http://www.newscientist.com/article/...viewpoint.html


Self-centered cultures narrow your viewpoint

14:06 12 July 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi

When it comes to putting yourself in the shoes of others, cultures that emphasise interdependence over individualism may have the upper hand.

In a new psychological experiment, Chinese students outperformed their US counterparts when ask to infer another person's perspective. The researchers say the findings help explain how misunderstandings can occur in cross-cultural communication.

In the experiment, psychologists Boaz Keysar and Shali Wu at the University of Chicago, Illinois, US, recruited 40 students. Half of the volunteers were non-Asians who had grown up in the US, and the other half were native Mandarin speakers who had very recently emigrated from various parts of China.

The volunteers played a game in which they had to follow the instructions of a person sitting across the table from them, an individual known as the 'director'.

Researchers placed a grid structure between the two people consisting of small compartments, some of which contained objects such as wood blocks, toy bunnies and sunglasses (see image, right). Some of the individual compartments were covered on one side with cardboard so that they were blocked from the view of the director - only the study subjects could see the objects inside.

Off the charts
The volunteers had to follow the instructions of the director and move named objects from one compartment to another. But – as a sneaky trick – the researchers sometimes placed two objects of the same kind in the grid. In this case, the subjects would have to consider the director’s view to know which object she was referring to.

For example, the grid sometimes contained two wooden blocks, one of which sat in a compartment hidden to the director. The director would then ask the subject to "move the wooden block to a higher square in the grid".

Chinese students would immediately understand which wooden block to move – the one visible to both them and the director. Their US counterparts, however, did not always catch on.

"They would ask 'Which block?' or 'You mean the one on the right?", explains Keysar. "For me it was really stunning because all of the information is there. You don't need to ask," he adds.

While 65% of the American participants asked this type of question, only one of the 20 Chinese subjects did so, equating to just 5%.

"That's a huge difference – it's off the charts," says Richard Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, who studies differences between Western and Asian cultures.

Language link
The US volunteers were also slower in reacting when asked to move an object when there was a duplicate in the grid that only they could see. They generally took about 30% longer to complete such instructions from the director.

In contrast, such duplicate objects did not slow the speed at which Chinese participants responded.

Keysar believes the Chinese students had an easier time understanding the director’s perspective because they come from a more collectivist society than their US counterparts. He speculates, for example, that compared with children in China, youngsters in the US are more likely to feel that it is "all about them".

In another example, he describes how a Texas corporation "aiming to improve productivity, told its employees to look in the mirror and say 'I am beautiful' 100 times before coming to work. In contrast, a Japanese supermarket instructed its employees to begin their day by telling each other 'you are beautiful'."

Nisbett adds that in some Asian cultures people use less blunt language, making it necessary for them to read between the lines, and imagine the perspective of the individual with whom they are speaking.

He also says that the new findings could help us head off misunderstandings between people from Asian and Western societies: "We are less likely to step on each other's toes if we are aware of one another's cultural differences.”

Previous research has shown that culture can influence very basic behaviours, such as how we see objects.

Journal reference: Psychological Science (vol 18, p 600-606)

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The grid on the left represents what a participant could see, while that on the right represents the director’s view (Image: Keysar and Wu/Psychological Science)

Question..

1. It is known that divorce rates amongst am/xf couples are high. Would this partially explain the reason why? That no matter how well you know a person there are some things that are ultimately different between cultures and cannot be resolved?

2. Does this explain the biased slant in western media that cause asian males to look down on themselves due to cultural misunderstandings??


Discuss.

This is an interesting study. Yesterday I was at Lee Sandwiches ordering by BBQ Baguette. I noticed this one AF looking for a napkin and asked this non-asian female "do you have anymore tissue?", the non asian female corrected her by saying "NAPKIN" and was shrugging her shoulders. I think the communication gap has something to do with it. In a western society, we have many "slang" for certain things in which makes a society unique. Not many others catch up with and most people learn Western language through movies. Some people don't have patience with others when they "say" it wrong and others are jump to correct it. I have an example to share with you. I have a second uncle who calls her daughter "Bea" pronounced in our language(BAY-UH) not like "Bea"(BEE...as in Beatrice.) I was calling to Atlanta one time for the study and this one teacher's name is Bea for Beatrice...I accidentally said the way my uncle said and she was furious!!!! She corrected me and was telling all kinds of excuses of why I am wrong. I made a mistake and it wasn't intentional. It's just that I forgot that people call Bea for Beatrice.

I think both of these questions come from biased perspectives and have no bearing on the study shown. In all acuality it is not known that divorce rates amoung am/xf is high, when compared to all divorce rates from my research. It is known that divorce rates between all asian couples are significantly lower than divorce rates of marriages including a western counterpart. Whether western/western or eastern/western and sex had no bearing on this statistic like the question alludes too.

All I think this study shows is what is already known, that Eastern culure typically places less emphasis on the individual.

As for the 2nd question, HUH? What is in this guy's pipe? In order for this to be relevant it would have to apply to Asian females sense of worth too and it doesn't. Honestly I think the Asian male image in the media is based on nothing more ominious than a westerinized standard of beauty.

__________________

Nothing but the purest form of opium... Thanks for the "hit". I will take that as a pun. Next...

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1)I think so. It's another variable thrown into the equation that needs to be resolved being that marriage is already a lot of work already between same race couples.

2)I don't think so. I'm not sure what you're trying to ask but here goes anyways. I think Asian males are stuck in this cycle of wallowing in their own self pity because of the Asian male stereotypes or what is left of these stereotypes. America, especially males, views Asian males as a threat to their status quo (by America I mean everybody in America, whites and blacks especially) that isn't Asian. Look at Shaq's and Barkley's reactions when Yao first joined the NBA.

God forbid, an Asian male breaks the mold of the Asian male stereotype. The most funniest being the reaction from some people that I played world of warcraft with, I mean this is an online game where some of the geekiest of geeks and dorkiest of dorks congregate. I'm well educated, successful in my career, socially adept, I get chicks, I'm not tall but by no means short at 5'11, I've played sports in high school and was somewhat successful getting a basketball scholarship from some unknown division three school, I've been weightlifting for close to 15 years or so. But, even some of non-Asians who are in the bottom rung of the social pecking order of society that I played world of warcraft with doesn't believe it and make snarky remarks about me lying and being a small dicked, short, scrawny Chinese guy when they ask about me and I tell them. LOL.

^
That question and article was put up so long ago I don't remember the intent of the 2nd question. LOL. Actually what I think I was referring to was the different cultural standards that is biased in western media that plays the strong aggressive arrogant male against the lowly quiet character and more often than not, it happens to be the minority and in this case the asian male. The implication being different cultural standards are favored in media and western media stresses the me, me generation. Thus, asian males who view that from a different upbringing and cultural perspective may see themselves as out of touch when comparing their social values against those of the western mainstream. Some asian males may see that as black and white and hence look down upon themselves or others who take the opposite approach and become the angry asian male 'Fighting44's' approach.

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wrong thread.

Hmm, don't get you...

I wrote the thread. lol.