Self-centered cultures narrow your viewpoint

via http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12247-selfcentered-cultures-narrow-your-viewpoint.html

When it comes to putting yourself in the shoes of others, cultures that emphasise interdependence over individualism may have the upper hand.

In a new psychological experiment, Chinese students outperformed their US counterparts when ask to infer another person's perspective. The researchers say the findings help explain how misunderstandings can occur in cross-cultural communication.

In the experiment, psychologists Boaz Keysar and Shali Wu at the University of Chicago, Illinois, US, recruited 40 students. Half of the volunteers were non-Asians who had grown up in the US, and the other half were native Mandarin speakers who had very recently emigrated from various parts of China.

The volunteers played a game in which they had to follow the instructions of a person sitting across the table from them, an individual known as the 'director'.

The US volunteers were also slower in reacting when asked to move an object when there was a duplicate in the grid that only they could see. They generally took about 30% longer to complete such instructions from the director.

In contrast, such duplicate objects did not slow the speed at which Chinese participants responded.

Keysar believes the Chinese students had an easier time understanding the director’s perspective because they come from a more collectivist society than their US counterparts. He speculates, for example, that compared with children in China, youngsters in the US are more likely to feel that it is "all about them".

In another example, he describes how a Texas corporation "aiming to improve productivity, told its employees to look in the mirror and say 'I am beautiful' 100 times before coming to work. In contrast, a Japanese supermarket instructed its employees to begin their day by telling each other 'you are beautiful'."

Nisbett adds that in some Asian cultures people use less blunt language, making it necessary for them to read between the lines, and imagine the perspective of the individual with whom they are speaking.