The Geography Of Thought

Download or read book The Geography of Thought written by Richard Nisbett and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Richard Nisbett showed an animated underwater scene to his American students, they zeroed in on a big fish swimming among smaller fish. Japanese subjects, on the other hand, made observations about the background environment...and the different "seeings" are a clue to profound underlying cognitive differences between Westerners and East Asians. As Professor Nisbett shows in The Geography of Thought people actually think - and even see - the world differently, because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China, and that have survived into the modern world. As a result, East Asian thought is "holistic" - drawn to the perceptual field as a whole, and to relations among objects and events within that field. By comparison to Western modes of reasoning, East Asian thought relies far less on categories, or on formal logic; it is fundamentally dialectic, seeking a "middle way" between opposing thoughts. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to categories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behaviour.

Download or read book The Geography of Thought written by Richard Nisbett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “landmark book” (Robert J. Sternberg, president of the American Psychological Association) by one of the world's preeminent psychologists that proves human behavior is not “hard-wired” but a function of culture. Everyone knows that while different cultures think about the world differently, they use the same equipment for doing their thinking. But what if everyone is wrong? The Geography of Thought documents Richard Nisbett's groundbreaking international research in cultural psychology and shows that people actually think about—and even see—the world differently because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China. As a result, East Asian thought is “holistic”—drawn to the perceptual field as a whole and to relations among objects and events within that field. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to categories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. From feng shui to metaphysics, from comparative linguistics to economic history, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius. At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, The Geography of Thought offers both a map to that gulf and a blueprint for a bridge that will span it.

Download or read book The Geography of Thought written by Richard Nisbett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-04-05 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When psychologist Richard E. Nisbett showed an animated underwater scene to his American students, they zeroed in on a big fish swimming among smaller fish. Japanese observers instead commented on the background environment -- and the different "seeings" are a clue to profound cognitive differences between Westerners and East Asians. AsNisbett shows inThe Geography of Thought,people think about -- and even see -- the world differently because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China.The Geography of Thoughtdocuments Professor Nisbett's groundbreaking research in cultural psychology, addressing questions such as: Why did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry, the brilliant achievement of such Greeks as Euclid? Why do East Asians find it so difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings? Why do Western infants learn nouns more rapidly than verbs, when it is the other way around in East Asia? At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important,The Geography of Thoughtoffers both a map to that gulf and a blueprint for a bridge that might be able to span it.

Download or read book The Story of Hong Gildong written by Kyun Hŏ and published by Penguin Classics. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hong Gildong, a brilliant but illegitimate son of a noble government minister, cannot advance in society and embarks on a series of adventures, joining a band of outlaws, vanquishing assassins and monsters, and founding his own kingdom.

Download or read book The Geography of Genius written by Eric Weiner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tag along on this New York Times bestselling “witty, entertaining romp” (The New York Times Book Review) as Eric Weiner travels the world, from Athens to Silicon Valley—and back through history, too—to show how creative genius flourishes in specific places at specific times. In this “intellectual odyssey, traveler’s diary, and comic novel all rolled into one” (Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness), acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. A “superb travel guide: funny, knowledgeable, and self-deprecating” (The Washington Post), he explores the history of places like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity. With his trademark insightful humor, this “big-hearted humanist” (The Wall Street Journal) walks the same paths as the geniuses who flourished in these settings to see if the spirit of what inspired figures like Socrates, Michelangelo, and Leonardo remains. In these places, Weiner asks, “What was in the air, and can we bottle it?” “Fun and thought provoking” (The Miami Herald), The Geography of Genius reevaluates the importance of culture in nurturing creativity and “offers a practical map for how we can all become a bit more inventive” (Adam Grant, author of Originals).

Download or read book The Geography of Bliss written by Eric Weiner and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes a nation happy? Is one country's sense of happiness the same as another's? In the last two decades, psychologists and economists have learned a lot about who's happy and who isn't. The Dutch are, the Romanians aren't, and Americans are somewhere in between... After years of going to the world's least happy countries, Eric Weiner, a veteran foreign correspondent, decided to travel and evaluate each country's different sense of happiness and discover the nation that seemed happiest of all. ·He discovers the relationship between money and happiness in tiny and extremely wealthy Qatar (and it's not a good one) ·He goes to Thailand, and finds that not thinking is a contented way of life. ·He goes to the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and discovers they have an official policy of Gross National Happiness! ·He asks himself why the British don't do happiness? In Weiner's quest to find the world's happiest places, he eats rotten Icelandic shark, meditates in Bangalore, visits strip clubs in Bangkok and drinks himself into a stupor in Reykjavik. Full of inspired moments, The Geography of Bliss accomplishes a feat few travel books dare and even fewer achieve: to make you happier.

Download or read book Geography Of Nowhere written by James Howard Kunstler and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1994-07-26 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that much of what surrounds Americans is depressing, ugly, and unhealthy; and traces America's evolution from a land of village commons to a man-made landscape that ignores nature and human needs.