It’s that time of year for thoughtful reflection & self-assessment. I often wish I were a faster reader…I started 2018 with a longer & different list of books to read, but time & circumstances took me to unexpected paths. Overall, though, it’s been a fruitful year of discovering: • fascinating views of cultural differences in
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
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
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
