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Leiter, M.P., & Maslach, C. (1988). The impact of interpersonal environment onburnout and organizational commitment. Journal of Organizatiorud Behavior,9(4) , 297-308.

Vik, G. N. (2001). Doing more to teach teamwork than telling students to sinkor swim. Business Communication Quarterly, 64(4),112-19.

The Geography of Thought: How Asians andwesterners Think D ifferentiy and WhyRichard E. N isb e tt. N ew York: The Free Press, 2003.263 pages.Reviewed by Aifred N. PageUniversity of Missouri-Kansas CityASSUM PTIONS ABOUT UNIVERSAL VALUES in humancommunication are challenged in Richard Nisbett's The Geographof Thought. Drawing on empirical evidence taken from Asia andthe West, Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan,provides a convincing case that regional differences in cultureimply regional differences in appropriate communication tech-niques. Although starting out as "a lifelong universalist concern-ing the nature of human thought" (p. xiii), Nisbett states that "myresearch has led me to the conviction that two utterly differentapproaches to the world have maintained themselves for thou-sands of years" (p. xx). As a result, this book has implications forsuch matters as framing communication research, developingappropriate classroom discussions, and being confident that stu-dents have actually benefited from what they have been taughtabout communication.


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Nisbett shows how over three billion people, a billion people inthe West and over two billion people in the East, look at theworld quite differently. From the Greeks comes the idea of uniqueindividuals and distinctive attributes and individual goals. Fromthe Chinese comes the idea of harmony and the notion that indi-viduals are primarily members of a group or collective wheredebate and other forms of confrontation are inappropriate.

Chap ter Two, "Th e Social Origins of the M ind," provides ananalysis of the ecological and economic differences betweenGreece and China that Nisbett believes caused the significant cul-tural divergence between the regions in ancient times. Though inlater years, the W est, based on its Greek roots, influenced theEast, it is argued that the Western influence was not nearly as sig-nificant as one might think, as it was filtered through an Easterncultural perception.

Chap ter T hree, "Living Together Vs. Go ing It Alo ne ," is a keychapter for communication instructors. The author challengesAmerican assumptions that most individuals in the world want tohave a distinctive set of attributes, wish to be largely in control oftheir own behavior, are oriented toward personal goals of successand achievement, strive to feel good about themselves, preferequality in personal relationships, and believe the same rulesapply to everyone. Such assumptions also underlie typical Ameri-can trade books on how to use verbal skills to negotiate anythingor to stand up for your rights.

Nisbett provides plenty of linguistic facts about how suchassumptions do not apply in the East, including the fact that inChinese there is no word for individualism, and the closest wordis the word for selfishness. In such a world, debate and questioningare not positive traits. So when American instructors urge theirAsian students to speak up in class in order to be graded on their


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Chapter 4, "'Eyes in the Back of Your Head' or 'Keep the Eyeson the Ball'," deals with how different societies interpret informa-tion based on their social construct. For exatnple, Nisbett sites astudy that asked middle managers which statement was more cor-rect: "(1) A company is a system designed to perform functionsand tasks in an efficient way. People are hired to fulfill those func-tions with the help of machines and other equipment. They arepaid for the tasks they perform." or "(2) A company is a group ofpeople working together. The people have social relations withother people and with the organization. The functioning isdependent on these relations." Ahout 75 percent of Americanschose (1 ); ahout 66 percent of Japanese chose (2); Europeansexhihited roughly a 50-50 split.

Another study cited in the chapter compared the reaction ofAmericans and Chinese to a graph that had a slight upward trendfor several periods. The cognitive processes the Americans usedled the vast majority of them to assume that trend would continueforever. The Chinese tended to assume the trend would level out,based on their holistic cultural background.

The moral of this study and other studies cited in the chapter(for teaching students how to make effective business presenta-tions) is to realize that Asian audiences are more interested andreceptive to analysis ahout group relationships, and Americanaudiences respond m ore to discussions ahout ration al efficienthehavior on the part of the organization and its executives. Fur-thermore, each group may interpret graphs differently.

Chapter Five, "'The Bad Seed' or 'Other Boys Made Him DoIt'," deals with how the press in the West and the East covers sen-sational stories. An examination of how a particularly egregiousaction on the part of an individual was covered by newspapers inChina and the US yielded surprising results. Whether the action


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specific notions in the US of the proper way to teach people tocommunicate as leaders, or the proper way to write effective pressreleases.Chapter Six, "Is the W orld M ade Up of Nouns or Verbs?," pro-vides a historical background and experimental evidence for thetendency for Westerners to classify objects into categories by simi-lar properties and Easterners to classify objects into categories byrelationships. A simple but illustrative example involves showingindividuals pictures of a cow, a chicken, and hay. When asked toput two of the objects together. Westerners tend to group thechicken and cow (as animals), and Easterners group the cow andthe hay (a relationship as the cow eats the h ay) . T he lesson herefor communication teachers is that when we instruct our studentsto logically organize their arguments or salient points for their oralpresentation, paper, or debate, the very way they organize thatinformation may depend on their cultural background. W e mayteach students there is a right way to organize material that in factis only right because either we believe it is so or it is believed tobe so in our culture.

Chapter Seven, '"Ce N'Est Pas Logique' or 'You've Got a PointThere'," deals with the logic of the West versus the emphasis onexperience in the East. The basic thesis deals with the fact thatthe Greeks developed and utilized logic because it was useful inargumentation. Alternatively, in the East, the lack of interest inlogic relates to a distrust of deco ntextualization, making anabstract argument apart from its context. The chapter refers tomany studies demonstrating the point and then goes on to provideevidence that those in the West look for clarity in arguments butthose in the East are more comfortable with exploring contradic-tions. Nisbett relates the Eastern interest in contradictions tothree forces: the constantly changing nature of reality; given thatchange, paradoxes and anom alies must constantly be created; and


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Chapter Eight, "And If the Nature of Thought is Not Every-where the Same?," summarizes a numher of implications for vari-ous academic specialties from the en tire book. T he first implica-tion for those of us interested in communication is that if we onlytest our theories on Westerners, we are quite likely to come towrong conclusions about what we believe are the principles ofcommunication. The second implication is that we need toreassess how we teach co mm unication skills to the inte m atio na lstudents in our classes. A third implication is that the communi-cations skills we impart to our American students may not servethem well when they are making presentations abroad.ConclusionFinishing the book, some readers may conclude that Nisbett'sarguments are interesting but wrong for the modem businessworld, where the English language dominates and the West seemsto be winning the economic contest among nations. Readers mayalso find that Nisbett's analysis doesn't square with their classroomexperience because their classes have had students from the Eastwho have traveled more than others from their country and thusare more worldly. As such, they can leam W estem communica-tion skills usefully just as they have leamed English as a secondlanguage. Nevertheless, Nisbett's book has been very well receivedby his colleagues in psychology ("groundbreaking, a landmarkbook"), and the perceptive reader will find useful insights in everychapter, one that may modify if not dramatically change yourviews on universal communication skills.


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