Bringing your cultural habits into another culture may be accepted if it’s a positive thing…or it may get this “sleepy” subway commuter slapped! Adapting to Culture “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle.
It appears that culture heavily influences how well people incorporate the context of an environment versus how well they can filter out the context to focus on a prominent object. This has been illustrated in eye measurements of Asians versus North Americans as they evaluate photographs, of Japanese & Americans recalling foreground objects versus background
Can something be true and not true at the same time? East Asian & Western philosophies have had very different ways of answering this question that still affects the ways people in various cultures reason. The collectivist culture of Asia emphasizes harmony & a constantly changing environment in which contradictions are natural, & truth depends
Several studies indicate that children in more individualist culture countries learn to identify & classify objects faster than those in collectivist cultures. This could be language-related, as Asian languages don’t distinguish generic names that indicate category. In English, if I say “the ducks,” it is specific, but if I use just “ducks” it indicates the
An intriguing experiment may show cultural difference in how people see the world—either as discrete & differentiated objects or as interconnected substances. Told that a simple shape & material item (like a cork cone) was an imaginary name (dax), Americans & Japanese were asked to choose either same shape/different material or same material/different shape as
Most of us recognize that time is treated differently in different cultures. This usually comes up when someone from another culture is late for a meeting & makes a joke about being on “local” time. But there are deeper consequences of the truth that people experience time differently depending on their cultural background. Many Asian
Studies in western societies show people have an inflated view of self. Whether it’s drivers, students, or college professors, most rate their own abilities as higher than others, & westerners evaluate themselves as unique in ways they aren’t. This overconfidence bias, however, appears to weaken as it crosses the East-West divide. An experiment may suggest
Have you ever been in a foreign country & discovered that people just don’t think like you do? Researcher Richard Nisbett has found specific differences in the way Asians & Westerners see the world. In one experiment, Chinese & American eye movements were tracked as they viewed pictures with a central object against a complex
