Do Asians THINK Differently?

DISCLAIMER (for scientific studies and references SCROLL BELOW)

Of course not all Eastereners are alike nor Westerners are; there may be Westerners that relate more to the Easterners’ way of thinking and vice-versa. But still meaningful generalizations from many scientific studies (see below) can be found regarding general differences in cognition.

I’m sure you can notice how “Western" I am by how I am clearly separating the two categories (East vs. West) and oversimplifying these features ;).

INFORMATION

This video is inspired by Richard Nisbett’s “The Georgaphy of Thought” which is an enlightening read.

Of course these are just a few examples that show the differences in cognition between the two areas. There is much more to discuss and talk about!

THE GEOGRAPHY OF THOUGHT - RICHARD NISBETT - BOOK

REFERENCES & STUDIES

Gentner, D. (1982) Why are nouns learned before verbs: Linguistic relativity versus natural partitioning. In S. A. Kuczaj (Ed.), Language Development: Vol. 2 Language thought and culture. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Gentner, D. (1981). "Some interesting differences between nouns and verbs." Cognition and Brain Theory 4, 161-178.

Imai, M., and Gentner, D. (1994). "A cross-linguistic study of early word meaning: Universal ontology and linguistic influence." Cognition 62, 169-200.

Ji, L., Peng, K., and Nisbett, R. E. (2000). "Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment." Journal of Personality and Social Psychobgy 78, 9

Masuda, T., and Nisbett, R. E. (2001). "Attending holistically vs. analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans.”

Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., and Norenzayan, A. (2001). "Culture and systems of thought: Holistic vs. analytic cognition.”

Norenzayan, A., Smith, E. E., Kim, B. J., and Nisbett, R. E. (in press). "Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning.”

Norenzayan, A., and Kim, B. J. (2002). A cross-cultural comparison of regulatory focus and its effect on the logical consistency of beliefs. Unpublished manuscript, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.

Norenzayan, A., Choi, I., and Nisbett, R. E. (2002). "Cultural similarities and
differences in social inference: Evidence from behavioral predictions and
lay theories of behavior." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28,
109-120.

Peng, K., and Nisbett, R. E. (1999). "Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction.”

Hopefully you will learn something in this video :)

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Credits:

All images and video are licensed under Creative Commons or were purchased and licensed for commercial use in this video.

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© Creatively eXplained all rights reserved, 2018

[rougeandrei]

Your Channel is CRIMINALLY Underrated, keep-it-up man! Someday your channel will make it big considering the Quality of your videos and content

[kumadake-]

This video is extremely underrated. Thank you for explaining the differences in cultures in layman's term for people to understand.

[NavamPakianathan]

Very crisp and compelling analysis of Nisbett's arguments. Thank you!

[multimartinmusic]

I'd like to see you dig into the disparity in comprehension of math as well. I've read that it's linked to linguistic functions, for instance, in Japanese, 57 translates to five tens, seven ones. That would yield a much more detailed understanding of what 57 actually is mathematically compared to the relative lack of clarity in the English "fifty-seven."

[MB-jyoi]

It would be interesting to know how Easterners view these differences. This video, as well Nisbett's book are analytical, Western style.
Hope politicians and decision makers in high places acquaint themselves with these concepts. The world needs it now more than ever!

[cjdvise]

1:52 This always puzzled me about us Westerners. I am a Christian and because of this I have focused more on what God can do when I am in a group of like-minded believers. The church is a group that represents God's hands and feet in the world. This does not correlate with general Western day-to-day actions as you've highlighted in this video. Also, the further West you go, the more pronounced this push for self glorification and success is. I used to be pulled down by this form of thought because it was not only default for me, it was encouraged. No matter how hard I tried, I thought I was not good enough. I would compete with others to prove my self-worth.

Now as a Christ follower, my way of viewing how to see myself in relationship with others has changed dramatically. I see my neighbor, regardless of who they are, as a gift from God and are worth sharing life with and dying for. This Middle-Eastern faith has changed me into someone that holds more to a group-centered self rather than a me-centered self. My worth doesn't come from my abilities or genetics, it comes from God's love for us, in us, and most importantly *_through_* us.

Scripture mentions that we humans are imperfect images of God (Gen 1:27)(Psalm 8:5)(Romans 12:2), so most of our positive attributes, especially empathy and compassion, are imperfect reflections of God's own attributes. These are not attributes that are found only in Christians, rather these positive attributes are in our nature since birth. Unfortunately, we also have sin nature in us. God does not share our sin nature. I believe that our sin nature can be made less controlling of our lives while our positive attributes, especially empathy, can be nurtured and fully-realized through a relationship with God through "death of self" in Christ (Galatians 2:20).

In short, I wasn't meaning to "preach" or anything, but it's just puzzling to me that for a historically "Christian" people, the West are rather individualistic - which doesn't correlate with Christ's message as I've shared above. The East's way of thinking seems to share more with that of Christianity than the West way of doing things do.

[hk]

Good! I am a brazilian Lean consultant and this video helps me to understand many things. Thank you very much!

[wiandryadiwasistio]

i find this also applies to photography, esp. composition and point of interest.

western photography tend to show subjects (which extend to sceneries) as the point of interest, which explains why photos of individual people, other living beings, and objects are prominent. think it as ‘this is a photo of [name of object]’.

eastern photography tend to show the overall scene in which there’s no true subject but the entire scenery _is_ the subject. also they capture context of the photo. think of it as ‘i took this photo to represent [mood, celebration, or important event] and i feel [emotion] about it’.

though this may be inaccurate since i see lots of example of western photography (seemingly) applied eastern zeitgeist to their photos and eastern photography doing the opposite. but most of the time, it really shows, and this is why i often being problematic when i have to analyze and criticize photos taken by people from the east, because we _don’t_ share the same zeitgeist

[patrickstetter]

Very cool video. I learned something new.

[glenngabriel]

For me, in 5:40, both are called “car” 😂
I can’t think of two different names for them 😂

Nice video anyway, keep it up 👍🏻👍🏻

[EspenAleksLarsen]

Keep doing these sort of videos, and your channel will be huge within a year or two.

[Manukapp]

Amazingly informative video!These kind of analyzes are great for the people who are unconscious of their unique point of view, as in they are not aware people think completely differently. You seem to say that Easterners (Japan, China, Korea..) have in their culture the fact that there are people very different to you, and you must accept that, right? so would it mean Easterners have a more open-minded culture than westerners, such as US or UK?
Even though I believe the search of harmony is very nice, but if the Chinese culture and Japanese define the self by the context, is finding peace within yourself, so knowing yourself and being happy with it, plausible in these Eastern Cultures? (Buddhism is an example, I'm just questioning :) )

[blackwater]

1:32 "Justice should be blind..." Ha!

[IsabellaCLau]

Just discovered your channel! Love it!

[AntarblueGarneau]

My personal observation is that in Asians (Easterners) behavior is ruled by Confucian thought; the State rather than the individual, conformity within the group rather than individual "freedom" This seems to apply no matter which religion...Buddhist, Shintoan, Christian..and to "Asians" who were born in, grew up and live among "Westerners" (probably Asian conditioning in the family). it is as if there is a Confucian worldview in the collective mind like for westerners Abrahamic worldview and the pervasiveness of the Greco-Roman hero myth. These unconscious influences are, of course, cultural but studies have shown that during the formation and development of the brain during the 1st 3 years of childhood (brain is not completely formed in the womb due to the narrowness of the birth canal) indicate that the brain physically changes in response the stress of the parents. These changes can be adaptations to the exigencies of survival in the small child.

[comet]

Once again, extremely cool and informative video!

[jackcarney]

Wow, what an accomplishment, thank you manifoldly, in part and whole!
I brought Nesbitt's book The Geography of Thought in 2003 just before departing to mainland China in that year to stay until 2015, and it was a "bible" for me to help me understand and incorporate the Asia Way of Thinking.
Your analysis and holistic understanding are, for me, superb and gave me new insights.
However, one correction I suggests needs to be made:
9:40> “In the sciences the Greeks were amongst the first to look for the underlying logical principle and pattern if human senses disproved the scientific method they should be ignored”
Error? Empirical data are NOT ignored in the (modern, actual) "Scientific Method"--I do not think you mean this? This is relative to the Ancient Greek philosophers as early proto-scientists, yes?
Only thing I disagreed with. Thanks, looking forward to using your work in my Responsibly Free School.
Get free, stay safe.

[resone]

Love the content man.

The theory of philosophical influence on each society is very sound, but I’m curious if it goes deeper than that.

[morboannihilator]

Great video! Russia is something intermediate (I am russian). The mentality of russians would be completely Asian, if not for the neighborhood with Western Europe.

[lesterfalcon]

To use studies of Japan and America as summaries of Western and Eastern is very limited. Vietnamese are very different to the Japanese. . To think all Asians think like Japanese is simply flawed. Also values var greatly across Europe, English think differently than the Spanish, German's etc.