People from Western cultures such as the United States are particularly challenged in their ability to understand someone elses point of view because they are part of a culture that encourages individualism, new research at the University of Chicago shows. In contrast, Chinese, who live in a society that encourages a collectivist attitude among its members, are much more adept at determining another persons perspective, according to a new study. One of the consequences of Americans and other Westerners problems of seeing things from another persons point of view is faltering communication.
"Many actions and words have multiple meanings. In order to sort out what a person really means, we need to gain some perspective on what he or she might be thinking and, Americans for example, who dont have that skill very well developed, probably tend to make more errors in understanding what another person means" - Boaz Keysar, Professor in Psychology at the University of Chicago.
Keysar is co-author with University graduate student Shali Wu of The Effect of Culture on Perspective Taking, which discusses their research and is published in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science. The researchers tested a hypothesis that suggested interdependence would make people focus on others and away from themselves. They did that by having people from the same cultural group pair up and work together to move objects around in a grid of squares placed between them. In the game, one person, the director, would tell the other person, the subject, where the objects should be moved. Over some of the squares, a piece of cardboard blocked the view of the director, so the subject could clearly tell what objects the director could not see. In some cases there were two similar objects, one blocked from the directors view and one visible to both people playing the game. The Chinese subjects almost immediately focused on the objects the director could see and moved the correct objects. When Americans were asked to move an object and there were two similar objects on the grid, they paused and often had to work to figure out which object the director could not see before moving the correct object. Taking into account the other persons perspective was more work for the Americans, who spent on average about twice as much time completing the moves than did the Chinese. Even more startling for the researchers was the frequency with which many of the Americans ignored the fact that the director could not see all the objects.
"Despite the obvious simplicity of the task, the majority of American subjects (65 percent) failed to consider the directors perspective at least once during the experiment," by asking the director which object he or she meant or by moving an object the director could not see. In contrast, only one Chinese subject seemed confused by the directions.
"Apparently, the interdependence that pervades Chinese culture has its effect on members of the culture over time, taking advantage of the human ability to distinguish between the mind of the self and that of the other, and developing this ability to allow Chinese to unreflectively interpret the actions of another person from his or her perspective".
Americans do not lose this ability, but years of culturalisation based values of independence do not promote the development of mental tools needed to take into account another persons point of view. Source University of Chicago
