By: Sherry Ortner, New York Times
Sunday, April 20, 2003


Professor Richard Nisbett's recent book, "The Geography of Thought," was the subject of a Sunday Book Review by Sherry Ortner in the New York Times on April 20, 2003.

From the review:'East is East and West is West.' Richard E. Nisbett would like to convince us that Kipling's line is true in some profound sense. A social psychologist at the University of Michigan, Nisbett has surveyed a large number of psychology experiments, including many of his own, to conclude that there are major differences, enduring for centuries, between the modes of thought of 'Asian' and 'Western' people. Specifically, the Western style of thought is characterized as embodying the value of 'individual distinctiveness' or 'independence,' while the Eastern style of thought embodies the value of 'harmonious social relations' or 'interdependence.' 'The Geography of Thought' consists of chapters showing how this large contrast plays out in different cognitive dimensions (logic, causality, categorization, etc.)....