Bold Chinese and meek Americans: rethinking cultures
Thursday, November 14, 2002
focus.scmp.com
JEAN NICOL
Americans are considered bold and willing to take risks while Asians are seen as modest and conservative, surveys of Asians and Westerners alike have shown. But according to research, nothing could be further from the truth. It reveals that the Chinese are generally willing to make much riskier investment decisions than Americans.
Now researchers are trying to help multi-cultural teams make sense of their colleagues' judgment styles.
Conventional economic theories would put this particular difference down to a greater tolerance of risk on the part of the Chinese. Or a sociologist might link it to the Chinese predilection for gambling. But both assume that the Chinese and Americans perceive the risk to be the same.
US psychologist Elke Weber looked harder and found that this assumption is misplaced. In fact, this is where the difference lies. The tolerance - or enjoyment - of risk was the same in both groups, but the Chinese simply judge the possible outcomes of the same situation as less risky than Americans.
Why? Ms Weber and colleagues, reports Management Science, came up with an explanation that loops back into cross-cultural theory. They call it the ''cushion hypothesis''. It goes like this. Given their individualistic culture, Americans feel less socially supported and see future losses as personally dangerous. The collectivist Chinese, however, see the same risks as smaller because their social and familial support system cushions them from the prospect of ruinous consequences.
Professor Frank Yates reported in the American Psychological Association's Monitor that although most Americans overestimated how accurately they answered general knowledge questions, participants in Hong Kong and mainland China were even more overconfident.
Professor Yates could not find a way to synthesise these findings, so he designed a study to explore further. He asked participants to compare themselves directly to their peers and here he got the expected results, with the Chinese rating themselves more modestly against others.
Why, then, were they so sure of their individual judgments? According to Professor Yates and his colleagues, it is all about how cultures differ in how they know. For example, after participants had given their answer to a question, they were asked to think of as many alternative answers as they could. The Chinese came up with far fewer than the Americans. It was as if the Chinese were so sure of their chosen answers that they could not even imagine that other options existed.
Chinese cultural and educational traditions, the researchers claim, are behind this certainty. For the Chinese, reaching decisions is based on reference to an inculcated body of knowledge as opposed to the result of the application of a set of skills. So in contrast to the case-by-case method, which seems to lead Westerners to generate many possible solutions which they can then reject, Chinese tend to unconsciously search for parallels in their mental stock of insights, and once they find one they speculate no further.
According to these studies, American decision-making is based on individual accountability. It involves applying a set of cause-and-effect thinking skills and generating options. Chinese decision-making is typically more intuitive, rooted in a shared body of wisdom. Chinese are cushioned by a sense of social complicity that allows them to make what looks like riskier choices.
For those working in multi-cultural settings, it is surely an advantage to be able to recognise and appreciate the wisdom in each of these two different judgment styles.
Jean Nicol is a psychologist and writer living in Hong Kong. |
