Friday, August 13, 2010

All in the Mind - East? West? How do YOU think? The science of culture & cognition

I'm looking forward to the 2nd part of this series - in the meantime, here is a related post from the blog - with some out-takes from the first episode last Saturday.

I blogged last week's episode with some added definitions of individualist and collectivist.

East? West? How do YOU think? The science of culture & cognition

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Pic: Fwooper via Flickr Creative Commons.

This week's show is the second in our 2 parter from the recent Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology.

Last week we delved into the question of self esteem, and whether it varies across cultures.

Do East Asians, for example, require less self esteem than Westerners because they occupy a more collectivist setting and state of mind? That's been the basis for a provocative debate in psychology circles, originally sparked by the research of Professor Steven Heine and colleagues. Tune in to hear about it.

An interesting discussion is unfolding over on the All in the Mind website in response. I invited you to share your own experiences or thoughts, and thanks for doing just that!

Brazza writes

"I do find this a compelling discussion, as one who works with people of all ages in an interface between pacific islanders and longer term Australian residents. In working on organisational strategy, it is very clear that well being is valued and that self esteem has little register as an idea. Well being equates more to collectivist values, such as family, extended family and the group's desire for excellence".

Susan says

I'm an Anglo Australian but I've lived in China for four years and the Middle East two. I feel very much at home in both cultures. Of course, I am not Chinese or Arabic or Armenian etc, because I can't 'swim' in those languages or cultures, but I can still feel a genuine heart-felt link with people in or from those societies....

Brendan offers

"Reflecting on the experiences as a typical person grown up in the west but with an eastern background. I do believe self-esteem exist in all cultures, no matter how the concept is interpreted. To some extent, self-esteem is common and can be interrupted universally. However, the question is really to what degree self-esteem exist in the east or west??? Rather, implying if they do exist at all in the east".

Tara says

"I have lived outside of Australia for the past five years. Currently in Finland and before that Germany. When I lived in Australia I didn't necessarily believe stereotypes and found them quite unfair and perhaps even somewhat racist. I really didn't expect the differences between western cultures to be that big. After living sometime in other cultures and forming personal and work relationships, I really noticed that there are some really core differences between cultures, what people believe, what they are taught, how they act".

Tom reflects

"I was fascinated by the discussion. Particularly, those regarding the research methods. I used to train people in Asia...In Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. My training methods are interactive, and rely on interacting with the class. I found that this was difficult, because people were reluctant to speaking up during the class or offering an opinion. Not a lack of self confidence but more the cultural need to respect the teacher/elder. So I used to hand out yellow stickies for people to write their opinion/answer I made this process a game and anonymous. This worked very well and removed the need for students to speak up openly...."

Read all the comments in full and add more of your own!

When I kicked off All in the Mind, the way in which interpretations of the mind and mental illness vary with culture were themes that especially inspired me with possibilities, and was the basis for an early series I made in India (Part 1, 2, 3 and 4), amongst other shows.

Minds_nepalese American journalist Ethan Watters perhaps gets to the heart of why it all interests me so much in his new book, Crazy Like Us: The Globalisation of the American Psyche, when he writes "we should worry about this loss of diversity in the world's differing conceptions and treatments of mental illness in exactly the same way we worry about the loss of biological diversity in nature...like those plants and animals, the diversity in the human understanding of the mind can disappear before we've truly comprehended its value".

That's not to romanticise the experience of mental illness in any culture, but more to acknowledge we're possibly as diverse cognitively as we are culturally. Ethan is my guest on the show shortly. He popped into a San Francisco studio for me this week. I sounded like Snuffleupagus with the head cold we've all copped at work, but he was lucid and incisive!

This week, we're picking up from where we left the last show, and asking whether it's possible to step outside our own cultural skins in order to objectively study cultural influences on how we think?

And, we're contemplating how malleable the cultural mindsets are that we're born into. Are we more cognitively fluid than we give ourselves credit for? Think of all those expats, refugees, immigrants, migrants who manage to repopulate their minds as they relocate themselves to new lands.

The indefatigable Corinne Podger, who works on All in the Mind with me for half of her week at the moment, and over at Radio Australia reporting on the Asia-Pacific region for the other days, has interviewed a host of leading East Asian and North American psychologists for the show.

Passing through airports I see endless shelves of "Doing business with...Insert Culture X" books. In the world's boardrooms there's much interest in understanding the cultural nuances of business exchanges. As there is in the increasingly diverse classroom setting, as you'll hear.

Brain scans have even entered the fray.

Tune in.

As promised, here are some extra interviews Corinne did which we're publishing exclusively on the blog.

What does it mean to be human? What traits do you think are the most important in defining "humanness"? Is it the capacity for rational thought and logic, or is it more to do with emotions and warmth, with our “humanity”? Paul Bain at Murdoch University has teamed up with Nick Haslam from the University of Melbourne, among others, to study how Australians, Chinese and Italians respond to this question differently. It's pertinent for understanding the way in which we are capable of dehumanising others simply because they see the world differently. (Abstract of their paper).

(6 mins) What_does_it_mean_to_be_human

In the mid-1970s, the famous Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede broadly classified Western cultures as “individualist”, and East Asian cultures as “collectivist”. The description has stuck. But what was originally seen as a straightforward dichotomy is becoming more nuanced as Nick and Paul explain.

(4 mins) Collective_individualistic

"Western academics are working with increasingly diverse student populations, as more young people East Asia pursue their studies in Australia, Europe, and North America. That’s exposed a rocky interface between approaches to learning in individualist and collectivist cultures which is of enormous interest to cultural psychologists", says Corinne. Marieke van Egmond is doing her PhD at the University of Bremen in Germany. "She’s found Westerners take a ‘Mind oriented‘ approach to learning, while Asian students have a ‘Virtue oriented’ approach, which can both be traced right back to the ancient philosophical heritages", Corinne adds. Tune in for some tips for educators.

(6 mins) Culture_and_the_classroom

Looking forward to your continuing discussion here on the blog or over on the All in the Mind web

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