{"id":486,"date":"2003-04-03T11:11:01","date_gmt":"2003-04-03T15:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=486"},"modified":"2015-08-17T10:50:05","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T14:50:05","slug":"he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/","title":{"rendered":"The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently &#8230; and Why by Richard Nisbett [in Christian Science Monitor]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2003\/04\/Geography-of-Thought.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-32071\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2003\/04\/Geography-of-Thought.png\" alt=\"Geography of Thought\" width=\"420\" height=\"645\" \/><\/a><span class=\"text\">According to Richard Nisbett in <em>The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently &#8230; and Why<\/em>, the origins of East\/West differences go back 2,500 years. His opening chapter explains that Greeks promoted personal agency, which valued individual identity, a sense of debate, and a curiosity about nature. The Chinese, meanwhile, espoused collective agency, which valued harmony and the Middle Way, avoided confrontation but lacked wonder in nature. &#8220;The lack of wonder among the Chinese is especially remarkable,&#8221; Nisbett adds, as if to excuse the Chinese, &#8220;in light of the fact that Chinese civilization far outdistanced Greek civilization technologically.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text\"><span class=\"text\">The next chapter scans 2-1\/2 centuries for explanations of the differences between East and West. In short, the original physical surroundings determined agricultural and therefore economic infrastructures, which resulted in the establishment of social structures, leading to different ways of thinking. And that brings us to those &#8220;remarkable&#8221; differences: &#8230;[<a href=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/2003-04-03-csm-richard-nisbett-geography-of-thoughtprint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">click here for more<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text\"><span class=\"text\"><strong>Review<\/strong>:<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2003\/0403\/p21s01-bogn.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Christian Science Monitor<\/a><\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2003\/0403\/p21s01-bogn.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">, April 3, 2003<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text\"><span class=\"text\"><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text\"><span class=\"text\"><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2003<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-485\" title=\"geography-of-thought\" src=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com\/files\/2009\/03\/geography-of-thought.jpg\" alt=\"geography-of-thought\" width=\"125\" height=\"193\" \/><span class=\"text\">According to Richard Nisbett in <em>The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently &#8230; and Why<\/em>, the origins of East\/West differences go back 2,500 years. His opening chapter explains that Greeks promoted personal agency, which valued individual identity, a sense of debate, and a curiosity about nature. The Chinese, meanwhile, espoused collective agency, which valued harmony and the Middle Way, avoided confrontation but lacked wonder in nature. &#8220;The lack of wonder among the Chinese is especially remarkable,&#8221; Nisbett adds, as if to excuse the Chinese, &#8220;in light of the fact that Chinese civilization far outdistanced Greek civilization technologically.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text\"><span class=\"text\">The next chapter scans 2-1\/2 centuries for explanations of the differences between East and West. In short, the original physical surroundings determined agricultural and therefore economic infrastructures, which resulted in the establishment of social structures, leading to different ways of thinking. And that brings us to those &#8220;remarkable&#8221; differences: &#8230;[<a href=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com\/files\/2009\/07\/2003-04-03-csm-richard-nisbett-geography-of-thoughtprint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">click here for more<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text\"><span class=\"text\"><strong>Review<\/strong>:<a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2003\/0403\/p21s01-bogn.html\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2003\/0403\/p21s01-bogn.html\" target=\"_blank\">Christian Science Monitor<\/a><\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2003\/0403\/p21s01-bogn.html\" target=\"_blank\">, April 3, 2003<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text\"><span class=\"text\"><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"text\"><span class=\"text\"><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2003<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3018,20,27,6535],"tags":[83,6608,148,59,4116,24,51,29,4117,364],"class_list":["post-486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-awful-duds","category-nonfiction","category-pan-asian-pacific-american","category-repost","tag-assimilation","tag-bookdragon","tag-christian-science-monitor","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why","tag-historical","tag-identity","tag-race-racism","tag-richard-nisbett","tag-sociology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why by Richard Nisbett [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why by Richard Nisbett [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"According to Richard Nisbett in The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why, the origins of East\/West differences go back 2,500 years. His opening chapter explains that Greeks promoted personal agency, which valued individual identity, a sense of debate, and a curiosity about nature. The Chinese, meanwhile, espoused collective agency, which valued harmony and the Middle Way, avoided confrontation but lacked wonder in nature. &quot;The lack of wonder among the Chinese is especially remarkable,&quot; Nisbett adds, as if to excuse the Chinese, &quot;in light of the fact that Chinese civilization far outdistanced Greek civilization technologically.&quot; The next chapter scans 2-1\/2 centuries for explanations of the differences between East and West. In short, the original physical surroundings determined agricultural and therefore economic infrastructures, which resulted in the establishment of social structures, leading to different ways of thinking. And that brings us to those &quot;remarkable&quot; differences: ...[click here for more] Review: Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 2003 Readers: Adult Published: 2003\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2003-04-03T15:11:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T14:50:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2003\/04\/Geography-of-Thought.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"420\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"645\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why by Richard Nisbett [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why by Richard Nisbett [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","og_description":"According to Richard Nisbett in The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why, the origins of East\/West differences go back 2,500 years. 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And that brings us to those \"remarkable\" differences: ...[click here for more] Review: Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 2003 Readers: Adult Published: 2003","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2003-04-03T15:11:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-17T14:50:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":420,"height":645,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2003\/04\/Geography-of-Thought.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/","name":"The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why by Richard Nisbett [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2003-04-03T15:11:01+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-17T14:50:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/he-geography-of-thought-how-asians-and-westerners-think-differently-and-why-by-richard-nisbett\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently &#8230; and Why by Richard Nisbett [in Christian Science Monitor]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39237,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions\/39237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}