The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners ... (ISBN 1857883535)

Ethnocentrism is a dangerous slope:
I appreciated the general psychological approaches and some basic notions behind the book until I noticed how ethnocentric the writing is. (As a matter of fact, the author even admitted that the Greek created the word "ethnocentric". Here are just a couple of examples from the beginning of the book. "While a special occasion for the ancient Greek might mean attendance at plays and poetry readings a special occasion for the Chinese ...would be an opportunity to visit friends and family." Don't Nisbett know that Chinese watch operas and make poems while visiting families? Nisbett also talked about the literature such as Odyssey and the Iliad have personalities that are fully formed and individuated. Have Nisbett read any classical Chinese literature, including The Dream of the Red Chamber, Journey to the West (Monkey), or Liao Zhai Zhi Yi? As many readers mentioned, this book largely simplifies lots of aspects of the east and west differences, which contributes to its falling down a very dangerous slope: ethnocentrism.

Disappointing:
Overall, I have mixed feelings about this book and came away fairly disappointed. For me, the positives were that the subject of cultural psychology is inherently fascinating, and I like the way the author tied in some philosophical and historical considerations. Unfortunately, I felt that the negatives far outweighed the positives: - I didn't like the writing style at all. It's neither concise like the best academic writing nor breezy like the best popular writing, but rather an ineffective attempt to be both. - The author placed far too much emphasis on his own research, thus failing to properly draw on and credit the considerable work done by others in the field of cultural psychology. - The book became very repetitive after the first couple of chapters. The amount of real content is more worthy of a magazine or journal article rather than an entire book. - Too many experiments were described, and in too much detail. Again, the experiments tended to become repetitive, to the point of growing tedious. Moreover, the details on the experiments were neither necessary nor interesting. It would have been far better to describe less experiments and spend more time discussing their results and interpretation. - Despite the author having done research in this field, my impression is that he doesn't have a deep understanding of Eastern cultures, nor of the full significance of cultural differences in general. It's as though he went through the motions of research but could never get past being an absolute "outsider." A much better book, in nearly every respect, is People: Psychology from a Cultural Perspective by David Matsumoto. Despite Matsumoto's book being shorter, he manages to cover far more ground, and he does it with far more clarity and readability. My bottom line is that if you have an interest in cultural psychology and plan to read just one or two books on the subject, skip this one. If you plan to read many books on the subject, go ahead and read this book, but don't expect too much.

The box:
I always used to wonder why "Out-of-the-box" was such a powerful phrase in the west, while as an idiomatic expression it had little sway over me. This books goes on the explain the western inclination to codify, compartmentalize, devise rules & laws & a general love of "orderliness". In other words, a neat little bundle of discrete boxes that the world & life is modeled as. Consequently, thinking "out-of-the-box" constitutes a paradigm shift in west - but is not as revolutionary a concept in the Orient. Nisbett's book is full of such nuances & differences between eastern & western ways of thinking. The obvious problem with writing about something as macro-level as culture is that you can find numerous exceptions to the broad framework. Many Americans may not identify with the typical westerner definition in Nisbett's book, just as all Orientals may not see the pond for the fish. From my own experience, though Indians are not really studied & talked about in this book, I can tell of a few truths. Nisbett's study finds that most Oriental families decide for their children, that children have no real scope for autonomous decision-making even for themselves. However, this is not really perceived as detrimental to personality-growth. Most Indians continue to seek opinions & agreements on their personal decisions (buying property, car, investments) from their elders in the family upto a fairly advanced age. In fact, I distinctly remember that I was rather overjoyed everytime my opinion was sought about something. The other interesting bit about children really is the denial of any intrinsic ability for a given skill, & the emphasis on practice as the way to honing a skill. Science & Mathematics are religions in their own right for Indian students - you just HAVE to be good at these - you can run; but you can't hide. I think that one can also look at conflict-resolution as a bit of a differentiator. Most of us do not like to confront, while the west does a much better job of it because it objectifies the conflict separating out the people involved in it. I think that this is one of the better books I read this year - in spite of the fact that, in general, we tend to like things that work well with our own personal model of the world - whether this is the objective truth or not. This book every now & then is a little harsh of what it calls "the western ways of thinking". But Nisbett writes engagingly, & whether you agree with his model or not - this book will definitely work you up.

Interesting but deeply flawed:
Interesting but deeply flawed book. The issue is a fascinating one, and the book gives information that is interesting and provides some perspectives which are interesting. What is deeply flawed about the book is mostly the interpretation. Just a few examples of extremely flawed interpretations; the author repeatedly states that for Asians, objects have no stable identity. Instead, the identity of objects actually (and illogically) changes based on context, setting, or relationship to other objects. Problem is, the experiments the author cites (as well as his descriptions of Asian thought processes) which lead him to this conclusion merely show that Asians don't pay ATTENTION to the identity of objects, and pay attention primarily to the relationship of the object to its context. The thing under observation for Asians - the relationship - does indeed change when an object is removed from its context, and this is a quite understandable and logical view, even if the focus or emphasis is different than in the West. Nothing illogical about this, yet the author concludes from this that Asians don't believe in stability of identity and violate the the cardinal logical rule of self-identity, that thing cannot be itself and not itself at the same time. Asians thought is not nearly as illogical as suggested by the author. Similarly, the author repeatedly states that the Asian approach focuses on the context while the Western approach focuses on the object, and both have trouble perceiving what is not the primary object of their approach. The two approaches display merely a difference in emphasis, but the author feels compelled to describe the Asian view as more complex and taking in more information, which it manifestly does not. It merely takes in different information and pays attention to different aspects of the field. Nor is it more complex, in some ways it is less so, as a "holistic" view which fails to spot distinctions can often be less complex than one which sees distinctions everywhere. It depends. The author cites a study in which Asians and Americans were presented with a set of trends and asked if they were likely to continue. The Asians were more likely to say the trend would cease or reverse itself, while the Americans were more likely to think the trend would continue. The author believes this means Asians see the world as more likely to change, but logically, the exact opposite conclusions is possible. Westerners saw a trend - a movement towards change - as continuing, this could mean they saw the world as more full of change. Asians saw most trends as either ceasing or reversing, suggesting a propensity to see movements towards change (a trend) as temporary deviations from a fundamentally stable universe. Many more examples in this vein are to be found. This might seem like mere quibbling except that large parts of the authors case depends on this kind of flawed and often outright mistaken reasoning, seriously undermining his case and the value of the entire book Still, though, the book is interesting, presents some fascinating information, and anyone with a critical and logical mind can easily see through the flawed conclusions and engage with the useful part of the book

Interesting Start of East/West Discussion:
In light of the Olympics in Bejing, I thought this was a very timely read. It was an interesting discussion of how easterners think differently from westerners. I thought the most interesting parts came during the first two chapters and during the epilogue. In the first chapters Nisbett does an effective job demonstrating the differences of east/west thought and what caused this. He creates intersting parallels stemming from Aristotle and Confucian beliefs that led to where we are today. The middle chapters were effective at backing up Nisbett's assertions, but they seemed too academic. At points I felt I was reading a research paper. I bought his argument early on and none of the experiemental data presented afterward was earth shattering. Really the most interesting part for me was contained in the epilogue in which the author asks, "now what happens?" That's what I waited for in the whole book. What's the "so what?" of the book. This epilogue effectively wraps the book up, but I would have preferred this to be the main focus of the book. These two thought systems exist, but how will they evolve and interact with one another? That's a great launching pad for a second book, and one I hope Nisbett pursues. Geography of Thought is a solid book with a lot of academic evidence supporting Nisbett's thesis. If you are looking for proof of and a more in depth look at the difference between eastern and western thought it's a great read, but don't expect too many real world applications for you to take away.