2. Logic East and West
• “…the most striking difference between the traditions at the two ends
of the civilized word is in the destiny of logic. For the West, logic has
been central and the thread of transmission has never snapped…”
– Philosopher Angus Graham
• “...it is precisely because the Chinese mind is so rational that it refuses
to become rationalistic and … to separate form from content.
– Philosopher Hsu-Shien Liu
• "The aim of the Chinese classical education has always been the
cultivation of the reasonable man as the model of culture. An educated
man should, above all, be a reasonable being, who is always
characterized by his common sense, his love of moderation and
restraint, and his hatred of abstract theories and logical extremes.“
– Historian Lin Yutang
• “To argue with logical consistency ... may not only be resented but
also be regarded as immature.”
– Anthropologist Nobihuro Nagashima
3. Cognitive Differences: Logic vs.
Experience
• Norenzayan, et al.: Typicality vs. logic
All birds have ulnar arteries
Do sparrows have ulnar arteries?
Do penguins have ulnar arteries?
4. Convincingness Judgments as a Function
9
of Typicality
8.5 Typical
Atypica
8
l
Convincingness
7.5
7
6.5
6
5.5
5
European Asian Korean
American American
5. Cognitive Differences: Logic
vs. Experience
• Norenzayan, et al.: Plausibility vs. logic
All animals with fur hibernate
Rabbits do not hibernate
Rabbits are not animals with fur
6. Valid Arguments
100
Percent “Valid” Responses
95 Believable
90
Unbelievable
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
European Korean
American
7. The “Socratic Effect” East and West
• Socratic effect: asking people their beliefs about the
probability of logically related propositions results in
their coming into alignment when retested
• Norenzayan & Kim (2002) Korean and American Ss
• The price of dining out will increase
• If stricter health codes for restaurants will increase
the cost of hiring new staff, the price of dining out will
increase
• Stricter health codes for restaurants will increase
the cost of hiring new staff
• Koreans showed less Socratic effect than Americans
• Only found for negative conclusions
8. PRINCIPLES OF FORMAL
LOGIC
• 1. Identity: A = A
• 2. Noncontradiction: A ≠ not A
•
• 3. Excluded middle: A or not A
9. Eastern Dialectism
• 1. Principle of change:
– Reality is a process of change
– What is currently true will shortly be false
• 2. Principle of contradiction:
– Contradiction is the dynamic underlying
change
– Because change is constant, contradiction is
constant
• 3. Principle of relationships (or holism):
– The whole is more than the sum of its parts
– Parts are meaningful only in relation to the
whole
• The Tao
10.
11. Proverb Types
• Dialectical Proverbs:
– "Beware of your friends not your enemies,“
– "Too humble is half proud”
• Non-dialectical Proverbs:
– "One against all is certain to fall“
– "For example is no proof"
12. American and Chinese Preferences for Dialectical and non-
Dialectical Yiddish Proverbs
American
5 C hinese
4
Rating Scale
3
2
1
N on-dialectical Dialectical
Type of P roverbs
13. Conflicts to Resolve
• Mother-daughter conflict:
• Mary, Phoebe, and Julie all have daughters.
Each mother has held a set of values which has
guided her efforts to raise her daughter. Now the
daughters have grown up, and each of them is
rejecting many of her mother's values. How did it
happen and what should they do?
• School-fun conflict:
• Kent, James, and Matt are college juniors.
They are feeling very frustrated about their three
years of routine tests, paper assignments, and
grades. They complain that going through this
process has taken its toll, undermining the fun of
learning. How did it happen and what should they
do?
14. Percent of Participants Preferring Dialectical Resolution
80
American
Chinese
60
Percent (%)
40
20
0
M other-Daughter School-Fun
TYPE OF CONFLICTS
15. Why Was Aristotle Wrong about Gravity?
• Argument 1
• Aristotle believed that the heavier a body is, the faster it falls to the
ground. However, such an assumption might be false. Suppose that we have
two bodies, a heavy one called H and a light one called L. Under Aristotle's
assumption H will fall faster than L. Now suppose that H and L are joined
together, with H on top of L. Now what happens? Well, L + H is heavier than
H so by the initial assumption it should fall faster than H alone. But in the
joined body L + H , L and H will each tend to fall just as fast as before they
were joined, so L will act as a “brake” on H and L + H will fall slower than H
alone. Hence it follows from the initial assumption that L + H will fall both
faster and slower than H alone. Since this is absurd the initial assumption must
be false.
• Argument 2
• Aristotle believed that the heavier a body is, the faster it falls to the
ground. However, such an assumption might be false because this assumption
is based on a belief that the physical object is free from any influences of other
contextual factors (“perfect condition”), which is impossible in reality.
Suppose that we have two bodies, a heavy one called H and a light one called
L. If we put two of them in two different conditions, such as H in windy
weather (W) and L in quiet weather (Q), now what happens? Well, the
weights of the body, H or L, would not make them fall fast or slow. Instead,
the weather conditions, W or Q, would make a difference. Since these kinds of
contextual influences always exist, we conclude that the initial assumption
must be false.
16. Figure 4. Percent of American and Chinese Participants
Preferring Dialectical Arguments
American
80 Chinese
60
Percentage (%)
40
20
0
Persuasiveness Liking Persuasiveness Liking
Argument for Argument against
Existence of God Aristotelian Physics
17. Contradictory Statements
• Statement 1A:
• A social psychologist studied young adults and asserted that those
who feel close to their families have more satisfying social
relationships.
• Statement 1B:
• A developmental psychologist studied adolescent children and
asserted that those children who were less dependent on their parents
and had weaker family ties were generally more mature.
• Statement 2A:
• A sociologist who surveyed college students from 100
universities claimed that there is a high correlation among college
female students between smoking and being skinny.
• Statement 2B:
• A biologist who studied nicotine addiction asserted that heavy
doses of nicotine often lead to becoming overweight.
18. American Participants Ratings of Plausibility in Both
"A or B Conditions" and "A and B Condition"
M ore plausible
Less plausible
7
Average Ratings of plausibility
6
5
4
3
A or B A and B
Condition
19. Chinese Participants Ratings of Plausibility in Both "A or B
Conditions" and "A and B Condition"
M ore plausible
Less plausible
7
Average Ratings of Plausibility
6
5
4
3
A or B A and B
Condition
20. Agreement with Propositions
• About personality trait opposites:
– How polite are you, how rude are you?
– How outgoing are you, how shy are you?
• About statements opposite in implication:
– The more one knows, the less one believes, or
– The more one knows, the more one believes
– A person’s character is his destiny or
– A person’s character is not his destiny
21. If Asians are Illogical, Why are They
Better in Math than Americans?
• Asians not illogical, they’re just less likely to use
logic if:
– Experience contradicts conclusion
– Conclusions are undesirable
– A resolution to a seeming contradiction is sought
• When none of these true, Asians as logical as Am.
– Westerners can go overboard with logic
• Asians work harder in math -- now
22. Is it Language that Does the Job?
• Generic noun phrases more common in Indo-European
languages
• In Chinese, no difference between
– “squirrels eat nuts”
– “this squirrel is eating the nut”
– Only context can tell
• Indo-European languages can turn any property into noun
– “white” “whiteness’
• Western middle class parents decontextualize: “doggie”
23. Language, cont.
• Western languages “subject-prominent”
– “It” is raining
• Asian languages “topic-prominent”
– In Japanese: “This place, skiing is good”
• In Japanese (and formerly Chinese): “I” depends
on relationship:
– Colleague, spouse, old college friends, child
• Western grammar “agentic”: “he dropped it”
• Eastern grammar: “It fell from him” or “fell”
• In English: “more tea?” In Chinese: “Drink
more?”
24. Figure 1
5
4
Chinese Language
3 English Language
2
1
0
-1
-2
-3
-4
PRC Chinese PRC and TW HK & S European
in PRC Chinese in USA Chinese in US Americans
25. Attention to Object vs. Field
• Abel & Hsu (1949)
– Rorschach whole card responses
• Ji, Peng & Nisbett (2000)
– Rod and Frame Test (field dependence)
– Covariation detection
• Masuda & Nisbett (2001)
– Attention to salient object vs. background
– “Binding” of object and field
• Masuda & Nisbett (2005)
– Change blindness
30. Covariation Judgments
70
American
Chinese
60
Covariation Judgments
50
40
30
20
Non-control Mode Control Mode
31. Confidence Judgments
American
90 Chinese
Confidence Judgments
80
70
60
50
Non-control Mode Control Mode
32. Seeing the Object and the Field (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001)
Phase 1: Recall Task
Participants
41 American participants at the University of Michigan and
44 Japanese participants at Kyoto University, Japan.
33. Phase 2: Recognition Task
Fish with Original Fish with Fish with Novel
Background No Background Background
34. Previously Seen Objects (Japan)
78
76
74
72
70
68
66
64
62
60
Original No Novel
Background Background Background
35. Previously Seen Objects (USA)
78
76
74
72
70
68
66
64
62
60
Original No Novel
Background Background Background
36. Change Detection
• Japanese and American Ss
• Shown pairs of animated vignettes
• Asked to report differences across pair
• Do Japanese see more contextual
(background and relational) changes?
• Do Americans see more focal object
changes?
44. Changes Detected in Objects and
Context
4
Number of detected changes
USA JPN
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
Focal Object Contextual
Information Information
45. Changes Detected in U.S. and Japanese Scenes
US scenes JPN scenes
4.5
Number of detected changes
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
Focal Object Contextual
Information Information
46. Affordances in Japan and U.S.:
Miyamoto and Nisbett
• Take pictures in US and Japanese cities
– New York and Tokyo
– Ann Arbor and Hikone
– Two villages
• Compare complexity of comparable scenes
– e.g. in front of post office, school
61. Americans have longer fixations than Chinese (p = .01).
Compared to Chinese, Americans also have substantially
longer fixations on objects than on backgrounds (p = .02).
62. Esthetic Preferences: Object vs. Context
Masuda, Gonzalez and Nisbett (2005)
• Drawings: house, person, river, tree,
horizon
– Anticipations: more detail about background
for Japanese; higher horizons for Japanese
• Photographs: person in some setting
– Anticipation: central figure larger for
Americans
65. Task
1. Studio-Sitting Model
2. Studio-Standing Model
3. Atrium-Sitting Model
4. Atrium-Standing Model
American Data East Asian Data
66. Narrative Accounts of Events
Chua and Nisbett (2005)
• Personal stories (e.g., my first day in school
this term)
• Stories they read (e.g., bad day in the life of
a single mother)
• Videos they watch (no-audio vignettes from
British comedies)
67. Anticipations
• Americans would report more information
about the central figure
• Americans would report seeing more
intentionality (attempt to control events)
• Taiwanese would report more emotion
• ? Language effects for the bilingual
Taiwanese?
68. Americans made more references to main
character
14
12
10
Am
8
Twn Eng
6
Twn Man
4
2
0
Main Character Other
Character(s)
69. Americans produced more intention
statements
0.3
0.25
0.2
Am
0.15 Twn Eng
Twn Man
0.1
0.05
0
Average Across Tasks
70. Taiwanese made more statements with
emotional content
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
Am
0.08 Twn Eng
Twn Man
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
Average Across Tasks
71. Are the Differences Confined to
Asia vs. Europe?
• Kühnen, et al. (2000): Field dependence for
Americans, Germans, Russians and
Malaysians
• Knight, Varnum & Nisbett (2005):
– Eastern Europe vs. Western Europe
– Northern Italy vs. Southern Italy
– Middle class vs. working class
72. 1
0.9
0.8
Proportion of thematic pairings
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.636 0.614 0.729 0.856
0
North, high North, low South, high South, low
School, SES
73. Does It Matter?
• Medicine • Science: In 90s, 44 US
– Dissection, surgery Nobels, 1 Japanese
– vs. holistic practice • International relations
• Modularization – (spy plane incident)
• Law • Human rights
– (lawyer/engineer ratio) – contract or organism?
– Conflict resolution • Religion
– Contracts: sugar & snow
– Blend in East
• Debate – Religious wars rare in East
– Marketplace vs. – Cycles vs. utopias
– Consensus • Intellectual history
– S. Korea and N. Korea
• Rhetoric: structure of • Education, Learning
argument and IQ tests
74. Intellectual History East and West
• Western dichotomies
– Nature vs. nurture
– Mind vs. body
– Emotion vs. reason
• Necessary and sufficient conditions
tradition in the West
• Quantum mechanics and Nils Bohr
– Object in two different places at once (!)
• Evolution
• Primatology
75. Intellectual History, cont.: The Continent
vs. the Anglo-American Tradition
• Big picture ideas vs. small theories and concerns
• Anglo-Am philosophers: ordinary language analysis:
Gettier examples
• Continental phil:
– Phenomenology
– Existentialism
– Structuralism
– Post-structuralism
– Post-modernism
• Marxism
• Sociology: Comte and Weber
• Psychology: Freud, Piaget, Lewin, Heider, historical-
cultural psych vs.
• Skinner
76. Intellectual History, cont.:
Linear Utopias of the West
Plato’s Republic
Puritanism, Quakerism, Shakers
Mormonism
American and French Revolutions
Communism, fascism
Steady, linear progress
Once attained, state is permanent
Reached through human effort
Usually egalitarian
Usually based on a few extreme assumptions
about human nature
77. Education, Learning and IQ Testing
• Kim (2002) “We talk, therefore we think?”
• Cattell Culture Fair IQ test (Park et al.,
2005)
• Spatial tests of IQ
• Liu and Nisbett (2005) State-dependent
learning
• Watanabe (1998): Japanese children in
American schools
80. Social Context Change Effects on
Word Recall (Liu & Nisbett, 2005)
9
8
7
6
5 No Change
4 Social Change
3
2
1
0
European-Americans East Asians
81. Manipulating Culture-Specific Cognition
• Priming manipulations: Higgins and Bargh
• Hong, Chiu, & Kung (1997): culture-primed Hong Kong
Ss
• Peng & Knowles (2003): priming Asian vs. American
identities
• Kühnen et al. (2001): I vs. we and field dep. for Am.; Cha
& Schwarz (2005) for Koreans
• Kühnen & Oyserman (2002): I vs. we and memory for
context in which objects were seen
• Masuda & Nisbett (2005): “affordances” of environment
• Miyamoto, Masuda & Nisbett (2005): priming with Asian
vs. American scenes and memory for objects vs. contexts
• Predict Leu, Liu, & Nisbett (2005)
82. Changes Detected in U.S. and Japanese Scenes
US scenes JPN scenes
4.5
Number of detected changes
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
Focal Object Contextual
Information Information
