The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why Paperback – April 5, 2004

This is a very insightful book with lots of information. It is well written and researched. There are many differences between the way Westerners and Easterners think. Some of the points may seem obvious, but they are still interesting to read about. Children who grow up in the East learn verbs faster. In contrast, children in the West pick up nouns faster. This is because Easterners learn the relationships between objects with action words first. Westerners generally just learn what the object is first. Conflict resolution is handled very differently too. The goal in Eastern conflict resolution is to reduce hostility and to reach a compromise. The goal in resolving conflict in the West is having satisfaction that justice was carried out with a clear winner and loser. However as the author suggests Westerners have to begun to embrace a lot of Eastern ideas. There is a greater emphasis in achieving harmony in a person's life in Eastern cultures. Asian people are more self critical of themselves as a result. In contrast, the goal of a Westerner is to achieve a sense of uniqueness and superiority. I also learned that students who study history in the West focus on the implications or outcomes of events first. Asian students study the causes of historical events first. Teacher training and evaluation is a process that never ends in Eastern countries unlike the West where it is short.The Geography of Thought is a very short book, but it should not be read rapidly because of the depth and quantity of information. I have a greater insight and appreciation for the way people think now. I enjoyed it very much.

For 10 years I lived in Southeast Asia and became very much aware that people in countries where we lived approached life and problem-solving in ways very different than Americans, particularly in their tolerance and attitudes of inclusiveness among social differences their societies, also their greater focus on processes and procedures especially in cultivating and preparing fibers for weaving handmade items of clothing. In retirement years, I have tutored English as a Second Language skills for graduate students from Northeast Asia and have observed similarities from an academic perspective. For example, among Asians there is a strong tendency to look at many different aspects of a situation and determine the potential consequences of alternative solutions. The Geography of Thought helped me understand how the Asian approach differs from the much more goal-oriented approach by which Americans decide in advance a preferred conclusion and then move forward in a highly effective manner to make their desired goal a reality. The shortfall of the Asian approach is that it is easy to get bogged down in the details and "what if" thinking. The weakness of the Western approach is that action is often taken without full consideration of potential consequences. The combination of different approaches builds strength. It has been interesting to observe among some Asian students how adept they becoming in analyzing situations by combining the two approaches. I highly recommend The Geography of Thought because its conclusions about thought processes are based on numerous surveys and interviews with young people who grew up in Northeast Asia, compared with young Americans who grew up in the U.S., and finally compared with Asian students or Asian-Americans who have studied or lived in the U.S. for an extended period of time.

I've always had an interest in differences between cultures especially related to thought. I've lived most of my live in Europe and in Asia. I speak English and some Chinese. Though, I'm always wary of generalizations of culture, especially without any time-period as culture is changing. Still I found Nisbett's work insightful and funny at times.The book consist of 3 different parts (though not marked in the book). The first part lays the foundation for the rest by looking in the history and how it influenced cultures. The second part summarizes many research on cultural differences the author has done and read about. The last part offers some conclusion.The first part consist of three chapter. The first one sets the tone and theme of the whole book. In it, the author looks at the difference in philosophy between ancient Greece and ancient China and notes interesting difference in how thought has evolved. The second and third chapter build on this by showing that these ancient differences are still there in modern life.The second part consists of the authors research work, four chapters per subject. These subjects relate to looking at an object or noticing the context of that object. Looking for cause at properties of individuals or at the relationship of individual and its environment. Looking at focus on nouns and object or focus on verbs and relationships and last using pure logic in daily life or dealing with contradictions and finding a middle way. Each of his claims were backed up with interesting psychological experiments.The last part is the conclusion of the book. Chapter eight provides mainly questions about how the differences in this book apply to real life. The last epilogue asks the question whether cultures are converging or going to clash. He provides two common perspectives. One) cultures are all westernizing and becoming more similar and two) the cultures are fundamentally different, will stay so, and this will clash in the future. Interestingly, the author gives his opinion which is a middle way (so he did learn something during his research :P) between to two extremes. Cultures will converge but they will as much westernize as easternize. (and I agree with that conclusion, based on my experiences living in both west and east).I enjoyed reading the book. The author starts of by apologizing for the generalizations he makes. Even though he did, it did still annoy me. But I realize that its not possible to talk about cultures without making generalizations. Even though I enjoyed the book, I didn't have the kind of huge insight that the title promised me and... from that perspective... I was disappointed. Still, this book is definitively worth reading if you are interested in fundamental differences between eastern and western thinking. Well worth my time...