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Title: The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently - and Why by Richard E. Nisbett ISBN: 1-85788-328-4 Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Pub. Date: 10 April, 2003 Format: Hardcover |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent book
Comment: Nisbett has written a fascinating and thought-provoking book about an important topic, which is the differing cognitive styles of people from the West and Asia. Using a large number of social psychological studies as evidence, he shows that there's lots of evidence that Asians (by which he primarily means Chinese and Japanese) have different habits of thoughts than Westerners (meaning basically Americans), differences that are visible in research looking at very basic cognitive processes. Asians are more attentive to context, while Americans are more atomistic and object-focussed; Asians are more willing to anticipate changes in the directions of trends, while Americans tend to think linearly and expect trends to continue. Asians seek compromises to conflicts, while Americans tend to polarize alternatives; more generally, Americans are very used to styles of thinking that are argumentative and syllogistic styles (those involving formal logic), while Asians tend to find them less congenial. Admittedly, there's a danger here of over-generalizations or slipping into stereotypes, but Nisbett's work appears to avoid these problems partly by being based on empirical studies, and by being carefully qualified. And though he can't prove his speculations about the causes of these differences, he offers plausible theories as to why the differing cultural contexts of the two kinds of societies might have favored the different styles of thought. If Nisbett is right and people would take these differences seriously, two very positive consequences could follow. One is that Americans would have to confront the fact that other cultures don't necessarily have to or want to be like us--or even think like us. Our thoughtless assumption that either everyone is just like us, or ought to be, needs to be shaken up and this book does that. The other useful result is that this book encourages us to realize that there are many ways of using the mind to respond to reality. Some people may impatiently ask; but what's the right way? But that misses one of the points of the book: each way of thinking, each cognitive style, works well within a certain cultural context. Nisbett doesn't tackle the big issue of whether Asians would benefit more from thinking in "American" ways or we would benefit from thinking in "Asian" ways. He seems to think that each culture might learn something from the other. This answer is perhaps too speculative and imprecise for some people, but it sounds about right to me. In any case, read the book with an open mind and being aware that it's just one small part of the vast and complex subject of cultural differences in mentalities, and I think you will find it highly rewarding.
Rating: 4
Summary: A good trip through the mind of cultures
Comment: I liked this book it was quite interesting in its approach to the differences in Eastern and Western thought. It's premiss is that Easterners' are more contextual and less object oriented in their thought processes. Nisbet shows how the West tends to value conflict of ideas over harmony and the east focuses on harmony and relationship.
Nisbet uses history, geography and traditions to explain his findings which are backed up by many interesting studies. I like the emphisis that these studies outline tendencies which peolpe can be trained to change or adopt to there advanatages.
Nissbet also is willing to critize both the east and west for certain errors that there thought patterns lead them to.
Nissbet also discusses how the source of how confontrations between the west and east occur due to differences. As well he discusses why the west and east have different view of human rights.
His most interesting arguement and most well founded is that Westernization is a commercial phenomenon and not necessarily a cultural one, Coke and Mc Donald's invasion of the world does not mean that eastern culture is disappearing or weakening only that the Big mac and Coke taste good to almost anyone.
I like Nissibet hope that western and eastern cultures will influnece each others way of thinking. And that understanding one anothers way of thinking is important. Through my travels around the world the attempt to understand others has lead to much more happiness than strife.
My new wife is Chinese and this book helped me to understand why some simple questions that I asked her are not so simple because we have a different starting point in the way we understand the world, this does not stop us from understanding the world together. I hope Nissbett is right for the world would be a better place.
Rating: 5
Summary: Minds from another culture work vastly different
Comment: I never anticipated that the asian thought process and conception of the world and society was so fundamentally different from the West; even down to the roots of basic logical inference and perception. Nesbitt reveals that the possibilities of ethnocentric bias could be much larger than many thought.
I certainly believe I am better equipped to deal with my asian and half asian colleagues after reading this book. I had previously been under the assumption that the same path of logic would be followed and relational design patterns would be perceived similar to my own understanding - not so!
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Title: Strangers to Ourselves : Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious by Timothy D. Wilson ISBN: 0674009363 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: 30 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Intuition: Its Powers and Perils by David G. Myers ISBN: 0300095317 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Nature Via Nurture : Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human by Matt Ridley ISBN: 0060006781 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Race in the Making: Cognition, Culture, and the Child's Construction of Human Kinds (Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change) by Lawrence A. Hirschfeld ISBN: 0262581728 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 31 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Why Do Men Barbecue? : Recipes for Cultural Psychology by Richard A. Shweder ISBN: 067401135X Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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