AMERICAN
CULTURAL
PATTERNS
_____
Cross-Cultural
Perspective
EDWARD C. STEWART
AND
MILTON I. BENNEH
--------- ----------------------R
E V I S E D
I N T E B. C
A Sichoias
EDIT I O N
ultubal
press
Brealey Puhliihing Company
BOSTON • LONDON
—
First published by Intercultural Press, a Nicholas Brealey
Publishing Company. For information, contact:
Intercultural Press, Inc.
Nicholas Brealey Publishing
Nicholas Brealey Publishing
53 State Street, 9th Floor
Boston, MA 02109, USA
Tel; 617-263-1834
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y ODZ
Tel; 020 3122 6000
www.nicholasbrealey.com
© 1972 Edward C. Stewart
©1991 Edward C. Stewart and Milton J. Bennett
ISBN: 978-1-877864-01-8
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of b •
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Printed in the United States of America
21 20 19 18
22 23 24 25
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stewart, Edward C.
American cultural patterns / by Edward C. Stewart and Milton J.
Bennett.—Rev. ed.
p.
cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-877864-01-3
I. United States—Euvilization—Cross-cultural studies. 2. Na
tional characteristics, American—Cross-cultural studies. I. Bennett,
Milton J. II. Title.
E169.I.S836 1991
973—dc20
91-4256
CIP
CHAPTER
TWO
CULTURAL PATTERNS
OF PERCEPTION
AND THINKING
In everyday small talk among Americans, the subject of perception
repeatedly crops up. American conversation is sprinkled with words such
as "see," "hear," and "perceive." People will say "I hear that...," or
someone may ask, "What do you see happening now?" A common
statement is "I saw what was coming next."
The number and variety of references to perception and its synonyms
suggest that the concept is diffuse and ambiguous. Americans speaking in
English use the concept with two distinct meanings. For instance, if a hiker
out on a trek says, "From the mountain, I saw the village in the valley,"
perception is an observation in which physical features of the world
register in the brain. But when the same hiker then says, "I saw that it was
time to turn back and descend to the village," perception is like a
judgment, referring to an appraisal of a situation.
Based on these observations, we can see that human perception re
sembles a janus-like figure consisting of two faces, one looking inward and
one looking outward (Platt 1968, 63-64). The inward-looking face is
associated with subjective processes of perceiving and thinking such as per
spective, intuition, opinions, and beliefs. The outward-looking face moni
tors features of the physical world and registers sensory impressions of
objects which in the case of "vision," for instance, are attributes such as
shape, color, texture, and size. The outward face of perception is objec
tive; only imperceptibly does it shade off into the subjective and inward
face. Table 1 is a visual rendition of the perception/thinking process.
17
18
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
We have adopted an old convention to analyze the three principal
mental processes depicted in the table: sensing, perceiving, and think'
ing. Within this tradition, sensing and perceiving are at the surface and
relate to apprehension of the external world while thinking takes on
depth as in the expression "deep thoughts." Actually, perception MeS
between sensation and thought and links them, and it is in this linking
that the human mental process manifests its Janus-like nature—with
one face glancing outward toward the surface while the second face
looks inward, "buried in thought."
The fourth and deepest process, encoding or the creation of symbol
systems, merges with thinking but also suggests a special thought'
driven use of percepts for communication—as in the sounds of a
Beethoven symphony, the visual imagery of the Statue of Liberty, and
the signs of written English. With mathematics, the last traces of surface
or sensory stimuli have vanished.
The four processes, listed in the right-hand column in Table 1, have
counterparts in structure listed in the left-hand column. Beginning with
sensation at the surface, proceeding to perception, cognition, and ending
with symbol systems, each structure closely parallels the four processes in
column three. Our focus will be on how the structure and processes are
manifest in the product, column two.
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
Representation of Human Experience
Table 1.
s
•
u
PROCESS
PRODUCT
STRUCTURE
Sensation
19
^
1
•
Sensory Stimuli
R
•
F
•
Sensing
A
•
C
•
Perception
Percept
Perceptual Objects
Images
Concepts
Perceiving
Thought/
Cognition
Patterns
of Thinking
Thinking
Complex
Symbol
Systems
Pictorial Style
Musical Form
Language
Mathematics
Encoding/
Symbolizing
Deep Mind
This asks deep thought: an eye within the mind,
Keen as a diver salving sunken freight,
To sink into the depth, yet searching there.
Not lose itself in roving phantasies;
That all end well and mischief follow not
First for the State, which is our chief concern.
Then for ourselves; . . .
Aeschylus: "The Suppliant Maidens" (lines 411-417)
Translated
into
Enc.lish
verse by
4
G. M. Cookson.
E
AMERICAN CULTURAL
20
PATTERNS
Sensation
Human beings live in a world of overwhelming sensations. The human
eye is capable of identifying some 7,500,000 distinguishable colors
(Geldard 1953, 53). The human ear has been estimated to respond to
340,000 discriminable sounds (Geldard, 24). Smell, taste, touch, pain,
and the other senses signal information about physical conditions that
are immediately important for survival (see Gregory 1970, 12). Pain,
touch, and especially kinesthesis (movement) make us aware of our
bodies and of interaction with objects in the environment. But human
beings live with only a vague awareness of the waves of stimulation that
envelop the sensory organs, are encoded, and eventually reach con
sciousness. Perception transforms the infinite ambiguity of sensory
signals—colors, sounds, tactile sensations—into meaningful objects
that we live with—tools, shelter, food, caresses.
We are so used to objects, to seeing them wlierever we look, that
if is quite difficult to realize that they present any problem. But
objects have their existence largely unknown to the senses. We
sense them as fleeting visual shades, occasional knocks against
the hand, sniffs of smell—sometimes stabs of pain leaving a
bruise-record of a too-close encounter. The extraordinary thing is
how much we rely on properties of objects which we seldom or
never test by sensory experience (Gregory, 11).
The above quotation highlights the paradox of perception: from
signals received by the physiological sensory organs our mind constructs
a realistic world composed of images, thoughts, and feelings, which, in
turn, affects how we organize those same signals. The paradox begins
with the uncertainty of fleeting sensory stimuli and ends with the
objects with which we live and with the expectations that go beyond
them. Apparently, the goal of the human visual system is to construct a
rigid-image description" of the observed objective world, transforming
transient events of sensory stimuli into a world of perceptual objects
stable in time and space (Marr 1982, 267, 340, 350). Other sensory
operations can be assumed to follow this pattern.
Perception
The stable world we perceive is built in a succession of perceptual
stages through which objective features of the sensory stimuli are
encoded in increasingly complex structures of the brain. This encoding
occurs first in the perceptual process (see the center column of Table 1)
as percepts, perceptual objects, images, and concepts.
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION ANLT THINKING
21
Percepts. Objective perception, or simply perception, is uncon
scious in the sense that the individual is usually unaware that the
process is taking place, responding only to its products appearing in the
mind as percepts and then objects. The red splash of color becomes a
rising sun, and the sharp cry, an animal enraged. The sensations are
transformed into percepts by being organized into figure and ground.
We see the sun (figure) against the sky (ground) and hear the animal
raging in the forest of the night. (We will return in a moment to discuss
the significance of figure/ground.) A percept is what the mind makes of
the raw data of sensation.
Perceptual Objects. From percepts the mind constructs perceptual
objects which are characterized by permanence and represent an
adaptation of the organism to its environment. During the brief moments
of perceiving, percepts are coupled to perceptual stimuli derived from
the senses; but once they are uncoupled, they are lodged in the mind
and transformed into a world of perceptual objects stable in generalized
time and space. Objects, to a degree, lose associations with specific
contexts and specific perspectives of the perceivers. Ambiguity and
uncertainty diminish as perceptual objects acquire a reality apart from
the conditions of perceiving.
Images. Images are internal or cognitive representations of external
objects or events, "pictures within the mind" (McConnell 1986, 245).
These occur in different forms. "An eye within the mind" or "diver salving
sunken freight," both from Aeschylus (see Table 1), serve to illustrate
imagination imagery. Our minds manipulate such images detached from
"eyes" or "divers." A second kind of image, memory, serves to validate and
to generalize percepts. We sense an affinity for a stranger in the crowd. We
reconstruct and search memory and soon find an image of an old friend
who has features resembling those of the stranger. Memory and imagina
tion imagery may serve as vehicles for abstractions of thought (see
Richardson 1969). Images enter into all patterns of thinking but with
considerable variation from person to person.
Concepts. A concept is a mental abstraction, usually generalized from
specific examples (McConnell, 241), that may serve as a unit of thinking.
Concepts (underlying appearance) are deeper than percepts or images.
Their distinguishing quality is lack of perceptual content, although they
may be defined by imagined percepts as in using the metaphor "deep" for
"mind," and "I see" for "understand" or "know." Concepts are used to
identify relationships which go beyond mere description. It is at this point
that the sensation-driven process of perception shifts to the thought- or
concept-driven process of thinking. Although the change of one into the
other is imperceptible and continuous, at the extreme ranges, perceiving
and thinking are radically different processes.
22
AMERICAN CULTURAL
PATTERNS
Patterns of Thinking. At the cognitive level of deep structure, the
products of both sensation-driven and thought-driven processes—per
cepts, perceptual objects, images, concepts—are selected, categorized,
and organized so that the mind extends its mastery of objective reality by
creating a cognitive, or subjective, reality where meaning is assigned and
relationships elaborated. This involves bringing to bear the stored knowl
edge (memory), emotional predispositions (feelings/intuition), and sub
jective thought processes (mindsets) on the continuous influx of new
sensory/perceptual data. At the core, thinking is the mental ability to
govern adaptation and to search for meaning below the sensation-driven
surface and beyond the reach of facts.
Since the plunge below the surface to the depths of thought takes only
about half a second, object perception is quickly overwhelmed by the
subjective processes of thinking. As we probe the depths of the mind, the
influence of sensory stimuli diminishes while that of thinking increases.
Thus while the sensation-perception-thinking process presents itself as an
unbroken strand, a clear distinction can be made between sensation at its
surface and the mental activity taking place at the deepest levels.
Symbol Systems. The next stage in the mental process is the creation
of complex symbol systems which can be encoded and represented in
notations, signs, and symbols and shared with others. Pictorial and
musical forms (which may also be considered "languages") can be shared
universally. Language (communicative) and mathematics (or the "language" of mathematics) can be shared among those who understand them.
Pictorial styles appear to integrate visual dimensions of perception
into complex symbols which can be compared with the grammar and
vocabulary of language and which appear in painting, sculpture, and
other visual arts. Musical forms, in a similar fashion, integrate auditory
percepts and emotions into harmony, rhythms, and melody which make
up a language of music.
Language retains links to perception in the form of sounds of speech,
but meaning in language is mostly determined by deep, thought-driven
processes. These meanings are generally shared within and generate from
the community that uses the language. Mathematics involves a genuinely
abstract language that exists beyond sensation. Our principal concern
here, however, is more with perception and thinking than with symbol
systems. Because so many of these processes occur out of our awareness
and because they are so heavily influenced by the assumptions and values
we learn from our cultural environments, perception and thinking play a
central and critical role in shaping the attitudes and determining the
behaviors which are special to each culture. It is these attitudes and
behaviors, including the assumptions and values on which they are based,
that we are examining here and to which we refer as subjective culture.
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
23
The American Model of Perception and Thinking
Before we can arrive at an objective appraisal of American patterns of
perception and thinking, it is necessary to understand that the distinc
tion between objective sensation at the surface and more deeply
embedded subjective thinking is a culture-based idea. It is not a
universal model for the human mental process. The use of "deep" to
describe thought was a startling breach of traditional forms of thinking
when it first appeared during the fifth century b.c. in ancient Greece,
and it has influenced Western, including American, thinking ever
since. It is in striking contrast to early Buddhist thinking and to think
ing patterns which prevail among, for instance, the Chinese and Japa
nese today.
The idea that thought is deep emerges clearly in the works of
Heraclitus and of Aeschylus. Heraclitus apparently was the first to use
the metaphor of depth to describe thought (Snell 1953, 17-22). It was
rapidly adopted by other Greek thinkers and resulted in a significant
shift in the Greek paradigm for thinking. Prior to that time Greeks
lacked a hinge between the sensory organs and the internal world. The
Greek understanding of the external world, as reflected, for instance, in
the works of Homer, was confined to concrete instances such as the
glint in the eagle's eye, the gleam of sunlight on a helmet, the glistening
sweat on the backs of oarsmen, a glimpse of Helen's face, or the glow
of embers. Human relations were also seen as surface in the form of
obligations, duties, and relations among people. The metaphors of
Homer were more horizontal than vertical, referring to size, extent, or
number, including ranking. Homer lacked the lexical means for direct
expression of qualities such as friendship and thinking which are not
readily represented in surface metaphors. Achilles and Ulysses did not
weigh alternatives and reach decisions, since there was no personal
agency to make choices. Instead, victory or defeat, life or death, were
determined by the balance of Zeus and by the intervention of fate in the
form of gods and goddesses (see Snell, 1-18).
The change in paradigm, which connected the external world to the
processes of deep thought, was captured by Aeschylus in his earliest
surviving play. The Suppliant Maidens. When King Pelasgus is compelled
to decide the fate of the suppliants, he says:
Surely there is a need of deep and salutary counsel; need for a
keen-sighted eye, not o'ermuch confused, to descend like some
diver, into the depths, that to the State above all things this matter
may work no mischief, and may come to a fair issue for
ourselves...(Smyth 1956, 45).
24
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
Thus was the new paradigm given timeless expression. A translation
the passage into English verse is given in Table 1.
The ancient Greek notion of mind that we now call deep structure ar\d
the affirmation of its individual locus of judgment and decision making are
firmly in place in American culture. It is the material stability of tlye
physical world yielded by thought-driven patterns of perception ar\d
thinking that stands out in American cultural thought. An examination of
Buddhist ideas of perception—which still affect thinking in areas of Asja
where Buddhism has been strong—will help bring into sharper focus the
distinctive features of American ways of thinking.
In India, it is the fugitive uncertainty of perception which has be^n
singled out as the core of experience. The early Buddhists in India took
perception as central to knowledge (Jayatilleke 1963, 428). They seized
upon fugitive sensations as the keystone of their thought, describing the
sensible world as made up of momentary flashes of energy (Stcherbatsky
1962, 79). Sensation was but the reflex response to those flashes. These
Buddhists believed that only the first moment could be known directly
before it was annihilated. The present moment alone was captured by
sensation, not the preceding nor the following one. The reality of that
single moment was unutterable; it existed outside conceptual determina
tion and beyond words {Stcherbatsky, 186). The stability of the objective
world was an illusion born of words that were inherently separated fropn
reality. The use of sensory evidence to support concepts about reality waS
of no value (Nakamura 1964,140) since the sensation, the ultimate reality,
was instantaneous and could not generate the permanence of the physical
world. Stability in time and space, the Buddhists reasoned, was a construc
tion of the imagination (Stcherbatsky, 80-83).
This view of perception influenced the way Buddhists ordered their
knowledge about the world and life. Their perceptual theory minimized
the distinction between direct sensory information and knowledge
obtained through fantasy or inference, inducing them to treat perceptual
objects and mental products similarly. Concrete objects and abstract
concepts were situated side by side on a single dimension, and abstract
ideas could be represented as concrete objects. The objective world
was exhaustively described but without the rank ordering which West
erners impose on reality by classifying objects and events according to
their importance (Nakamura, 130-33).
These contrasts in conception are evident when the contemporary
thought patterns of Americans are compared with those of the Chinese
or Japanese. The American proverb, "still waters run deep," (as a way of
describing a quiet, thoughtful person) would be rendered differently by
the Chinese. In Mandarin, a profound thinker would be described as
"great" or "valuable" rather than deep. Also, in Japanese, horizontal
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
25
allusions to size, rank, or multiplicity more often render the quality of
thought than vertical allusions to depth. Both for the Chinese and
Japanese, the thinking process is seen as much less deep than it is by
Americans and other Westerners. External social roles and relation
ships, for instance, receive much more emphasis than the nature of
one's thought processes. Put differently, the Chinese and Japanese tend
to have a highly developed sociological sense but make relatively little
use of psychological analyses.
The difference between Buddhist and Western approaches to per
ception appear in the distinction between operations of the brain. The
process of sensation may be roughly equated to an analog device such
as a clock which to a degree can represent functions and objects
directly (Gregory 1970, 162-66). Such sensations as those of color, for
instance, are continuous and, within the scope of the eyes, practically
infinite. Sensations are representative of the physical stimuli, the wave
lengths which produce sensations. But sensations are transformed into
percepts and eventually into objects and images—the constructed sym
bols; and a system such as language comes to resemble digital devices.
In the words of Gregory,
So we are forced to the conclusion that the brain is biologically an
analog system. With the development—or invention—of language
man's biologically analog brain can work in a digital mode. This
is so remarkable that we can hardly begin to understand it (163).
It seems clear that the Buddhist view of perception and thought
stresses the analog functions of the brain—the fugitive sensations that
flow from bursts of energy which constitute the elusive remains of a
brief reality. The Western view of perception emphasizes the digital
symbolization of percepts that form the basis for the permanence we
attribute to the world. The idea that the world is continuous, stable, and
material derives from the interaction between sensory perception of
objective stimuli and abstract contributions from the brain itself. Hu
man beings resolve the paradox of a stable world composed of fleeting
percepts by integrating these two modes in everyday experience. But if
this is a universal process, what is the source of cultural differences in
patterns of thinking? One answer lies in the way people in different
cultures order the world of sensations they receive by creating category
boundaries, that is, classifying, categorizing, sorting, and storing the
sensations. Central to this process is the principle of figure and ground.
Figure and ground can be explained with a simple demonstration.
When we draw a closed ring on a blank piece of paper and then look at
it, we see a circle, that is, the space inside the ring and not simply the
ring described by the line itself. This space inside the ring, which may
26
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
now be seen as the figure, seems to be raised above and to have more
texture than the space outside the ring, which is now the ground. The
same figure/ground relation appears if we draw three straight lines and
connect them at their end points. We see a triangle. Figure/ground
organization is a general principle which applies to all percepts and in
part defines what is meant by transformation from sensation to percep
tion. Second, the transformation of sensation flux into figure/ground is
also an example of a digital symbolization of fleeting visual shapes of
analog perception.
Although the interpretation of figure and ground is a biological
function of creating percepts, at a practical level the perception may
display the influence of experience. For instance, it is difficult for the
tourist walking on the beaches in Guam to identify a stone used as a
tool by the early inhabitants of the island. At first, all stones look alike.
It takes some experience before the novice learns to identify by appear
ance those stones that may be old tools. Although the organization of
sensory signals into perceptions of figure and ground is natural for
everyone, identifying the specific object perceived will usually be
affected by learning from one's environment.
Cultural differences are found almost exclusively in the subjective
processes of interpretation, in the way something is thought about
rather than in objective perception. Thinking at this level can be seen as
the construction of category boundaries that define figure/ground ob
jects, transforming them into perceptual objects. An almost literal
example of this process occurs in the training of an airplane pilot, who
must learn to distinguish the figure of an airstrip from the ground sur
rounding it. (It may distress the reader to know that this is often a
difficult task.) In addition, category boundaries define the extent to
which a figure is subcategorized. For instance, when skiers inspect
snow before the day's run, they will subcategorize it into various types:
light powder, medium-packed, corn, etc. The distinction among these
types will probably escape nonskiers, who simply perceive snow.
Most particular boundary constructions are learned, and culture is an
important factor in this learning. Culture guides us in what to consider
"figure." Micronesians, for example, are far more likely than Americans to
see wave patterns—interactions of tide and current on the ocean surface
that are used for navigation. To a typical American, the ocean is just
"ground," and only boats or other objects are "figure." But this same
American may single out an automobile sound as indicating imminent
mechanical failure, while to the Micronesian it is simply part of the
background noise. In general, culture engenders in us the tendency to
perceive phenomena that are relevant to both physical and social
survival. In terms of cultural differences, the critical point to grasp, of
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
27
course, is that what is "figure" or important to one culture may be
"ground" to another.
Perceptual boundaries are mutable. For instance, children who speak
Trukese, a Micronesian language, do not make a distinction between blue
and green. One word, araw, refers to both colors, and is the response to
both "What color is the sea?" and "What color is the grass?" Yet these
children routinely learn to perceive the difference in color as part of their
training in English as a second language. The mutability of perceptual
boundaries supports the idea that organizing stimuli into categories is a
psycho-cultural activity rather than an automatic physiological process.
The boundaries used to categorize stimuli, such as those indicated by
the words green and blue, are not arbitrary and free-floating interpreta
tions. Boundary markers belong to a system of representation possessing
its own structure. In English, for instance, blue and green are abstract
adjectives which can be used as metaphors for emotional experiences as
in a "blue mood" or "green with envy." The power of blue and green to
express emotion derives from both the symbolism associated with the
colors they represent and from their privileged position in the English
language as abstract qualifiers. A word used to represent an object affects
the perception of similar objects. The representation of perceptual features
is in subtle ways affected by language rather than by the object itself.
Perception is distorted to accommodate to the structure—vocabulary,
grammar, style—of the language. But the reverse also happens. There is an
accommodation in which the language may be stretched to fit perception.
An example occurs with the analog perception of the natural world in
continuous gradations and variations. Blue gradually merges into green
since no boundary exists that clearly separates them. But language itself
establishes discrete categories. There is no ambiguity between the words
green and b/ue but when these two labels are applied to represent the hues
of sea, sky, or palms, ambiguous areas of the continuum—blue-green,
green-blue—make accurate description more difficult. These ambiguous
areas usually receive longer names (aquamarine vs. blue; emerald vs.
green); observers react more slowly to them and disagree in identifying
them (Roger Brown 1958, 241).
Variations in how the perception of the continuum of the environment
is differentiated may contribute to difficulties in intercultural communica
tion since the areas of the continuum that are ambiguous are suppressed
and become a source of anxiety. The words used to represent the sup
pressed areas may be charged with meaning unperceived by a stranger to
the culture and its language. In the words of Leach, "Language gives us the
names to distinguish the things; taboo inhibits the recognition of those
parts of the continuum which separate the things..." (1964, 35). Evidence
for this theory is apparent in the classification of animals in English.
28
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
Animals fit into four classes according to their social distance from
humans: pets, tame farm animals, field animals or game, and remote
wild animals. Leach points out that those animals that don't neatly fit
the classification receive special attention. The dog, for instance, is not
only pet but also tame farm animal (the shepherd dog, for instance), and
wild animal. As a pet, the dog belongs to the class of "not food" for
English speakers although in other parts of the world the dog is raised
for food. Dogs also serve as the source of verbal abuse in phrases such
as "son of a bitch." Leach writes:
In seventeenth century English witchcraft trials it was very
commonly asserted that the Devil appeared in the form of a Dog;
i.e.. Cod, backwards. In England, we still employ this same
metathesis when we refer to a clergyman's collar as a "dog collar"
instead of a "God collar" (27).
Other animals sharing the ambiguity of the dog are the cat, horse, ass, goat,
pig, rabbit, and fox. These animals "appear to be specially loaded with
taboo values, as indicated by their use in obscenity and abuse by meta^
physical associations or by the intrusion of euphemism (Leach, 41).
The observation that perceptual category boundaries are learned
and are arrived at by subjective processes of interpretation which lead
to different experiences of reality contradicts the natural view of Ameri'
cans that one lives according to a specific, objective reality. In fact, th^
perceiver responds to culturally influenced categorizations of stimuli.
Tocategorize is to render discriminably different things equivalent,
to group the objects and events and people around us into classes,
and to respond to them in terms of their class membership rather
than their uniqueness (Bruner, Coodnow, and Austin 1956, 1).
The construction of boundaries produces images and concepts
which classify the content of our experience and provide a means of
coping with the complexity of perception. Although cultural differences
are found in the natural categories which represent physical perception
and images, their overall significance is slight when compared with the
abstract artificial categories of thought-driven processes.
Differences in Style of Thinking
The continuum between sensory perception and abstract symbolism (as
provided in Table 1) provides a rigorous framework for examining
differences in thinking and in values across cultures. For example,
Americans tend to focus on functional, pragmatic applications of think
ing; in contrast, the lapanese are more inclined to concrete description.
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
29
while Europeans stress abstract theory. As a result, Japanese thinking
would seem to be much closer to the perception end of the continuum
than American thought, and European thinking would lie further toward
the symbolic end. This is as expected since description (Japanese) is
linked to the sensory aspects of perception while function (American) is
tied to central processing of perceptual data, and theory (European) is
linked to symbol systems and is most distant from immediate perception.
It is likely that a way of thinking close to the perception end of the
continuum would be particularly adept at attaching meaning to the
immediately perceived events, and such seems to be the case with the
Japanese. Japanese thought is as close to analog perception as any other
defined pattern of thinking. As might therefore be expected, the Japanese
are typically more sensitive than Americans to nonverbal behavior, an
analog form of communication. They have a searching perception that
notices the appearance of people, what they do, and how they do it.
Americans, on the other hand, are not noted for their perceptual skills.
They rely much more than do the Japanese on digital, verbal messages,
and they usually display more interest in how to get things done than in
who is doing it. Americans, while drawing inductively on a perceptual
world of objective things and events, construct a moderately abstract
functional reality rather than a concrete perceptual one.
Americans going abroad are inclined to respond to the similarities
they meet rather than the differences. Searching for the familiar and
failing to recognize cultural differences, they may interpret clashing
styles of thinking as social conflict. In the incident reported below, a
conflict in styles of thinking between a group of Americans and a British
engineer creates an impasse which is misinterpreted and projected to
the social level of human interaction.
Twenty executives were brought together to participate in a training
program. The executives were members of a large American corporation;
they had been drawn from the northeastern part of the United States. One
or two had been hired from other companies, and one was an Englishman
recently arrived from abroad. The training program was designed so they
could become acquainted with each other before beginning the process
of setting policy for a new plant built by the corporation in the southern
part of the United States. As preparation for one of their training sessions,
they had read a recent book on management techniques. During the
session they discussed its content so as to clarify their own policies on
management. The group quickly became polarized.
The majority of the American managers occupied one position (a few
remained silent) while the British engineer—highly trained and experi
enced—took an opposite position in the discussion. As the managers
talked, their language became more heated and the comments more
30
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
personal. The Americans used words and phrases such as "cost-benefit,"
"productivity," "making a profit," "making the best use of your time," and
"change." The British engineer frequently insisted that he did not under
stand what the Americans were talking about. He repeatedly emphasized
the necessity of knowing the specific context in which a given working
situation or problem had arisen. He emphasized his own experience as a
trained engineer and how, out of his training and experiences, he had been
able to develop concepts and rules-of-thumb that he could apply to new
situations as they arose. He felt it was relatively futile to attempt to predict
the highly general and vague possibilities that the managers might
encounter in their new plant; these were meaningless issues to him.
The Americans in this example were exhibiting a characteristic
pattern of thinking which is inductive and operational. Heavy emphasis
is placed on efficiency but little attention is paid to the overall frame
work in which one's actions take place. Future projections are made
and criteria for measuring success considered, but they are generally
embodied in operational principles involving benefit ratios, profit mar
gins, and the like. In this case, they were agreeing on policies based on
a rational response to objective facts which they interpreted according
to a set of predetermined operating principles.
In contrast, the British engineer was specific in his search for guidance
from his own ideas and past experience. He wanted to consider concrete
instances to which to apply his theories and to avoid adopting the general
principles of the Americans which he considered vague anticipations of
the future. He judged that the Americans were concerned with uncertain
generalities which might not come about, that their thinking was unclear,
and that their use of language was confusing. For their part, the Americans
judged the Englishman to be obnoxious, antagonistic, and disruptive to tFie
harmonious working of the group. Neither the Englishman nor his Ameri
can colleagues recognized the source of their difficulty. The cultural
differences in patterns of thinking were readily projected to personal and
unfavorable characteristics of individuals, who were then assigned disrup
tive social motives.
The American View of Facts
From the case study, we conclude that American thinking is more
closely oriented to action and getting things done than to the "direct
perception of impermanent forms." Americans focus on operational
procedures rather than perceptions of the situation. This way of think
ing is rational, Americans believe, and efficient. The connection to
perception, as defined earlier, is that Americans assume that rational
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
31
thinking is based on an objective reality where measurable results can
be attained. This cultural orientation provides one of the principal keys
to understanding the American pattern of thinking. It is the American
view of "fact." The significance of this key can be illustrated by a
personal experience of one of the authors in South Korea.
The writer visited the demilitarized zone north of Seoul which
separates South Korea from North Korea and entered the tunnels which
the North Koreans had dug through the mountains. When the military
command in South Korea discovered the underground passageways,
they reasoned that if the tunnels had not been discovered in time to
prevent the North Koreans from launching a surprise attack, Seoul
would have been under severe military threat. After the visit, the writer
spoke with an American army colonel in military intelligence who was
stationed in Korea. In response to a question, the colonel said that
eighteen months before the discovery of the tunnels, the intelligence
officers had enough information in hand to conclude that the North
Koreans were digging through the mountains. When asked to explain
the eighteen-month delay, the colonel answered that most of the intel
ligence information was collected by South Korean foot soldiers patrol
ling the mountains and consisted of reports that there were sounds
coming from the earth and that the ground was shaking. The colonel
said that those reports were considered "imagery" and "gossip" of a
kind often obtained from South Koreans and were not given any weight.
When the Koreans asked the Americans what they should do to be
taken seriously, the American consensus was that "imagery" should be
transformed into "facts." First, the source of the information needed to
be objectively identified; the patrols should be assigned numbers. Next,
the sounds should be measured on some scale—from one to ten, for
instance. Sound could range on this scale from a murmur to a clap of
thunder overhead. The shaking could run from a slight shudder to an
earthquake. When reporting these facts, the information should include
the time and the position of the patrol when the observation was made.
If these conditions had been met, the Korean gossip or imagery could
not have been ignored by American intelligence.
From the episode of the tunnels, we can derive several qualities of
American patterns of thinking in contrast to Korean. Americans sepa
rate perceptual content which is "objective" and hence measurable
from that which is only "imagery." Also, Americans appear to employ a
specialized category for information that excludes information by word
of mouth or gossip, while the Koreans do not. These observations
illustrate some particular aspects of the American concept of fact.
First, facts possess perceptual content; they are empirical, observ
able, and measurable. Second, facts are reliable so that different ob
W
32
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
servers will agree about them. Third, facts are objective and therefore
valid. They are impersonal and exist separately from perceptual pro
cesses and from observers. In American thinking, facts exist in the
external world and not inside the mind. Fourth, both the reliability and
validity of facts are associated with measurements using coordinates of
time and space, leading Americans to speak of "historical but not
"future" facts. Americans also say "as a matter of fact," and refer to
local or particular facts but not general facts, which would strip the
concept of its meaning.
Despite these assumptions about facts, Americans are also quite
comfortable engaging in counterfactual speculations where a false
identity, action, or event is used to gain insight or information of some
sort. In interviews, Americans will often use a hypothetical question
such as "If you were the president, what would you do about the threat
of a nuclear power plant explosion?"
American facts, their quantification, and the counterfactual mode
of thought are avoided in other cultures. The Chinese apparently use
counterfactual thinking sparingly if at all. The French and the Indians
stoutly resist counterfactual speculation in interviewing, apparently
sensing a manipulation of their own personal identities. We can only
conclude that the American conception of facts and the use of
counterfactual thinking are not universal.
American Pragmatism
American thinking distinguishes between the internal world of thought
and the external world of action but emphasizes operations such as
decision making that straddle the two. American mental formations favor
what is called procedural knowledge, which focuses on how to get things
done. In contrast, Germans favor declarative knowledge, which consists
of descriptions of the world (Ryle 1949). The American approach is
functional and emphasizes solving problems and accomplishing tasks.
The measure of success I ies in the consequences of concept-driven action.
This distinctive functional style is embodied in American pragmatism.
Pragmatism lacks the theoretical commitment that Edmund Glenn identi
fies with the Russians (1981, 80) and the perceptual commitment of the
Japanese, lying somewhere in between. The American drive to attain
impact has led to the cultivation of a variety of approaches to problem
solving, decision making, and conflict resolution intended to avoid the
deficiencies of intuition and common sense. Pragmatism employs psy
chology, game theory, and mathematics to channel human thinking and
judgment into applications. This technical approach to human behavior.
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
33
sometimes called technicism (Stanley 1978, 200), is deeply embedded in
the c onsciousness of most Americans, many of whom mistakenly consider
it universal. It clearly is not, as indicated by the fact that the Japanese and
other cultures lack this prototype of conceptual decision making. The
concepts of alternatives, probability and criterion, to mention three that
we shall discuss, mean something very different to the Japanese than they
do to Americans.
When selecting a course of action, the Japanese seldom consider
alternatives systematically. Instead, they are more likely to arrive intu
itively at one course of action. The difference between the Japanese
and American approaches is illustrated in the following episode which
illustrates the different attitudes of the American and the Japanese
toward planning in general.
A Japanese and an American administrator were planning a
program for a group of visitors who were arriving in Tokyo from
overseas. The American collected cost information on four different
places where the visitors could be lodged during their one-week
visit. These were a business hotel, a guest house, a dormitory (or
similar lodgings), and an apartment complex. He weighed the
advantages of each according to convenience, accessibility of
transportation, food, etc. against the different prices involved. He
then showed the results to his Japanese colleague. The Japanese
looked at the figures and asked how they were going to stay at four
different places at the same time. The American answered that of
course they were not going to stay at four different places. The
figures were simply a feasibility study. His colleague replied, "We
also do feasibility studies, but most often we just pick the best one,
and we do that very well."
The use of probability has seeped through American culture to a
degree unknown to the Japanese and others. When Westerners coop
erate with Japanese in technical areas, a number of conceptual gaps
can arise to produce misunderstandings and tensions. Two examples
given below illustrate some of these difficulties. Both episodes occurred
in Japan in the course of conducting research with Japanese and
Western technical companies.
An American manager, situated in Tokyo, receivedanorder for his
company's products produced at a plant three hours away by
train. He knew that the plant was running near full capacity, but
he decided to call his plant manager, an excellent Japanese
engineer trained in a leading Japanese university, and ask him for
his estimate of how long it would take to fill the order. The
Japanese declined to give an answer. The American pressed for an
estimate but failed to persuade the Japanese to respond. The
34
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
Stand-off led to tension between the two men, which came out
weeks later when they accidentally met face-to-face in a training
session and discussed the situation with assistance from the
trainer.
The Japanese explained his response or lack of response by saying that,
for him, numbers represented countdowns, commitments to deliver.
The American understood his position but said that he had only been
asking for a "guesstimate," not a commitment. The American was
comfortable using data to estimate probable but indeterminate out
comes. The Japanese was not.
This episode conveys a fundamental difference in how Americans
and Japanese work with measurements, probability, and plans. It is
particularly important because it demonstrates again how these kinds
of differences are often interpreted as interpersonal conflict. American
technicism includes a readiness to speculate freely with numbers. Amer
ican production figures, for example, are often reported as a percentage
of the full capacity of the plant, and they invariably include small errors.
Japanese production figures are strictly counts of actual units produced.
The same difference holds in the area of quality control. In the American
system, product samples are inspected and the results used to generalize
about the quality of the total production. This is also an example of
technicism—the use of statistics and probability to increase efficiency.
The Japanese adopt the attitude of craftsmen and insist on quality
inspection for each item produced, making an inspection of samples
irrelevant. Responsibility for Japanese quality control naturally falls to
the production line and to each individual worker.
The Japanese manager in the above episode acted in the best
Japanese style. First, he did not share with the American uncertainties
of planning for the order; Japanese typically do not discuss their plans
until after the countdown. Second, he would not commit himself to
deliveries based on probability rather than countdowns. Therefore, he
was caught in a difficult cultural predicament.
A second episode presents a technical view of speculation, prob
ability, and risk analysis. The incident was reported by a Scandinavian
assigned to survey and approve the construction of a ship contracted to
a Japanese ship-building company.
The surveyor, who was working with the Japanese, identified a
structural problem in the design of the ship. He insisted that a
horizontal component of the structure be changed from a
rectangular to a triangular shape to improve the distribution of
forces on the vertical components of the structure. The Japanese
responded by accumulating an enormous amount of data
supporting their design, which they brought to the surveyor a few
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
35
days later. Overwhelmed by the data, he approved the design
presented by the Japanese. Nevertheless, the surveyor remained
uneasy, believing that the metal in the ship's structure would
develop fissures after some years of service because of metal
fatigue. Later, the surveyor recognized that the Japanese cal
culations had taken into account normal functioning but had not
included risk analysis and had specifically omitted speculations
about long-term metal fatigue. The Japanese considered it
superfluous to conduct experiments to test the design. If the design
was as good as its representation in the drawings, they expected
the ship to be good. Their approach to safety consisted of a refined
and detailed examination, but their testing ordinarily omitted
speculations about improbable conditions that would test the
limits of the technology. The Scandinavian surveyor, with expe
riences in the tempestuous North Sea, was more willing to
speculate about unusually severe conditions.
This Scandinavian surveyor's experience would probably be very
similar to that of an American technician placed in the same position.
On the surface there appears to be miscommunication or perhaps an
effort to cut corners, but the deep message is another story. The
American (and in this case Scandinavian) approach to probability and
the analyses of risk differ from that of the Japanese. If we consider the
differences in the context of patterns of thinking, we can see that the
Japanese attitude is compatible with perceptual thinking, while the
Western attitude is functional and based more on abstract consider
ations. The use of speculations and probability in risk analysis requires
a strong commitment to find out what will happen if certain conditions
are fulfilled, which by assumption are possible but improbable. This
attitude is unduly abstract for a mental disposition inclined toward rigid
and measurable perceptions.
We have introduced these lengthy episodes and their analyses as
evidence that the American pattern of thinking directs American actions
along very different channels from those of the Japanese (and others),
even when it involves technical personnel working with abstractions
such as probability. The Japanese, relying on perceptual thinking,
choose to work with the certainty of precedents and rules—even those
of bureaucracies—rather than with probability.
The operational cast of American (and European) thought apparent in
the preceding discussion places it closer to the symbolic end of the
perception/symbolism continuum. For instance, Americans are oriented
toward the future, an abstract state of mind lying outside perception.
Reliance on a vision of the future may raise doubts about the practicality
of American thinking. These doubts, though, can be laid to rest by noting
that the temporal aim is toward the near future, making the orientation
36
AMERICAN CULTURAL
PATTERNS
more functional than that in other societies where people orient themselves to a future measured by decades and generations. Second, the future
appears in American thinking in the form of anticipated consequences of
actions. The projection into the future is conveyed by human intentions
and actions rather than by abstract time. Anticipated consequences of
actions is a functional concept used in models of decision making and
provides a link between thinking and action. We shall return to this subject
when we discuss the value of activity. Here it is sufficient to note that the
American time orientation represents a midpoint on the continuum__a
position that combines some aspects of concrete action with the symbol'
ism of abstract probability.
The primary content of perceptual thinking has been described here
as images that are classified according to such perceptual dimensions as
color, shape, size, and position. In American thinking, perceptual dominance yields to functional attributes of what a person can do with things
in the form of concepts instead of images (a computer is not just a high tech
instrument used for games; it is a high-speed tool used for calculating
data). Further along the continuum, operations for classifying objects
increase in abstraction and scope until classifications can be based on a
single common feature, a criterial attribute (Co\e and Scribner 1974, 10102). Any one system of thought has access to each level of abstraction, but
Japanese thinking tends to dwell on complex perceptual attributes and
avoids all-encompassing general principles while American thinking
reaches for that single dimension, the criterial attribute.
Negative Reasoning and Null Logic in American Thought
A typical American analysis of a practical issue tends to focus on obstacles
that may block courses of action and to consider ways of neutralizing those
blockages in advance. These improbable, negative events enter into their
thinking as practical forms of arguments known as negative reasoning. In
the American cultural context, we shall refer to this way of thinking as null
logic. It is this dynamic that explains the American concern with avoiding
failure in the future by taking action in the present. Null logic is easily
recognized in its applications. It directs preventive programs in technol
ogy; for instance, parts of aircraft are automatically replaced after a
predetermined number of flying hours and before they malfunction. In the
area of health, people take a polio vaccine before they succumb to the
illness. In education, children may take reading readiness training before
they start to learn to read and meet impediments. Safety in industry is based
on the analysis of a chain of cause and effect leading to potential accidents.
Safety programs are designed to avoid the critical act that causes the
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
37
accident. From an early age, the typical American child learns to avoid
acts that bring about undesirable situations and to select those that get
around barriers. Much of the content of American functional thinking
concerns circumventing barriers to action. Thus, children often learn to
avoid failures or poor grades rather than to attain excellence. Analysis
consists primarily of what can go wrong and how to avoid it to attain
success.
American null logic seems to be a variation of a more general pattern
of Western negative reasoning. Such reasoning involves the assumption
that a claim is not valid until it is proven to be so. The American variation
is distinguished by (1) an emphasis on anticipation of consequences in
decision making, (2) an intimate association with action, (3) the implicit
presence of the problem solver, and (4) the balancing of negativism by
optimism based on the belief that hard effort succeeds. These are cher
ished American prototypes which occupy less room in European negative
reasoning where theory and logic enjoy higher status and don't generate
the push to "get things done" that is characteristic of Americans. As a
consequence, Americans working with the Flemish or the French, for
instance, may see their counterparts as cynical, while the Europeans view
the Americans as romantic and naive about the ways of the world.
Nakamura describes another contrast to American null logic in Indian
ways of thinking. Indians display a fondness for negative expressions,
preferring to define objects by what they are not. "Non-one" is said for
"many or none," and yoga disciples revere five moral precepts;
nonviolence, sincerity, nontheft, chastity, and nonacquisition. Three of
the five in Sanskrit, flagged with non in English, are expressed in negative
form (Nakamura 1964, 52-59). Europeans and Americans prefer positive
expressions for defining objects and virtues. The negative perspective at
the foundation of this Indian way of classifying objects and concepts
appears, we would suggest, in Western science, technology, and behavior
in the form of negative reasoning. The American contribution is to render
negative reasoning operational in the form of null logic. Thus, at the
practical level, Americans cannot always expect warm compliance with
their procedures in industry, education, or even health. In many nonWestern cultures null logic isnot a motivating force. Instead, the approach
to a course of action proceeds through intuition and painstaking descrip
tion of actual conditions.
The Implied Agent in American Thinking
As we have seen, Americans tend to conceive of human activity as
problems requiring human agents to find solutions. American problem
i
38
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
solving exposes what appears to be the backbone of American culture;
a mental orientation toward practical actions which incorporates a
subjective point of view. We will call this orientation the implied agent
and explain it as the psychological disposition to collect, process, and
display information as if an actor or observer were present. In the
following example, the implied agent becomes a motorist trying to find
his or her way to the airport.
Traffic signs in the American city assume that drivers need
directions on how to get to certain destinations. For instance, in
Washington, D.C., drivers can pick up directional signs miles
distant from the destination. Directions are given by signs placed
where drivers must make a choice between two or more alternative
routes and again where they will inform the drivers that they have
made the correct choice. The principle of giving directions to
reach the airport seems clear enough, but consider the situation
in a japanese city where signs are posted according to a different
principle. In Tokyo, drivers on their way to the international
airport find that the road is marked for the airport only after the last
point of choice is behind and the only possible destination up
front is the airport.
In this example, American signs help direct drivers to the airport;
lapanese signs assure them they have made the correct choice. Ameri
can signs guide while lapanese signs label. A similar conclusion can be
reached with temporary road signs such as those announcing road
construction. American signs in principle are placed well ahead of the
place where drivers must select an alternative route when a detour is
required while signs in Ecuador, Japan, and elsewhere are placed in
principle at the site of the construction, where they actually describe
the conditions of the road. When drivers read the sign, they have
passed the last choice point and have to proceed with caution or stop,
turn around, and retrace their path.
Although there are many exceptions to these principles of "direc
tion" and "description," the two seem to serve as prototypes in the
United States and in Japan. The American pattern of collecting and
conveying information in a way that guides behavior is at the core of
the concept of the implied agent. The information conveyed is particu
lar, action-oriented, causal, and practical. It assumes an agent outside
the self and the immediate situation that is capable of observing infor
mation and acting upon it. This contrasts with the perceptual thinking
of the Japanese and others, which maintains a concept of self which is
centered in the immediate act of perception.
The concept of implied agent provides us with a convenient way of
describing the American preoccupation with causation. The idea of a
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
39
"natural happening" or "occurrence" is not familiar or acceptable for
Americans as it is for the Chinese and many other non-Westerners. Events
do not just occur or happen naturally; they require a cause or an agent that
can be held responsible. Americans are not satisfied with statements of
occurrence until they have determined who is responsible—who did it or
who caused it to be done. "Where there's smoke, there's fire" means that
each effect or event has a causative agent. The English language reflects
this quality of American (and English) thinking. For example, in English
one cannot grammatically refer to a natural occurrence of rain without an
agent. Unlike other Romance languages that allow the statement, "Is
raining," the English speaker must invent a dummy subject to say, "It is
raining." The it in this English statement is the agent.
The implied-agent concept extends into most practical areas of
American life. For instance, the American strategy of management
appears to revolve around answering "why" questions: Why did an
individual act as he or she did? Why is a particular objective appropri
ate? Why did a plan not work (and who is responsible)? An informal
study was conducted with an international company in Tokyo, in
which Western managers were asked to list the difficulties they had
with their Japanese colleagues. Every list contained the complaint that
the Japanese do not answer "why" questions. Two examples illustrate
the problem.
1.
The materials shipped to Japan from the states ordi
narily arrived at the port of Osaka, where they were
quickly passed through customs in about a day or so.
But on one occasion the shipment came through
Yokohama. The passage through customs took more
than three days. The American manager asked his
Japanese assistant to go to the port and find out why it
had taken so long. The Japanese manager traveled to
Yokohama and returned with information about how
the shipment had been processed through customs.
The American manager was dissatisfied with the
information and asked the Japanese assistant to return
to Yokohama. While the delay was all right this one
time, headquarters had to know the reason for it, and
the manager cautioned his assistant that it should not
happen again. The Japanese manager once more
traveled to the port. When he returned, the American
manager received a great deal of information about
the passage of the shipment through customs, in
cluding details about the forms filled out, names of
w
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
40
customs agents, and time schedules for the shipment
going through each part of the customs procedure—
but still no explanation as to why it had taken so long.
Finally the American began to realize that he had run
up against something he did not clearly understand.
He relented from pressing his Japanese assistant,
whose willingness and ability were beyond dispute.
In the end, the American decided that there was no
real reason for the delay other than the fact that the
customs officials in Yokohama were not familiar with
the shipments for the company and therefore had
conducted customs inspection with punctilious for
mality. Customs agents in Osaka, on the other hand,
were familiar with the periodic shipments, knew the
company officers, and therefore passed their ship
ments through customs rapidly.
2.
An American manager arrived at a hotel some twenty
minutes before the expected arrival time of his vice
president, who was flying in from the States. He
checked at the desk and was alarmed to discover that
the reservation for his superior had been switched to
another hotel. He was angered at the change made
without his approval, but he did not immediately
attempt to find out why. He dashed to the second
hotel, where he met his vice president. Although the
second hotel was equal to the first one, the change
seemed capricious. He wanted to find out why the
switch had been made. Later, he asked his Japanese
assistant to inquire. The inquiry soon became bogged
down with explanations of procedures on how the
reservations were made. The American arrived at the
conclusion that his question was not going to be
answered, and it was not.
These two episodes document the American predilection for "why"
answers and the Japanese preference for "what" answers. From the
Japanese point of view, the individual should already know "why," and
it is a mark of immaturity for one to have to ask. Americans make
exactly the opposite judgment, feeling that the "what" is obvious and'
mature people should inquire into the underlying "why"—they should
discover the agent. At a more fundamental level, Americans like infor
mation put together in lineal cause-and-effect chains, ideally strung out
along a single dimension. In contrast, Japanese prefer increasingly
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
41
refined details without insisting upon logical or lineal links. These
detailed expositions probably indicate circular movement in thought,
compared to the more straight-line, operational thought of Americans.
American Analytical Thinking
As we have seen, Americans anticipate future problems by searching
for a single factor with which to explain events. This effort demands
abstract thought, null logic, and an implied agent of causality. It also
demands analysis. Analysis dissects events and concepts into the pieces
which can be linked in causal chains and categorized into universal
criteria. This kind of thinking stands in contrast to a more integrated
approach, sometimes called "holistic" or "synthetic" (from "synthesis").
In comparison to American thought, many other cultures such as Japa
nese, Chinese, and Brazilian are more synthetic than analytical in think
ing style.
The analytical cast to American thought appears cold and imper
sonal to many. One of the actions of youth in the 1960s was to turn
away from analysis and restore synthesis in their thinking, which seemed
more humanistic. But the coldness of analytical thought is mitigated
somewhat when we recognize that its mode of operation is through
problem solving and the implied agent. Both of these principles intro
duce subjectivism and human purpose into an otherwise austere reality
created by operational analysis. In American culture, emotions have no
overt role in thinking. But human subjectivity is nevertheless present,
disguised in practical forms such as the implied agent.
The style of thinking that derives principles from analysis of data is
called inductive. In Western science, the inductive style is represented by
the generation of models and hypotheses based on empirical observation.
Somewhat aside from traditional science, everyday American inductive
thinking is operational, leading to a stress on consequences and results
and a disregard for the empirical world as such. What is important is the
ability of the individual to affect the empirical world. In contrast to the
American operational style of thinking, Europeans tend to attach primacy
and reality to ideas and theories. Their deductive and more abstract style
of thinking gives priority to the conceptual world and symbolic thinking.
Deductive thinkers are likely to have more confidence in their theories
than in the raw data of empirical observation, so it suffices for their
purposes to show one or two connections between their concepts and the
empirical world. They do not feel compelled in the American way to
amass facts and statistics. They prefer to generalize from one concept to
another, or from concept to facts, by means of logic. They have faith and
42
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
trust in the powers of thought; Americans place faith and trust in metho^jj
of empirical observation and measurement.
The American way of thinking produces disciplines in the socjgi
sciences that are more likely to be empirical and to stress empiri^gj
methods in other disciplines than in European countries. Scientifj^work is often seen as confirming and elaborating the organic theories Qf
other scientists and philosophers rather than being new. There is 3
tendency for deductive thinkers to consider ideas as organic and living
parts of reality. They may consider a new idea to be a "revelation" oc a
"discovery," while the more inductive American thinker will considec a
concept more in the nature of a "construct" or an "invention" to
defined mainly by examples. This difference in styles of thinking rrigy
be illustrated by the comment of Don Martindale, an American sociolo
gist, on the observation by Ferdinand Tbnnies, a European, that "in
organic world the concept itself is a living reality." Martindale (19^o,
91) observes that "presumably the concept of a man, like an actual
man, gets up in the morning, puts on its pants, shaves, and in otE,er
ways prepares for a busy day."
These observations of American and European styles of thinking
indicate some cultural differences in emphasis that may be associated
with intercultural misunderstandings. The crude comparisons suggest that
there is a single style characteristic of Americans and another of Eurofjeans. In fact, a third contrasting style—relational thinking—involves a high
degree of sensitivity to context, relationships, and status and exists in
cultures where the social order approaches a gemeinschaft pattern. Ana
lytical thinking, by contrast, tends to prevail in societies that, by compari
son, resemble a gesellschaft pattern. Relational thinking is found in many
countries as well as in certain subcultures in the United States.
In an important study of conceptual styles, Rosalie Cohen (1969)
found in children from low-income American homes a relational pattern
of thinking encountered more often in non-Western societies. Cohen
defined conceptual styles as "integrated rule-sets for the selection and
organization of sense data" and noted that the styles can be defined
"without reference to specific substantive content and they are not related
to native ability" (841-42). Within each conceptual style, certain assump
tions and relationships are logically possible and others are not. She
found two major styles in the United States: analytical, which we have
discussed and which is the dominant pattern of thinking, and relational, a
style which is less abstract and more sensitive to the total social context.
Perhaps Cohen's most important contribution is the notion that
these conceptual styles are associated with different family and friend
ship structures. People with relational patterns of thinking come from
backgrounds in which neither equality among persons nor differentia
CULTURAL PATTERNS OF PERCEPTION AND THINKING
43
tion of roles are as accentuated as they are in the background of those
with analytical patterns of thinking. Culture groups where the analytical
type appears are more formally organized; privileges, responsibilities,
and status in the groups are distributed in orderly fashion. The individual
in these groups has a greater freedom to leave the group and to "refuse
to act in any capacity not defined by his job" (Cohen, 853). This
conceptual style is identified with the American middle class.
On the other hand, relational types are more deeply embedded in their
membership groups. They are expected to identify with the group as a
whole rather than with formal functions associated with their roles in the
group; they have to be ready to act in any capacity at any time. Functions
in the group, including leadership, are shared more widely among
members than is found with groups composed of analytical persons.
These distinctions parallel findings revealed in the study of crosscultural differences, where the demonstration of an association between
conceptual style and social organization is significant. Particularly
important is Cohen's conclusion that the educational and social insti
tutions which Americans create are particularly suited to the analytical
conceptual style. The social organizations, curricula, pedagogy, and
discipline in the schools provide unfavorable environments for the
relational conceptual style. This condition may cause difficulties for
many foreign and American students in higher education. American
instructors who complain that some students lack the ability to think
analytically may be encountering the same relational conceptual style
found by Cohen among children in low-income families.
One of the major differences between analytical and relational
styles is how subjectivity is treated. The analytical style separates
subjective experience from the inductive process that leads to an
objective reality. The relational style of thinking rests heavily on expe
rience and fails to separate the experiencing person from objective
facts, figures, or concepts. Thus students with relational inclinations are
said by their instructors to confuse concepts with impressions gained
through observation or experience. In their writing and thinking, these
students tend to give equal value to personal experience, empirical
fact, and concepts derived from persons in authority. They fail to make
the distinction between the objective and the subjective, which is
required in the analytical academic world.
In contrast to the American analytical style, Chinese thinking is
strongly relational and for this reason lacks clarity from a Western point
of view. The Chinese do not analyze a topic by breaking it into parts.
Their thinking is based upon concrete conceptions weighted with
judgment (Granet 1950, 8-30). It lacks the power of precise analysis
and abstract classification, but it excels in identification by evoking
44
AMERICAN CULTURAL PATTERNS
concreteness, emotion, and commitment to action. Chinese though^
strives for unity betvA'een events or objects and their given signs
symbols, so that references to the conceptions in the spoken word itself
tend to be taken for the act (Granet, 40). An event may be explained bV
pointing to another event that occurred at the same time, even though*
by Western logic the two are not connected. This movement from even'
to event provides the displacement characteristic of Chinese though*
which has been called correlational logic (Chang 1952, 215). In coH'
trast. Western thought tends to relate things with abstract concepts o*
principles.
Social influences in relational thinking are particularly important ih
gemeinschaft societies. The critical role of social influences is partly
explained by the procedures used in learning. Even knowledge which i®
based primarily on sensory impressions is social in kind. Knowledge a*
well as identity are embedded in social processes. The question that
arises is how learning can take place while these social assumptions ar^
supported. The answer for both analytical and relational thinking is that
learning requires a model for imitation. Learners match the model with
their own production or performance. Learning by use of this model
requires a strong and well-defined relationship between the learner and
the teacher, who assumes the role of "master." This is the typical
pattern of apprenticeship learning in which the learner assumes a
deferential and subservient role. Not only are skills and knowledge
transferred, but the learner also acquires attitudes of deference to the
master, perpetuating the social forms of authority in the society. Imita
tion is found throughout the world, and it is a dominant form of learning
in many societies. It is particularly noticeable in traditional activities
such as the martial arts in China and the tea ceremony in Japan.
Based on the evidence available, it is clear that styles of thinking
vary from culture to culture, sometimes dramatically. The abstract,
analytical, pragmatic approach of Americans is very different from the
European style emphasizing theory and organic concepts. And as a
group, the Western styles vary substantially from the relational style of
the Japanese and the Chinese who are more likeJy to think by means of
analogy, metaphor, and simile. Much of the difference between East
and West in our example can be grasped in language. As we have seen,
language is an encoding in symbols of the images, concepts, and
patterns of thinking that are all part of the cognitive process. In the next
chapter, we shall examine the relation between language and patterns
of thinking and behavior in American culture.
Purchase answer to see full
attachment