[NetBehaviour] Westerners and Easterners see the world differently

marc marc.garrett at furtherfield.org
Tue Aug 23 02:26:19 CEST 2005


*Westerners and Easterners see the world differently*

NewScientist.com news service
Zeeya Merali

Chinese and American people see the world differently - literally. While 
Americans focus on the central objects of photographs, Chinese 
individuals pay more attention to the image as a whole, according to 
psychologists at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, US.

"There is plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that Western and East 
Asian people have contrasting world-views," explains Richard Nisbett, 
who carried out the study. "Americans break things down analytically, 
focusing on putting objects into categories and working out what rules 
they should obey," he says.

By contrast, East Asians have a more holistic philosophy, looking at 
objects in relation to the whole. "Figuratively, Americans see things in 
black and white, while East Asians see more shades of grey," says 
Nisbett. "We wanted to devise an experiment to see if that translated to 
a literal difference in what they actually see."

more...
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7882
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