How Culture Affects the Way We Think
In our global economy, geography is fast becoming less relevant than culture. It's easy for jets to cross oceans or for data to instantly traverse the globe. It's much harder for people to communicate across cultural barriers. This may be due, in part, to the fact that our cultures actually mold our thinking patterns, suggests new psychological research.
The research - much of it conducted by Dr. Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan - challenges the long-held scientific assumption that all people process information in basically the same ways. It suggests that, at a fundamental level, there are some information-processing differences between people from Eastern and Western cultures.
"If it's true, it turns on its head a great deal of the science that many of us have been doing, and so it's sort of scary and thrilling at the same time," says Dr. Susan Andersen, an associate editor at the journal Psychological Review, where a summary of Nisbett's research will soon be published.
So far, the research has focused on the ways in which culture affects the thought patterns of East Asians (specifically Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) and Americans. Generally speaking, Nisbett and his colleagues have found that East Asians seem to think more "holistically," reports the New York Times. That is, compared with Americans, East Asians pay greater attention to context and relationships, rely more on experience than on abstract logic, and show a greater tolerance for contradictions. In contrast, Americans tend to take objects out of context, rely more on formal logic, and steer clear of contradictions.
Here's an example. Students from Japan and the U.S. were shown an animated underwater scene in which one large fish swam among smaller fish and other aquatic life. When asked to describe the scene, the Japanese students were more likely to set the scene, noting contextual factors such as the color of the water or the sandiness of the bottom. They were 70% more likely than the Americans to comment on aspects of the background environment. In contrast, the Americans immediately focused on the large fish. "Americans were much more likely to zero in on the biggest fish, the brightest object, the fish moving the fastest," says Dr. Nisbett.
These different perspectives apparently affect memory and recognition. When the participants were shown the same larger fish in a different environment, the Americans were more likely to recognize it. Apparently, the Japanese students were more likely to associate the larger fish with the context in which they'd first seen it.
The same thought patterns apply to other circumstances. "When it came to interpreting events in the social world, the Asians seemed similarly sensitive to context, and quicker than Americans to detect when people's behavior was determined by situational pressures," reports the New York Times.
Both ways of thinking have their advantages and limitations, Nisbett notes. And both are culture-based. Asian Americans born in the U.S. have the same habits of thought as European Americans.
Of course, more research must be conducted, but if Nisbett's findings are supported, psychologists will need to develop new cognitive models that accommodate cultural differences. In the future, such models could help HR professionals and managers develop a better understanding of the culture clashes that inevitably occur in global organizations. Communication between East Asians and Westerners might be improved. Eventually, this could lead to significant changes in the way companies train employees from different cultural backgrounds, manage cross-cultural teams, and leverage the diversity of viewpoints implicit in a global workforce.
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For more information, please see:
Goode, Erica. "How Culture Molds Habits of Thought." New York Times, August 8, 2000, p. D1.
Park, Denise C., Richard Nisbett and Trey Hedden. "Aging, Culture, and Cognition." The Journals of Gerontology, March 1999, pp. 75-84.
The research - much of it conducted by Dr. Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan - challenges the long-held scientific assumption that all people process information in basically the same ways. It suggests that, at a fundamental level, there are some information-processing differences between people from Eastern and Western cultures.
"If it's true, it turns on its head a great deal of the science that many of us have been doing, and so it's sort of scary and thrilling at the same time," says Dr. Susan Andersen, an associate editor at the journal Psychological Review, where a summary of Nisbett's research will soon be published.
So far, the research has focused on the ways in which culture affects the thought patterns of East Asians (specifically Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) and Americans. Generally speaking, Nisbett and his colleagues have found that East Asians seem to think more "holistically," reports the New York Times. That is, compared with Americans, East Asians pay greater attention to context and relationships, rely more on experience than on abstract logic, and show a greater tolerance for contradictions. In contrast, Americans tend to take objects out of context, rely more on formal logic, and steer clear of contradictions.
Here's an example. Students from Japan and the U.S. were shown an animated underwater scene in which one large fish swam among smaller fish and other aquatic life. When asked to describe the scene, the Japanese students were more likely to set the scene, noting contextual factors such as the color of the water or the sandiness of the bottom. They were 70% more likely than the Americans to comment on aspects of the background environment. In contrast, the Americans immediately focused on the large fish. "Americans were much more likely to zero in on the biggest fish, the brightest object, the fish moving the fastest," says Dr. Nisbett.
These different perspectives apparently affect memory and recognition. When the participants were shown the same larger fish in a different environment, the Americans were more likely to recognize it. Apparently, the Japanese students were more likely to associate the larger fish with the context in which they'd first seen it.
The same thought patterns apply to other circumstances. "When it came to interpreting events in the social world, the Asians seemed similarly sensitive to context, and quicker than Americans to detect when people's behavior was determined by situational pressures," reports the New York Times.
Both ways of thinking have their advantages and limitations, Nisbett notes. And both are culture-based. Asian Americans born in the U.S. have the same habits of thought as European Americans.
Of course, more research must be conducted, but if Nisbett's findings are supported, psychologists will need to develop new cognitive models that accommodate cultural differences. In the future, such models could help HR professionals and managers develop a better understanding of the culture clashes that inevitably occur in global organizations. Communication between East Asians and Westerners might be improved. Eventually, this could lead to significant changes in the way companies train employees from different cultural backgrounds, manage cross-cultural teams, and leverage the diversity of viewpoints implicit in a global workforce.
====================================================
For more information, please see:
Goode, Erica. "How Culture Molds Habits of Thought." New York Times, August 8, 2000, p. D1.
Park, Denise C., Richard Nisbett and Trey Hedden. "Aging, Culture, and Cognition." The Journals of Gerontology, March 1999, pp. 75-84.