Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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| "That strong, egocentric communication of Westerners was nonexistent when we looked at Chinese," Keysar said. "The Chinese were very much able to put themselves in the shoes of another when they were communicating." |
Three points:
#1: If it�s OK for Keysar to lump all Westerners together, then it is OK for me to lump all East Asians together. In that light, I want to know why so many of my Korean bosses fail to put themselves in my shoes when they communicate to me that they have just made a last minute schedule change that screws up my lesson plans and sends me into a mad scramble.
#2: More seriously, the OP seems to be from the field of social psychology and be in line with the work of Richard E. Nisbett (The Geography of Thought):
�If the scholars in the humanities and other social sciences were right, then the cognitive scientists were wrong: Human cognition is not everywhere the same. Without putting it in so many words, the humanities and social science scholars were making important claims about the nature of thought. First, that members of different cultures differ in their �metaphysics�, or fundamental beliefs about the nature of the world. Second, that the characteristic thought processes of different groups differ greatly. Third, that the thought processes are of a piece with beliefs about the nature of the world: People use the cognitive tools that seem to make sense�given the sense they make of the world.
Just as remarkably, the social structures and sense of self that are characteristic of Easterners and Westerners seem to fit hand in glove with their respective belief systems and cognitive processes. The collective or interdependent nature of Asian society is consistent with Asians� broad, contextual view of the world and their belief that events are highly complex and determined by many factors. The individualistic or independent nature of Western society seems consistent with the Western focus on particular objects in isolation from their context and with Westerners� belief that they can know the rules governing objects and therefore can control the objects� behavior.� (p. xvii)
>>>>>>
#3: Anyone familiar with the journal Psychological Science? Is it a peer-reviewed journal? Actually, it doesn�t make any difference to me if it is or not because Fred the medieval French lit major/ESL teacher who is actually employed in a South Korean kindy doubts the claims in the OP and that is good enough for me to call bs on its claims. No doubt the claim of anti-Americanism is correct because everyone knows the academic world is just chock full of lefty pinko commies who�ve had it in for the US forever, and anyway, no one's opinion is valid if it disagrees with mine. |
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