Have you ever wondered about how you think and why? Research shows that the way you think depends upon where you live, specifically your culture and geography.
The eastern world, including India, Japan, and China, are collectivists and the western world, including Europe and America, are individualists. Collectivism is the principle of group priority over individual need whereas individualism is the principle of being independent and self-reliant and to esteem individual accomplishment over group achievement. Collectivists concentrate more on relationships in the problem at hand whereas individualists tend to concentrate on separate elements and to believe the problem at hand fixed or unchangeable.
These cultural differences affect how people think. For example, imagine choosing two similar words from train, bus, and track. A person in the west part of the world would probably answer with train and bus because they are both vehicles but independent and different from each other. A person in the east would probably pick train and track because they depend on each other to do their job.
These cultural differences also affect how people see the world around them. Imagine seeing a picture of a tall person intimidating a small person. A person from the west would be more likely to see the tall person as a bully who is mean and nasty. In contrast, a person from the east might instead see a father reprimanding his son because they focus on relationships in a situation.
Why are these ways of thinking so different? The evidence points to culture and history, which affect how people view the world. But now, researchers are discovering that geography can also have an impact.
Imagine two geographical areas. One area has wheat farming and the other area has rice farming. Rice farming needs a lot of labor and a complicated irrigation system to carry water through the fields. It is double the work of wheat farming, which depends on rainfall instead of irrigation. As a result, rice farmers need to interact with others in order to farm, but wheat farmers only need rainfall and not the help of others. This geographical difference influences the way they think: the rice farmers are more collectivist and the wheat farmers are more individualist.
So the next time you interact with a person from another culture and you disagree about something, it might be due to the way you think. Think about it!