part of the 'Western sphere' but East Asia is different again. Relations between China and its neighbours and between China and America are probably of far more global significance even than protection of Israel and energy flows.

Nisbett's research and that of others - Nisbett has also done important work on honour cultures which could usefully inform strategy in relation to the Arab world - must now be working through the system.

The rethinking of 'universalism' should start to inform the more intelligent Westerners within a decade or two. Sadly, a lot of people may have to die before it gets to the sort of person who may be President in 2016 or, more likely, 2020.

If so, however, we may see some interesting changes in approach, especially to negotiations - continued differences of ambition, stance and opinion but mutual appropriations of method, especially when use of artificial intelligence is added to the analytical pot.

It is my own belief that the difference between, say, European and American culture is no less significant in the long term and that constant hybridisation of cultural forms, far from creating the future prospect of universalisation of culture, promises the exact opposite - almost infinite variation and 'difference'.

I see this in my own family - difference within a common core way of seeing. More widely, this owes a great deal to the sheer range of mental inputs provided by the internet.

The way that the internet 'ennobles' difference that might have been forced into a 'norm' within more rigid cultural systems - whether Western or other - is liberatory in a way that elites seem unable to cope with because their mental models belong to the past already.

This all suggests that the human mid-century will be very different, not merely from the age of competing ideologies but also from the now-rapidly degenerating age of imperial liberal universalism.

There are universal values - mutual respect, equality of persons, very basic aspirations (not rights which are after the fact inventions), maybe one or two clear rights (to cognitive freedom, the means to live reasonably well and a good death) - but these are surprisingly few.

We just need a generation of rigid thinkers, raised on post-Marxism and the rejection of Marxism, to move on and for genuinely liberal minds to resist the reactionary rise of past obscurantisms and let them die out of their own accord with prosperity and education.

As for the book, it is obviously recommended but be aware, as a general reader, that the central sections are rather dry accounts of psychological and social scientific experimentation that it will be hard to evaluate if you are a layman or woman. (less)
flag 6 likes · Like · comment · see review

Jul 13, 2013 Caren rated it really liked it
Shelves: adult-nonfiction
Fascinating book! While reading another book by a guy who had moved to Thailand, this was recommended. I ended up putting aside the Thailand book in favor of this one. It was just so thought-provoking. Here we are, immersed in a huge country, with this culture that has infiltrated most areas of the world, and most of us are quite unaware that not everyone has the same underlying assumptions that we do as they look at life. In essence, the West is based on the philosophical ideas of the Greeks, w ...more
flag 6 likes · Like · comment · see review

Jul 20, 2021 Cheryl added it
The TLDR of this is that 1. I wish I'd read it when it was newer. 2. I kept marking passages with bookdarts. 3. I kept talking about it to my husband and 25 yo son, who are also intrigued. 4. I recommend it, if you can read it as something to think about (as he intended) instead of as if it's a textbook statement with all the answers.
---
Thoughts as I go along first:

People have different points of view, but also surprisingly different strategies for problem solving. And learning from each other i ...more
flag 5 likes · Like · 2 comments · see review

Feb 07, 2018 Charles Haywood rated it liked it
This is a short book with a sweeping thesis. In essence, the thesis of "The Geography of Mind" is that many important cognitive processes dominant in East Asian (i.e., Chinese, Japanese and Korean) cultures are substantially different from those processes in Western (i.e., American and European) cultures. This proposition explains a variety of dissimilarities in how people from each culture approach the world and each other, and it is also a partial explanation of the Great Divergence—why the modern world was created by the West, and by nobody else, to the lasting (so far) benefit of the West. While the author, Richard Nisbett, goes to great lengths to not ascribe superiority to one type of cognition over another, his cultural analyses show why the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution could not have happened in East Asia. As they say, though, past performance is no guarantee of future results, and perhaps the relative value of Western ways of thought has passed its use-by date.

As can be inferred from its title, this book is an exercise in the continuation and reinforcement of a particular stereotype. There is nothing wrong with that; the majority of stereotypes have at least some element of truth, and sometimes a very large degree of truth. That is one reason they tend to have staying power; they are a form of meme. But a problem, or limitation, with this book is that while its conclusions are obviously mostly or all true, the scientific evidence it offers is on the thin side. Nisbett focuses on a variety of psychological studies, mostly involving small groups of college students. Chinese peasants and American ironworkers do not seem very prevalent in his subjects, which suggests that perhaps there is more to the story than Nisbett offers. As a result, the book is interesting, but hardly scientifically determinative or all-encompassing. On the other hand, perhaps it’s a mistake to try to pin down the essence of a culture to points on a graph; familiarity with history, and to a lesser extent literature, is a better way to grasp a culture, even if the resulting analysis is not one that can be quantified.

Nisbett goes to significant pains to define “Asian” as East Asian—“China and the countries that were heavily influenced by its culture, most notably Japan and Korea.” Whatever Japanese and Korean nationalists may like to think, this is a reasonable grouping, and it of course excludes Indian subcontinent cultures (what the English confusingly call “Asian,” at least the English who are being polite), and Pacific cultures like the Philippines and Indonesia. And Nisbett makes the basic point, again inarguable but something those of low intellect find impossible to grasp, that the existence of differences among members of a cultural grouping does not obviate that accurate generalizations can be made, specifically of the “modal” person in a culture, in Raphael Patai’s helpful terminology.

Nisbett begins with what the social science shows, and everybody who is honest knows—that Asians and Westerners differ significantly in many areas. He lists five non-exclusive ones: science and mathematics (Asians excel, but produce far fewer advances); attention and perceptions (Asians and Westerners view most events and objects differently); causal inference (Westerners ignore context; Asians are all about context); organization of knowledge (Westerners focus on categories; Asians on relations among objects and events); and reasoning (Westerners use formal logic; Asians are comfortable with logical fallacies like contradictions). His point is not that one way is necessarily better than the other, in any given instance, but that the ways are very different. I have no idea if the social science actually shows these differences, but looking at negative reviews at the time (this book was published in 2003), none claim that the social science shows anything else, so it seems reasonable to conclude that the experiments that are the backbone of the book produce the results Nisbett says they do.

From this general introduction, Nisbett jumps backward two and half millennia. He endorses the longstanding recognition (not least by the Greeks themselves) that the ancient Greeks had a keen sense of individualism lacked by people in the autocracies of the ancient East, a difference most vividly shown in the conduct of the Greco-Persian Wars. He posits that the ancient Greeks embodied “personal agency—the sense that they were in charge of the their own lives and free to act as they chose.” (Of course, this freedom was not at all like the atomized freedom that is the natural end point of Enlightenment thought, but this is a tangent Nisbett doesn’t explore.) This sense of agency led to an individualism where the individual was the same across all social settings, as well as to open and aggressive debate, and curiosity about the world leading to viewing it as composed of categories with underlying principles—that is, viewing the world through abstractions. Contemporaneous Chinese civilization, on the other hand, embodied “harmony,” where “every Chinese was first and foremost a member of a collective, or rather of several collectives—the clan, the village, and especially the family.” Individualism was foreign to China; the individual was the totality of the roles he had in relation to specific other people. Not that people lacked agency—but they had collective agency, instead of individual agency, which deprioritized debate and curiosity (as well as individual rights), and elevated obligations. This did not (necessarily) mean conformity, but rather a harmonious society, as the goal.

Assuming all this is true (and there is a little bit too much surface skimming and “just-so” of this narrative, even for me, who thinks the basic conclusions are hard to dispute), why do these differences exist? Nisbett ascribes it culture—to “the social origins of mind.” Greeks had city-states, maritime trading, and a geographic location at the crossroads of the world, leading to exposure to a great diversity of people and thoughts. China had an ethnic monoculture (Han), generally centralized political control, and no exposure to diversity. These explanations Nisbett calls “materialistic.” Not deterministic, but based on differences of each culture in the real, material world. At a higher level of abstraction, according to Nisbett, what drives culture is a chain: ecology drives the economy and social structure; which drive attention, metaphysics and epistemology; which drive cognitive processes. Voilà!—huge differences in thought resulting from different starting points, with the modern West as the direct heirs of Greek ways of thought (which is quite a jump to make in a purely conclusory fashion, even if true), and China as essentially unchanged for millennia (not so much of a jump).

The rest of the book is devoted to fleshing out these basic claims (the differences, not the history) by using a combination of anecdotes and small-scale academic studies. Nisbett covers, among other things, perceptions of “in-groups” and “out-groups”; the Asian distaste for decisions reached through debate; the Western tendency to view substances as separate objects as opposed to the Asian view of continuous materials (leading to a Chinese failure to view nature in a scientific way); and Westerners’ inability, relative to Asians, to quickly grasp the background matter in, and context between items in, images (presumably, Asians score better on the famous “gorilla walking among people playing basketball” test, though Nisbett doesn’t mention that particular experiment). Perhaps most importantly, he examines how Asians have mostly rejected formal logic of the kind that is the absolute bedrock of Western thought (with the exception of abortive movements in China such as Mohism, swamped by Confucianism and Taoism), in favor of contextual analysis without rigid boundaries. “East Asians, then, are more likely to set logic aside in favor of typicality and plausibility of conclusions. They are also more likely to set logic aside in favor of the desirability of conclusions.” (The same characteristic, to a much more extreme degree, is found in Arab cultures, though Nisbett does not discuss Arabs at any point.) And, at the end, Nisbett concludes, “People hold the beliefs they do because of the way they think and they think the way they do because of the nature of the societies they live in.” (In many ways, including this conclusion, "The Geography of Thought" is a complement to Jonathan Haidt’s incredibly good "The Righteous Mind," which explored cultural differences in the way morality is perceived, focusing on intuitions as cognition.)

As I read through the book, I wondered whether Nisbett would address the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—that different languages influence the ways their speakers think. And he does, noting the prevalence, relative to Chinese, in Western languages of “generic” nouns, which allow categorization without relying on context, and the lack in Chinese of the English suffix “-ness,” which similarly allows easy abstraction of a concept. Along the same lines, Western languages tend to focus on the agent and most sentences rely on a subject who is doing an act; Eastern languages much less so. Nisbett supports this analysis with studies of bilingual speakers, who respond dramatically differently to certain kinds of testing when tested in different languages, and he offers a cautious endorsement of Sapir-Whorf. Again, not determinative, but interesting and probative.

The critical result of these differences, in practical terms, for the relative success of Western and Asian cultures was that, in China, abstract scientific curiosity was not encouraged—rather, some practical tinkering was socially permitted, though not necessarily encouraged and never systematized, leading to many scientific inventions that were either not used at all (the compass, if the Chinese did indeed invent it) or not used to their potential (gunpowder). Nisbett claims, and offers support for his claim, that Chinese failure to develop concepts of abstraction necessarily crippled Chinese scientific advancement. Similarly, Chinese rejection of formal logic in favor of the “middle way” of harmonious compromise, pushed by both Taoism and Confucianism, such that Chinese philosophers accept that “A” and “not-A” can sometimes both be true, produces travel down totally different avenues of thought than does abstraction, in both science and in many other areas. The exact opposite forms of thought in the West produced the Scientific Revolution, and then the Industrial Revolution. And the scientific and developmental effects of these differences continue to today. For example, Nisbett points out that, in the 1990s, American scientists earned forty-four Nobel Prizes; Japanese scientists, with fully half the funding, one. Another way to say this is that without the Western ways of thought, we would all be living in the sixteenth century, at best.

So what we really want to know, academics be damned, is which ways of thought are better? Or, put more bluntly, is the thought of China or America better? We Americans reflexively conclude, even if we are too nice or too cowed to say so, that of course Western ways of thoughts are better. Look on our works, we say, and look at the modern world, made by the West, and only by the West. So far as it goes, that’s true, but what if we look more closely at the modern world? Yes, Western thought made the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, but it also morphed into Enlightenment thought, taking the Greek and earlier Western focus on the individual and molding it into the central idol of our times, a turning that has probably sowed the seeds of our destruction. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Chinese have taken their communitarian harmony, or their tolerance for authoritarianism, depending on how you view it, as well as their non-susceptibility to the siren call of atomizing Enlightenment thought, and married it to Western technology and economic practices, without the hangups and self-hatred that characterizes the ruling classes of the West. It’s not going to matter if the Chinese are any good at debate and formal logic if they now have hypersonic missiles mounted on their cruisers, while we today spend our money and time on brainwashing sailors to pretend their new transgender crewmates are really the sex they claim to be today (and to pretend that mixed-sex combat vessels are anything but the triumph of ideology over common sense). Sure, in the long run the triumph of any non-Western civilization means stagnation, as we revert to the mean of human progress, which has always been glacially slow, at best, without the West. But that’s the long run, and in the short and medium term, the Chinese turtle is looking pretty good, if you like to gamble. (less)
flag 5 likes · Like · 2 comments · see review

Apr 09, 2018 uosɯɐS rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: personality-theory, physics, world, logic, critical-thinking, eastern, education, philosophy, psychology, favorites
Loved this book! I am certainly Western, and yet... there are aspects of my thinking that conform to Eastern trends and sometimes make me feel out of place, but I couldn't have quite put into words what was going on.

For example, I am probably somewhat more holistic than the average Westerner - I do tend to think that many theories are hopelessly oversimplified. Is this because I was a statistics minor, and have developed an interest in complexity? I also am deeply ambivalent about intuitive notions of causality - is this because of my readings on quantum physics (and Gödel!)? Or was I that way before college(the fact that I am asking this suggest some immunity to hindsight bias - something Easterners are more susceptible to)? Is it because I'm female (We are generally considered more empathetic, like Easterners)? Is it because I did not have a standardized public-school primary education (Though not public or standardized, I still think it was Western!)? Could I have a more right-brained orientation than many Westerners (*Is* Western thinking more "left-brained"?)? I also wonder if position in the social hierarchy could affect one's cognitive orientation (Sapolsky?)? Have my years of marriage to an Eastern European had an impact on my thinking (I'd be shocked if they didn't - but he is quite conscious of having become very much more Westernized since moving here and prefers it)? Some books leave you with more questions than answers. These are the thought-provoking books that I enjoy!

Some of the reviews of this book have questioned whether or not the research in the book was done in a valid manner. I am not enough of a social scientist to know, but even if it wasn't, even if there is no such thing as s "Western mind" or "Eastern mind", or if the characteristics discussed in this book poorly capture the differences... I find it truly fascinating to consider the potential perspectives that were presented in this book.

Favorite passage (He is discussing how rule-based categorisation is foundational to Western thought patterns, but not to Eastern):

Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine writer, tells us that there is an ancient Chinese encyclopedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge in which the following classification of animals appears: “(a) those that belong to the emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, l.) others, m.) those that have just broken a flower vase, n.) those that resemble flies from a distance.
(less)
flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Mar 27, 2020 Laryssa rated it really liked it
america, sit your ass down and listen.
flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Mar 31, 2013 Jessica Lu rated it it was ok
It took me nearly 8 months to finish this book, as I often got annoyed (by its repeating concepts, unstructured content and sometimes wrong arguments) and put it down for a while before picking it up again.

The book was published in 2003 and most of the “findings” were not very new even at that time, in my humble opinion. The more “interesting” part for me was the psychological tests the author and his assistants did with “easterners” and “westerners” to prove their arguments. However, descriptions were long and dull.

Anyway, when I finally finished it and reviewed the book, I found that beside my doubting question marks and argument note, I did have some underline sentences showing my agreement and confirmation. So as a summary, I would like to list down the concepts from the book that I think are meaningful or interesting:

In general:
• Differences in linguistic structure reflect in people’s thinking process.
• Child training results people’s focuses and their understanding about the world.
• The worldviews prompt their perception and reasoning process.
• People hold the beliefs because of the way they think and they think the way they do because of the nature of the societies they live in.
• Economic forces operation to maintain social structures.

East vs. West:

Easterners (most far East Asian countries, such as Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Koreans)
• See themselves living in an interdependent world in which the self is part of a larger whole
• tend to see substances in their appropriate context, are embedded in a meaningful whole (High-context)
• with social existence based on harmony would not develop confrontation or debate habits
• handle confrontations by intermediaries
• would be oriented toward resolving the contradiction or finding a middle way
• prefer for compromises
• attend to environment and detect relationship
• believe “the peg that stands out will be pounded down”
• less concern about their personal goals than group goals and individual’s related responsibilities
• rate themselves much lower, self-criticize that they have negative qualities
• assume complexity
• strive for maintaining harmonious social relations and self-improvement
• likely become well-rounded
• learn first the nouns
• are taught to understand what is being said
• know more accurately aware of others’ feelings and attitudes
• negotiate in long, to invest time for laying groundwork for future trust and cooperation

Westerners (most north-American, such as Canada and the USA)
• See themselves live in a world in which the self is a unitary free agent
• attend to objects and often isolate the object from its context (Low-context)
• search for simple principles that will justify beliefs
• seek on correctness of one side from the conflicts, are prepared to sacrifice harmony for fairness
• handle confrontations by legal judgments
• infer what categories the object is and consider how logical rules can apply or to control
• believe men can freely manipulate environment for certain purposes
• prefer simplicity
• emphasize individuals with distinctive attributes
• believe in setting goals, control of own behaviors, making choices and preference would determine desirable outcomes
• think relationship gets in the way
• strive to feel good about themselves and work hard for self-fulfillment, positive personal qualities are important to the sense of well-being
• learn first the verbs
• likely become good as specialist
• are taught to express self well
• negotiate in short and to the points, not to waste time reaching goals

At the last chapter, the author devote himself to debate whether the world tomorrow being a east and west converged or not. He believe they should move in the direction of each other and transform like the individual ingredients in a stew that are recognizable but are altered as a whole. And I agree with him despite many other disagreements.
(less)
flag 4 likes · Like · comment · see review

Feb 11, 2014 Jo rated it it was amazing
Shelves: asia, culture
Superb. There is no need for me to add another summary to the excellent summaries submitted by other readers. This book had me gripped from beginning to end. Occasionally I had to raise my eyebrow at the use of the term Westerner, when clearly the author meant American, and was describing cultural experiences I cannot relate to at all as an English woman. Also there were many discussions which I felt could have benefitted from feminist analysis - experiences and descriptions of cultures appear very gendered to me, and some modern feminism has done a good job of deconstructing assumed universalisms within western thought.
However, it was a joy exploring this topic, which feels so relevant to the place I find myself in. I enjoyed the background speculations, the explanations of methodology, the sense of journeying with the issues, the honest questioning and dialogue created between these very different ways of constructing the world.
I am learning mandarin at the moment and I often find myself reflecting on the different world constructed within the language. It is a strain on my brain trying to construct my thoughts with the context first. My thoughts appear in my head in the wrong order. I find myself reaching for far too many words, to make meaning specific in ways that are irrelevant. I look for rules that will help me systematise, categorise ... my teacher gives me that patient mystified look which tells me I am not in England now ...! This book made so much sense of this experience, lol! But also of the everyday differences that permeate daily life and business here. (less)
flag 4 likes · Like · comment · see review

May 02, 2015 Jody rated it did not like it
I hated reading this book. Not because the topic isn't interesting, but because the book was filled with anecdotes, parentheticals, generalizations, and reports of studies without ever answering the question 'how is this information useful?'

For example, the author talks about one study where respondents were asked to group two out of three things together: panda, monkey, banana. He argued that Westerners group panda and monkey together because they are both mammals, but Asians group monkey and banana together because of the relationship that monkeys eat bananas. All of my American kids, and my spouse picked monkey and banana. But the question is, so what? The book disappoints because although the title implies insight, it delivers none. (less)
flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 27, 2012 Jennifer rated it did not like it
Too general, and lots of the research, as an Asian, I found to be untrue.
Moreover, the books does many of its research on Asian Americans, which is quite different from Asians.
flag 4 likes · Like · comment · see review

May 27, 2012 Santo rated it liked it
Shelves: philosophy
The differences in thoughts between Asians and westerners have often been elaborated from the perspectives of history, culture, politics, and philosophy. Therefore, it's good to read on a psychology approach on this analysis.

The author developed his argument on the basis of case studies carried out among Asians, Asian-Americans, and westerners. Of course, the results of each case study is never conclusive, but in the end, as a whole, the author's work should be commended. Indeed, he merely reconfirms many of the stereotypes existing on Asians and westerners. However, it's refreshing to learn that these stereotypes can and have been proven through controlled psychological experiments.

Certain parts of the book is enlightening; I actually enjoyed it quite immensely. When reading about the questions posed during his case studies, I often find myself trying to answer the questions posed in the case studies, trying to identify whether I am more of an Asian of a westerner. The verdict on this remains inconclusive, but at least I have a better idea of the differences in perceptions between the two sides.

For my own personal purposes, the book has definitely enrich my perspective on how Asians and westerners perceive diplomacy. Asians will most likely believe that we must surrender ourselves to the dynamic changes in situations (basically "go with the flow") and appreciate the process more than the result. Meanwhile, Westerners would make us believe that if factors to a situation are analyzed well, then situations can be controlled to produce a desired result.

The author claims that in the future, there will most likely be two end results to the differences in thoughts between Asians and westerners. The first assumption, like Samuel Huntington's, is that there will be a clash of thoughts that is inherently irreconcilable. In the end, conflict may surface as a result of such clash. The second assumption, however, would see the development of a "third way" which draws lessons from the positive values imbedded in both ways of thinking.

For the longest time, I've thought myself as an Asian with western thinking. In doing so, I've more than often fallen into the trap of looking at the Asian way of thinking in a condescending manner. However, the more I live in Indonesia, and the more I'm surrounded by my people, the more I'm beginning to see that there is virtue in the Asian way of thinking. That, maybe, the end of history is not here yet, and that the western way of thinking is not the apex of mankind. (less)
flag 3 likes · Like · 1 comment · see review

Oct 03, 2016 Steve Whitney rated it did not like it
Horrible, this is what happens when psychologists try to do philosophy, sloppy, over generalized, with examples hand picked to support the authors life work, not with the time.
flag 3 likes · Like · 1 comment · see review

Feb 18, 2020 Johnny rated it it was amazing
Shelves: philosophy, psychology
In the U.S., we say “watch your back” to indicate that one should watch the vulnerable aspect of one’s rear and not assume that all allies can be trusted. In Japan, to “watch your back” means to make sure that what you do doesn’t inconvenience others (like those behind you in a crowd—p. 89). The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why is a fascinating survey of similar differences published in 2003. The differences recounted are interesting, but the possible underlying differences, the why of the title, are even more enlightening.

First, author Richard Nesbitt identifies the Asian tendency to look at relationships while Westerners tend to look at objects and the atomistic particles which make those objects up. Even in the front matter, Nesbitt observes that Asians see the world in constant change such that it is important to be aware of relationships and environments while Westerners look at objects, and even people, to determine how they can control them (p. xiii). That same difference in perception enabled Asians to grasp aspects of “field” theories like magnetism earlier than the west (p. 21), though as with acoustic resonance, the early Chinese attributed the causality to lunar movement and the like (p. 22). This is eventually illustrated in a study by Imae and Gentner where two trays of objects were presented to children of differing ethnic cultures. On one tray was a pyramid made of cork and the children were told it was a “dax” to keep the language neutral. On the other tray was a pyramid made of plastic. When asked to find the “dax” on that tray, Western children readily identified the pyramid while the Asian children were still looking for something to match the cork of the first (p. 81). In a similar vein, when Westerners were shown images of objects against a background and then shown the same objects against different backgrounds, there was no real loss in recognition while Asians often did not recognize the objects when the background was different (p. 92).

Second, the idea of a high context society (interdependency) versus low context society (independence) was highlighted. This hit home to me personally when I overheard a Korean college student complaining about the courses his father had picked out for him for that quarter. I was shocked. The Western child through adolescent is continually challenged with choices, but the Asian parents will often choose for the child because they, being older and more experienced, obviously know best (p. 58). Family trumps the individual in the high context society. Even among adults, global surveys of middle managers showed that 90% of U.S., Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, and Swedish respondents chose selections which emphasized individual initiative while Asian respondents preferred selections where individuals were not singled out and everyone worked together (p. 63).

The Western insistence upon results meant that over 2/3 of middle managers responded that they should terminate an unsatisfactory employee (who had given 15 years of good service) if there was no reason to suspect the employee was going to improve while 80% of Asians felt it was wrong to ignore the previous 15 years of service (p. 65). Nisbett also cited organizational psychologist P. Christopher Earley’s study of Chinese and U.S. managers where some thought they were working alone, some thought they were working with a group of people just like themselves, and some thought they were working with those of different ethnic, geographical backgrounds. All were, actually, working alone. Yet, Chinese worked best when they thought they were working with their “in-group” and worst when working with their “out-group.” U.S. managers worked best when working alone with no difference between “in-group” and “out-group.” (p. 98)

The third rationale for differences was tied specifically to language. Nesbitt believes that because verbs are relational, as well as prominently used at the beginnings and endings of sentences in Asian languages (rather than in the middle as per European-U.S. languages—p. 150). Another reason is that nouns in Euro-American languages are syntax specific whereas nouns in Asian languages are more sensitive to context (p. 151). Another way of looking at it is that English is a “subject-prominent” language (hence, more agentic) while Asian languages are more “topic-prominent” (p. 157). There is a reason that Easterners are often reticent to speak. Where the West’s analytic thought fits neatly into spoken language, the East’s holistic thought is harder to express clearly (p. 211)

Since European/U.S. populations tend to favor discrete, compartmentalized definitions and arguments while Asians tend to favor a dialectic where one can find the “Middle Way,” it is no wonder that when conflict arises, the West chooses adversarial adjudication while the East chooses a third-party to help disputants find a mutually agreeable path (pp. 121, 194).
But with all of these suggestions and examples, Nesbitt doesn’t surrender to relativism or choose a way of thinking from a patronizing perspective. Toward the end of the book, he rightfully suggests: “I find that Asian patterns of reasoning cast valuable light on some of the reasoning errors of Westerners and I believe the same thing profitably reversed to look at Eastern thought.” (p. 204).

Indeed, as he moves to his conclusion, Nesbitt notes that there is evidence of a global Americanization that might make these differences moot in the future (pp. 220-221). Yet, he personally prefers an idea of convergence where each culture-type benefits from the other an each is transformed in different ways (p. 229).

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why is a stimulating book that has given me much to ponder. I highly recommend it.
(less)
flag 2 likes · Like · comment · see review

Dec 19, 2014 May rated it liked it
Richard E. Nisbett's The Geography of Thought examines the age-old question that has intrigued psychologists (and anyone, really) for centuries: how do Eastern and Western modes of thought differ, and why?

In the book, Nisbett begins by explaining the core foundations of thought on either side. In the East, Confucianism states that the world is a complex place that "consists of continuous substances." In the West, Aristotelianism asserts that "the world is composed of discrete objects or separate atoms."

So, it is natural that the people who suscribe to the first system of thought value harmony; to them, a world of "continuity" can only exist and function if its units interlink and cooperate. As Nesbitt puts it, a "sense of self was linked in a network of relationships." He discusses the ecology of China to support this thesis, pointing out how the flat plains of the mainland demanded farmers to work together in ancient times (even the irrigation system remained fixed under centralized control). If we consider China's political present and history - communism, communes, cooperatives - it is easy to see that collectivism has taken precedence. Anyone who has grown up in a Chinese family will also understand the importance of family dinners, long meals that take place around a round table with not only one's immediate family, but also one's cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. The Chinese developed a strong concept of social obligation that stressed relationships.

On the other hand, Westerners - whose world is composed of discrete objects - place more emphasis on individualism. Indeed, looking to ecological roots once more, Nisbett explains that the sloping mountains of Greece allowed for occupations such as hunting that were more or less independent - and commercial. In the West, we see a culture that is famous for vineyards, not paddy fields. Moreover, debate was common in the political assembly of ancient Greece, whereas arguments were considered threats to the harmony of the East. Here, we already see a Western inclination towards expressing personal viewpoints instead of relapsing into the collective. While Western societies encourage one to "stand out," Eastern societies strive to maintain equilibrium. Thus, it is no surprise that America is capitalist and perhaps the world's staunchest advocator of independence and human rights.

Of course, pros and cons accompany such differences. For example, Eastern societies' reluctance to reduce information into simple models due to their belief in the world's complexity might be justifiable; however, the West does classify its objects into categories and use such groupings to develop simple models, rules and theorems that forward opportunities for scientific and technological breakthroughs. Unsurprisingly, the West has the upper hand in the field of scientific development.

(To explore the Western tendency to categorize and the Eastern preference to focus on relationships, Nesbitt asked students of different backgrounds to group two of the following three organisms together: a chicken, a cow and some grass. Westerners tended to group the chicken and cow - the animals - together. Asians, noting the relationships of cow eats grass, left out the chicken.)

Where the East succeeds, argues Nesbitt, is their readier acceptance of change. After all, they believe that different elements must adapt in order to coexist in a world of continuous substances. Relationships cannot work without compromise. The reason why Asians are thus better at math, Nesbitt proposes, can be attributed to their drive to "work harder" - to change - as opposed to the Western belief that one may simply lack the "innate skills" to be good at math. (To be honest, I found Malcolm Gladwell's argument much more convincing.)

Interestingly, Nesbitt also discusses how the difference in modes of thought affect language. One of the most memorable examples in the book is about how the Chinese will say, "drink more," whereas Westerns inquire, "more tea?" during social gatherings. The former, whose culture revolves around relationships, use a verb; the latter, who focus on the object, use a noun.

The Geography of Thought is a lucid exploration of the differences between Eastern and Western modes of thinking. Yet at the end of the book, I couldn't help but wonder - is that it? Surely, there must be more? How would one categorize Russia, for instance, a country that could be considered Eastern and Western? What about further studies conducted in places like Hong Kong, which Nesbitt himself even acknowledges as a great laboratory for cross-cultural study? What happens to the development of thinking in places that have been much influenced by the West?

Certainly read this book if you are interested in the ways the East and West think differently. I find The Geography of Thoughtto be is a springboard, a well-researched platform that will push you to read more widely on the subject it investigates.

===

The Geography of Thought
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

First edition (US)

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why is a book by social psychologist Richard Nisbett that was published by Free Press in 2003.[1] By analyzing the differences between Asia and the West, it argues that cultural differences affect people's thought processes more significantly than believed.[2]

Contents

1Thesis
2Implications
3Reception
4See also
5References
6External links

Thesis[edit]

In the book, Nisbett demonstrates that "people actually think about—and even see—the world differently because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China".[3] At its core, the book assumes that human behavior is not “hard-wired” but a function of culture.

The book proposes that the passion for strong ontology and scientific rationality based on forward chaining from axioms is essentially a "Western" phenomenon. Ancient Greece's passion for abstract categories into which the entire world can be taxonomically arranged, he claims, is prototypically Western, as is the notion of causality.

In the Chinese intellectual tradition there is no necessary incompatibility between the belief that A is the case and the belief that not-A is the case. On the contrary, in the spirit of the Tao or yin-yang principle, A can actually imply that not-A is also the case, or at any rate soon will be the case...Events do not occur in isolation from other events, but are always embedded in a meaningful whole in which the elements are constantly changing and rearranging themselves. [In the Chinese approach to reasoning], to think about an object or event in isolation and apply abstract rules to it is to invite extreme and mistaken conclusions. It is the Middle Way that is the goal of reasoning.

In other words, he claims that the law of the excluded middle is not applied in Chinese thought, and that a different standard applies. This has been described by other thinkers as being hermeneutic reasonableness.

In chapter 3, we saw that the social organization and practices of modern Asians resemble those of the ancient Chinese and the social organization and practices of modern Europeans resemble those of the ancient Greeks. In this chapter we’ve seen that modern Asians, like the ancient Chinese, view the world in holistic terms: They see a great deal of the field, especially background events; they are skilled in observing relationships between events; they regard the world as complex and highly changeable and its components as interrelated; they see events as moving in cycles between extremes; and they feel that control over events requires coordination with others. Modern Westerners, like the ancient Greeks, see the world in analytic, atomistic terms; they see objects as discrete and separate from their environments; they see events as moving in linear fashion when they move at all; and they feel themselves to be personally in control of events even when they are not. Not only are worldviews different in a conceptual way, but also the world is literally viewed in different ways. Asians see the big picture and they see objects in relation to their environments—so much so that it can be difficult for them to visually separate objects from their environments. Westerners focus on objects while slighting the field and they literally see fewer objects and relationships in the environment than do Asians.

Implications[edit]

There are several implications to Nisbett's theory. For instance, in law, Eastern and Western cultures assign different priorities to, and roles of, the law in society. The ratio of lawyers to engineers is forty times higher in the US than in Japan. Moreover, the role of US lawyers is, generally, to handle legal confrontations, and the aim is demands for justice with a clear winner and loser based upon universal principles of justice that apply equally to everyone. In contrast, Eastern lawyers are more often used as intermediaries to reduce hostilities, and reach a compromise; the principles they operate by are more flexible and circumstantial.[4]

Another aspect where there is great divergence between these two systems of thought concerns human rights. In the West, there is more or less a single view of the relationship between individuals and states, individuals are all separate units, and enter into a social contract with one another which gives them certain rights. East Asians, as well as most people outside the West, however, 'view societies not as aggregates of individuals but as molecules, or organisms. As a consequence, there is little or no conception of rights that inhere in the individual,' and in particular, '[f]or the Chinese, any conception of rights is based on a part-whole as opposed to a one-many conception of society' (ibid, 198). Therefore, for Western conceptions to be adopted outside the West, this requires 'not just a different moral code, but a different conception of the nature of the individual' (ibid, 199).

There are also fundamentally different conceptions of religion in the East and West. In Eastern religion, there is a "both/and" mentality more so than the "right/wrong" one that is proliferate in the West. As a result, Eastern religion tends to be more tolerate and accommodating towards a plurality of religious beliefs and ideas, for example you can identify as Buddhist, Confucian and Christian in Japan and Korean (and pre-communist China), and as a result, religious wars have been historically rare. In Western religion, monotheism involves a requirement for a God to monopolize belief, which owes to its Abrahamic routes, and religious wars have been historically commonplace. Furthermore, the role of cycles and recurrences has had a large impact on Eastern religions, but less so in Western religions. This is evident in the fact that sin can be atoned for in Eastern religion, and to a degree in Christianity, but it is ineradicable in Protestantism (ibid, 199–200).

Reception[edit]

Cultural anthropologist Sherry Ortner wrote a critical review in The New York Times, pointing out its methodological flaws (most of the experimental subjects are college students, leading to sample bias) as well as interpretational ones ("How much difference does there have to be between the Asians and the Westerners in a particular experiment to demonstrate a cultural divide?"). She was most critical about his "relentless attempt to cram everything into the Asian/Western dichotomy...into these monolithic units of East and West" without really addressing "differences within the categories" such as gender, religion, ethnicity, which are "occasionally acknowledged, but generally set aside".[5]

Other reviews were more comfortable with Nisbett's generalities and word usage. He notes that "East Asians" indicate Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, while "Westerners" typically means "America, but can be extended to the rest of the Anglosphere, and occasionally also to Europe".[6] Robert Sternberg, president of the American Psychological Association, called it a "landmark book".[3]

2021-11-02

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently - and Why : Nisbett, Richard E.: Amazon.com.au: Books

No comments: