Scientist Claims Japanese & Westerners See Things Differently

[Iraira]

I guess this is what they mean by PhD: Piled Higher and Deeper.

You really need to lay out your credentials
B.S.: Bull Shit
M.S.: More Shit
PhD.: Piled Higher and Deeper, or "Pimpin' Hos Degree" from the award-winning HBO documentary "Pimps Up, Hos Down". I know I got that video here somewhere.

[nottu]

[kusai Jijii]

Really - unfortnately - though we jest - the problem is that a PhD is not so much an intellectual achievement as much as it is a matter of endurance within the institution we call higher education.

I'd say there is a lot of truth in that comment.

[Iraira]

Really - unfortnately - though we jest - the problem is that a PhD is not so much an intellectual achievement as much as it is a matter of endurance within the institution we call higher education.

My venture through the ivory tower wasn't that difficult, except for the bitching of the grad students who weren't well-funded. I did have one bipolar prof on my comittee and I quickly figured out to schedule any meetings, advancement to candidacy exams, etc, until after lunch, when he would take his lithium.

[Mulboyne]

[amdg]

but I was deeply puzzled by one fact: Why was it that not a single Japanese name could be found in psychology textbooks

That’s all I had to read. Although I did read the rest of the linked article, I didn’t really need to read any more than this sentence.

He’s reading his textbooks and journals etc, but at the same time he’s cataloging the nationality of the authors. That could be the sign of a serious student, but in his case not so much because he’s not cataloging in any systematic way, he’s just cataloging Japanese authors versus everyone else on the planet. This tells us much more about him as a person and his own bias, than it does about the current state of academia in psychology. As a psychologist he should be alive to this little tell-tale personality quirk of his, but, of course, he’s just oblivious.

He seems to be making a mistake that a lot of Japanese people make – believing that what he thinks and does is what all Japanese people think and do. And believing that what some ‘westerners’ think and do is representative of what all westerners think and do.

For me, I consider thinking out loud to be a fucking liability. But I know plenty of Japanese people who do it. He doesn’t do it, so he assumes that ‘Japanese’ people don’t do it. He’s not a serious academic.

[ramchop]

Has this been posted on FG yet?:
http://www.myseveralworlds.com/2007/11/23/icons-for-understanding-eastern-and-western-culture-part-iii/

I think it may apply more to China/Vietnam/etc than to Japan vs the West. But I still think it's a nice way of summing up the stereotypes.