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Test : Do you think like an Asian?

East West

On Monday night’s episode of NTV’s　”World Great TV,” excerpts were shown from a South Korean program about the differences between Asian and Western thought. It was presented in the form of several questions that supposedly receive very different answers when asked in “the East” (China, Korea, Japan) and “the West” (North America/the U.K.).

Here are the four questions. After answering them, please click the “read more” and see the bottom half of this post for results on whether your answers were “Asian” or “Western.”

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Question #1: Which group does this flower belong to?

Test 1 - Which group does the flower belong to?

Does this flower belong in group A or group B?

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Question #2: Does the boy in the center of these pictures look happy?

Question 2: Does he look happy?

Does the boy in the center of these pictures look happy?

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Question #3: Look at the above items. Pick the two that belong together.

Pick two of the items in this picture.

Look at the above items. Pick the two that belong together.

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Question #4: Watch this video clip. Why did the balloon move?

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The quiz is over! Now go read the rest of the post for analysis of the results!

Results
Here are the results for each question. [You can skip the video clips if you don't speak Japanese.]

Question #1: If you answered group A, you think like an Asian! Most Asians interviewed picked group A, while most Westerners picked group B. Westerners wanted all of the flowers in a group to have a common feature (in this case, the stem).

Question #2: If you picked “he only looks happy in picture #1,” you think like an Asian! Most Asians interviewed picked that answer, while most Westerners picked the “he looks happy in both pictures” option. According to an expert, this is because Asians actually spend more time examining the background of images, while Westerners only focus on the major point of interest.

Question #3: If you thought the monkey and the banana went together, you think like an Asian! Most Asians interviewed picked that option, while most Westerners picked the monkey and the panda. Asians framed it as “the monkey likes bananas.” Westerners, who seek to analyze things, selected their answer based on categories (Animal / non-Animal).

Question #4: If you thought the balloon was moved by the wind, you think like an Asian! In this case, it was a survey of Chinese and North Americans. The North Americans focused on the balloon, believing that air was coming out of it. Chinese, on the other hand, thought that an external force was moving it.

The program speculates that much of this can be explained by a major difference between Western and Eastern philosophy. In Ancient Greek thinking, atoms exist in a void. Ancient Chinese thinking believed that there was no empty space or void between objects: an energy flow (Qi) exists between every thing.

My thoughts on this test: There are some very obvious issues with the information being presented on this show. As I don’t want to write a very long rant about this, here are some complaints in bullet point format.

Every single Westerner shown answering clips in the videos was white. Did the producers of this show intentionally not survey people who belonged to other races?
I can’t help but laugh at the choice of pictures for Question #2. They have set it up so that Westerners (white people) will select an answer that sends a not-so-subtle message about how they ignore the unhappiness of minorities.
If you listen to the English audio of one of the white people answering Question #2, it is quite obvious that she has noticed the faces in the background of the second picture are not happy. She seeks confirmation the question is only being asked about the same person, who is smiling in both pictures.
No information was provided about the methods they used to conduct these surveys. The few that had university professors directly discussing results may have been based on credible studies, while others may be pure bullshit. Since I didn’t answer every question in a “Western” manner, I am a bit skeptical (-have I been corrupted by illogical Eastern thinking?!-).

What did you think of the conclusions drawn by the "East and West" documentary?

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78 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - August 26, 2009 at 9:55 am

Categories: General Japan Tags: asian, bullshit, personality test, western

Kevin

Race based surveys are absolute nonsense. There may be cultural factors involved with selecting this answer or that answer, but there are no differences between races.

This is actually a problem in the medical field where doctors still make decisions based on racial factors instead of socioeconomic ones.
Why Racial Profiling Persists in Medical Research

Supercoolmanchu

Surveys perhaps.

However it’s undeniable there are some distinct and verifiable biomedical and genetic differences between races of people as far as physiology is concerned, in spite of socioeconomics. Sickle Cell distinctly prevalent among blacks, Niemann-Pick and Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews, are just a couple of examples. Cancer prevalence and morbidity, as well as majority of STDs are another story — clearly there are sociocultural factors involved. Don’t allow yourself to be “biased” yourself against the medical field as a whole. A lot of marvelous things have come from it.

“If you come up with a “scientific” theory, and do an experiment, and it confirms every single thing you postulated, it’s probably a good sign that your survey/experiment is biased.”

You pretty much just outlined the Scientific Method — the way every theory in history was ever presented and accepted by science.

superior dude

–genetic differences between races of people as far as physiology is concerned, in spite of socioeconomics–

lol, you just outed yourself being a racist. aside that you are like that korean TV wich have no idea what “ASIAN” means. gosh this all reminds me about Hitlers bullshit when he declarated blond people being the only eurasian population.

LB

Just because the Nazis got it wrong when they declared Germans were genetically superior does not mean that there are not subtle genetic differences between different ethnic groups. Thank you for outing yourself as an idiot via Godwin’s Law and via playing the PC “racist” card.
Supercoolmanchu

Thanks LB. Superior dude obviously hasn’t opened a Biology book before. As a native Japanese being raised in the U.S., I hadn’t realized just how racist I have become. Four years of med school has apparently made me a Nazi.
http://technotaku.com/ Xacur

In the answers you can only notice that Western had more time to answer and Japanses answered only the first thing that came to mind, maybe without time to analyze.
It’s tricky.
Even in the last one, if you don’t have enough time you will say just the wind, but if you have a pair more seconds you will obviously say it’s wind and helium.

leitmotiv

There is a lot of muddled understanding of genetics being passed around here. There are no genetic markers for any particular race. Plenty of non-blacks also present sickle-cell, Tay-Sachs can and does arise outside of Ashkenazi communities, etc. Keep this in mind when making lay-claims to “differences” or “absence of differences”. Although it has been attempted (in Japan of course), there is not a test that can clearly determine ethnicity from a DNA sample.

fyi

http://racialreality.blogspot.com/2007/01/biologists-take-definitive-stance-in.html

“…the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level.”

cacarr

“..there are no differences between races”

Sure there are; typical body morphology, vary degrees of susceptibility to different diseases, lactose tolerance, etc…
hidflect

Westerners always assume the issue is race. The issue here is culture.

LB

DINGDINGDING! We have a winner!
http://www.squidoo.com/Ryoma-Sakamoto Eric

Yeah, I was surprised to see everyone talking about race here in the comments section. I think the problem is with the title of this post which asks whether you think like an “Asian” while the T.V. program is examining differences between Western and “Eastern” ways of thinking. In America at least, people are very much conditioned to think that “Asian” refers to a race. Tiger Woods made up the word “Cablasian” by combining three of the options to describe one’s race that appear on so many forms in the United States.

They’re not talking about race here, they’re talking about culture. That being said, this program is a typical example of the blatant stereotyping that goes on in both Korea and Japan.

AA

Kevin,

I think the exercize in analysis here is also represented in exactly what you just said – that your opinion of this analysis is “nonsense” = when it clear may not be! Know what I mean?

There are no differences in the races? How do you mean? We are finding out more and more that there are! In fact, there is a difference between a person with curly hair and straight hair! We’re finding that blonde haired people do think or feel quite differently to people with brown hair! So and so forth.

If we’re all the same – then the world wouldn’t be what it is as you see today, or any other day in history, when people of DIFFERENT cultures and races fight and kill or having gone to war.

Kevin, you need to wake up, my friend, and step out of your shell of a home you call home or town or whatever – and go see the other side of the planet = cos people are NOT the same. We can’t generalize like that.

Kevin

So post links backing up your statements. I personally think you’re confusing culture and race, but I suppose you’re free to your opinion.

And your definition of race is clearly off base. Last time I checked, physical features such as curly hair, straight hair, blond hair, etc. can vary within races as well. Not to mention that so-called whites, blacks, Asians, etc. are a mixture of varying genetic backgrounds.

As some people have pointed out above, there seem to be medical ailments affecting certain swabs of racial groups, but in terms of this Korean survey, racial factors are clearly superseded by cultural factors, and most likely localized environmental factors are even more important. If not, why were the responses by non-Asian people on this blog so similar to Asian responses?

Jarvik7

Apparently I think in a completely Asian manner. Maybe I can use this to get a PR card.
Level3

Personality/intelligence tests are inherently biased to the level of intellignce and/or prejudice of their creators.

Can’t trust an IQ test handing out ratings of 130 or 160 if the dude who wrote the test has a 100 IQ.

In the same way, a race-based personality test edveloped by Asians seeking to prove Asians are unique..well, SURPRISE! it “proves” Asaians are unique!

All you have to do is make sure the questions take slightly diferent forms in each language to yield the desired results.
i.e. “belong together” (monkey + banana, often found together) rather than “are similar” or “are the same type of thing” (monkey + panda, being animals)

This is probably done by making sure the people translating the test have the “correct” answer for the target language/culture, and testing out the wording until most people start answering “correctly”.

Final point. If you come up with a “scientific” theory, and do an experiment, and it confirms every single thing you postulated, it’s probably a good sign that your survey/experiment is biased.
But then, sociology isn’t really “science” is it?
me

lol.
http://negativecool.blogspot.com/ Rob

First time poster, moderate time lurker.

Just wanted to say, that I love this site,

Recently though, there has been a lot of fishing for negative feedback / facilitating racial tensions. It would be most appreciated if things could be presented more objectively like they were before, rather than ending in a facepalm after reading things like all 4 of the bullet points at the end.

#3 especially, the surveyor did the correct thing by not answering that question in the English audio, for that would have disassembled the entire meaning of the question / survey.

Hypothetical example,

Man: The panda and the monkey match because their animals, right?
Surveyor: That’s only true if you think like a Westerner
Man: Oh, then I guess they all could work

There goes all of the data.

LB

#2 is the one I found interesting, as it can be independently and objectively verified by tracking eye movements. But you would need a sample population that included (for example) ethnic Asians who were born and raised in the US or Europe to get a good feel for how much, if at all, culture feeds into how one looks at a picture.

#4 seems to be overthinking the results with the whole Greek “void” vs. Chinese “qi” idea. The wind is blowing, as can be seen from the clouds in the background. And balloons with holes in them do not move like that. If the balloon had a leak big enough to cause it to move that quickly, it would be obvious it was getting a “kick” and would also be shrinking.
Supercoolmanchu

“Recently though, there has been a lot of fishing for negative feedback / facilitating racial tensions. It would be most appreciated if things could be presented more objectively like they were before, rather than ending in a facepalm after reading things like all 4 of the bullet points at the end.”

I couldn’t agree more — I’ve been noticing the same thing. Sometimes it’s getting to be more like the “Gaijin” version of AngryAsianMan.com. I wish it would leave all that nonesense to Mr.Debito instead.

Still love the site — entertaining nonetheless.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Number 1 is showing a huge number of Asians on your site! I thought that one was naff as I never even noticed the stalk until I saw the answers.

In #4, if air was coming out the balloon would be moving far more violently and randomly! Oh, and didn’t the idea of the Aether exist since Greek times?

For #2, I’ll get Mister Debito on the case.
Shelly

#2 was weird. I focused only on the center guy at first, thinking he looked creepy in the first and kinda happy in the second. But I realized they were the same so I looked at the background. I understood then that he was a sadistic and smug imperialist American male who can only be happy when those of other cultures and gender are unhappy, and chose that option.

For other three, I thought like an Asian, then a Westerner, then evidently like an alien because my answer wasn’t even analyzed. It’s because I’m a woman, isn’t it?

/is kidding…

somegirl

must be because of hte woman factor, I got half and half on al the answers, so I either am both or neither and just in my own little philosphical world. . .

The Overthinker

I got 50% as well, and am most definitely male. I can prove it too, if you’ll let me reach into my pants and whip out my

alien registration card.

Juju

I definitely have a problem with the second “test”. I don’t know about the Korean guy (don’t speak Korean), but I think I correctly heard 『幸せですか？』 in Japanese and “Does he look happy?” in English. While they look similar, the two questions do not give me the same feeling. The English one is much more image-oriented, while the Japanese one could be felt in a much deeper sense (like “Do you think this guy is happy in his life?”).

As for the third, I honestly wanted to pick two pairs ^^

LB

I don’t know – maybe I’ve been here too long but the center guy in #2 does not “look happy” or 幸せ in both of the pictures. He looks happy in the first one, and looks embarrassed/worried in the second – like “I am in such deep shit…”

The Overthinker

Yup, you are officially Asian. That is how I would read the “Asian” response.
helical

I could see how that was supposed to be the intended way to answer the problem, but I’m going to have to blame my barbaric competitive Western upbringing for immediately imagining the guy winning at a game of Monopoly and gloating to the rest of the losers.

The Overthinker

With (2), it was obvious what the answer was “supposed” to be to think like an Asian, but the whole thing is pretty shonky. As LB and Ken have pointed out, the balloon was obviously being blown by the wind.
Sergeant at Arms Burdock

“I can’t help but laugh at the choice of pictures for Question #2. They have set it up so that Westerners (white people) will select an answer that sends a not-so-subtle message about how they ignore the unhappiness of minorities.”

I’m a Westerner and I’m black.
MikeGuest

As others have said, quizzes like this confirm what one already wants to believe about East vs. West. I could make up alleged ‘differences in thinking’ principles to argue the exact opposite of the supposed ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ answers.

Two comments though- I thought it was interesting how the West is viewed as ‘analytical’ but here you had a number of Asians analyzing the questions and results and offering philosophically analytical justifications for them.

The analysis of no. 2 is invalid. It says specifically, “the boy in the center of the pictures”, not “the overall atmosphere of each picture”. Anyone who answered that background in the picture was an unhappy one didn’t understand, hear the question correctly, or is relevance-challenged (a quality that spans both East and West).

The Overthinker

No, I don’t agree with that Mike. As LB noted, it could be a smile of embarrassment. Which I think is the whole point.

Mike Guest

Sorry, I don’t follow.

If it’s a smile of embarrassment presumably that could be applied to the first picture as well. The boy in the center, who we are told to focus on, is making the same face in both pictures. It could be a grimace of pain, or perhaps he’s showing a dentist his teeth, maybe he’s singing about the glory of Dokdo for all we know, but any of these would still have to hold true for both pictures.

The Overthinker

The way I see it, since everyone is happy in the first pic, the boy is also happy. The second pic looks like everyone is scowling at him, and he is smiling from embarrassment. In other words, while we are asked if the boy is happy, the entire context is based on the reactions of those around him. The fact that the smile itself is identical is the point. It’s aimed at making the point it tries to make with the “Asian” vs “European” answer: that the situation around you is more important to Asians.
Buster

You obviously never silently farted in a crowded room and happily headed for the exit!
Mike Guest

Actually OT, like an Asian allegedly does, I scanned the background of the second picture but there were not enough clues to make me think anything else. Maybe the others are scowling because he pulled a malicious prank at their expense- but he’s still happy. Maybe he’s mugging too much for the camera and his showboatng is pissing off the others, but he’s still happy. Maybe he just won a game or contest and the others are unhappy about losing, but he’s still happy.

In other words scanning the surrounding context doesn’t give us enough clues to allow us to vary from the default choice. One can see the other kids perfectly well, have it clerly register that all is not well in that setting and still claim the boy in question is happy. Claiming that he looks happy does not mean that one did not consider the surrounding context. The ‘analysis’ that Westerners must have failed to notice the setting is itself an unfounded prejudice- the whole thing is set up to confirm what people already believe or want to believe.

BTW- My wife (J) answered 3 out of 4 as a Westerner is supposed to, whereas I was 2 and 2.
The Overthinker

“Claiming that he looks happy does not mean that one did not consider the surrounding context.”

But in the even wider context, of contrasting Asian and Western thinking, this is the answer they are fishing for, and for the reasons I noted above.

DC

How about:

Do you think there are fundamental differences in the thought processes of different races?

A: Yes
B: No

Analysis:
If you answered “A: Yes” you have probably been raised within a xenophobic culture such as Japan’s.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

If you answered ‘If you answered “A: Yes” you have probably been raised within a xenophobic culture such as Japan’s.’ you have probably spent too much time reading Japan Today.
helical

If you answered “B: No” you have probably been raised within a hyper-PC colorblind culture such as the United States’.

Really, it cuts both ways.
Last time I checked I don’t think there was any definitive proof that thought processes are absolutely the same for all races of people. There are certainly physiological and metabolic variations. Then cognitive variations seems within the realm of possibility too, no?

DC

Not beyond the realms of possibility, but totally insignificant compared to the dominant role of culture in shaping the way people think.

helical

Touché.

weirdo

I think like an インター。
weirdo

“Every single Westerner shown answering clips in the videos was white. Did the producers of this show intentionally not survey people who belonged to other races?”

It’s not exactly hard to find all white people in Eastcoast US or the UK, and minorities could belong to other cultures (for example, latino-americans, asian-americans are often bi-cultural and so not entirely “western”).

“They have set it up so that Westerners (white people) will select an answer that sends a not-so-subtle message about how they ignore the unhappiness of minorities.”

Happi-ess/unhappiness of minorities is a non-issue in daily Japanese thinking. From an asian (conforming society) poing of view, it looks like the people in the back don’t like/view negatively the person in front, in which case the nuance of the word 幸せ which implies that overall happiness (being liked by society) is not fulfilled and therefore he looks lonely/pitiful ex.「みんなに嫌われてかわいそう」, also being 幸せ doesn’t always neccessarily mean the person himself/herself looks happy, rather their circumstance ex.「みんなに愛されて幸せだね」. From a western point of view the wording of “Is he happy” implies the background doesn’t really matter.

weirdo

tl;dr – the show is using social differences and language to get the answers they want (knowing or not, I dunno, maybe they just suck at english). They’re not making a slight against whites for not caring about minorities (which is mostly a western stereotype), or trying to make it a white vs asians thing. It’s western society vs Eastern society, which is a valid comparison. Individualism vs Community.
http://www.japanprobe.com James

Happi-ess/unhappiness of minorities is a non-issue in daily Japanese thinking.

That may be so, but this is a Korean TV show being translated into Japanese. The Korean director made an interesting choice in putting a white male in the center and women and other races in the background.

I don’t think the content of the documentary says much of anything about Japanese concerns – other than perhaps an openness to the idea that Easterners and Westerners have fundamentally different ways of thinking about things.

As juju noted in another comment, there is also a difference in the question being asked to Japanese and English speakers. Japanese people are asked if “真ん中の人は幸せですか？” (Is the person in the middle happy?) , while the English speakers are being asked “Is this person look happy?”

When I originally answered the question, I noticed the unhappy looks of the other people. However, since the question was about whether or not he looks happy, the expressions on the faces of other people should be irrelevant. If somebody asked, “Is this person happy?”, it might leave the door open for more interpretation of the image. Either way, I don’t buy the suggestion that this is a good example of how Westerners only focus on the central point of interest in a picture and essentially ignore the background. It could be, as you wrote, more of an expression of the importance of group harmony.

weirdo

“That may be so, but this is a Korean TV show being translated into Japanese.”
I’ve been told from my korean friends that social attitudes towards minorities is pretty much identical between Japan and Korea, the extent may vary but the non-importance of minorities in both societies seems to be shared. Unless I was given misinformation.

“The Korean director made an interesting choice in putting a white male in the center and women and other races in the background. ”
There are also two whites in the back. If it was something against minorities, why would the white male in the front also ignore/not care about fellow white people?

“Japanese people are asked if “真ん中の人は幸せですか？” (Is the person in the middle happy?) , while the English speakers are being asked “Is this person look happy?” ”
However, the koreans are asked 「この人は幸せに見えますか？」 the same question as English speakers. Your point is really discounting anything but the japanese result.

“When I originally answered the question, I noticed the unhappy looks of the other people. However, since the question was about whether or not he looks happy, the expressions on the faces of other people should be irrelevant. If somebody asked, “Is this person happy?”, it might leave the door open for more interpretation of the image”

AS I said, the japanese question was the only one which excluded the “look part”, which seems to be more of just bad understanding of the language/mistake, as korea was given the same question as the english speakers.

weirdo

Your answer is only dicrediting the japanese result*

ugh…I need to sleep

Puri

To addition to all comments above, I dislike how they generalize Asians. I assume most researches cited here (if they are real) were conducted with Chinese/Japanese. How about Indian or Thai, for example?
Canadian

I downloaded this documentary and saw it with my Korean friend as he was the only one who can translate this raw video file. This documentary isn’t race-based surveys. The original Korean version of introduction officially emphasizes that it concerns about cultural differences, not racial differences.

Then come to think about it, there has been similar documentaries addressing a lot of men vs. women differences for decades around the world.

Overall, it’s an interesting show, especially for ever-growing number of Asians living in the Western world.
http://dimesfornickels.wordpress.com/ William George

He’s happy in both pictures because he’s frickin smiling in both of them. The crowd in the background be damned!
pixel_bomber

Question #2: If you picked “he only looks happy in picture #1,” you think like an Asian! Most Asians interviewed picked that answer, while most Westerners picked the “he looks happy in both pictures” option. According to an expert, this is because Asians actually spend more time examining the background of images, while Westerners only focus on the major point of interest.

Experts? According to the actual question Asians can’t follow instructions. You are supposed to look at the guy in the center. The guy in the center is identical in both images so if you say he looks happy in only one then Asians must have trouble staying focused on simple tasks.

pixel_bomber

Before I get flamed or banned I should point out that was sarcasm, since this test is a load of bollocks.

angryagain

Absolutely fucking pathetic….

Going by this ‘test’ Asian thinking is about comparing yourself to ‘the West’. Would the racists who created this come clean and just say “asian thinking versus honky thinking”. In my country no one would ever have the nerve to broadcast a racial comparisons program. This is a form of racial profiling made up by a bunch of weak bastards.

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=12140 東洋人

“Going by this ‘test’ Asian thinking is about comparing yourself to ‘the West’. Would the racists who created this come clean and just say “asian thinking versus honky thinking”. In my country no one would ever have the nerve to broadcast a racial comparisons program. This is a form of racial profiling made up by a bunch of weak bastards.”

This is not even a racial comparison program, they were just doing a documentary which compared cultures and mentalities between two distintive regions in the world and a good way to acknowledge some bigot gaijins not to force their cultures and thoughts into others such as the onsen suing guy.

Level3

Of course these ubiquitous tests and claims of the “unique Japanese way” of thinking are self-fulfulling prophecies.

Japanese people are told again and again that THIS is how Japanese people think, and that Japanese thinking is so unique and good and social-oriented. The media reinforces it on stupid shows like these. Best-selling books say it. Basic proverbs say it. Everyone says it. So everyone believes it and make sure to answer quesiotns “properly” in the “Japanese way” no matter what they actually think or see.

Then more TV shows come up with these surveys and say “SEE!IT’S TRUE!!!”
with the not-so-subtle subtext “and don’t you forget it, since you don’t want to act like an anti-social-deviant gaijin barbarian, do you?!”

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Level3, as has been said before, it was a Korean program being rebroadcast in Japan, looking at Koreans, Chinese and Japanese versus USians, Canadians and British.

http://www.twitter.com/christaran Karisu

Man, what a ridiculous test.

#1. That one is the least controversial/interesting to talk about. I went with 1 based on the flower petal patterns.

#2. This one is truly ridiculous. First of all, the smiling guy is of course the same in both, which is what I first noticed and was about to just click the first answer (Yes, he looks happy in both pictures), but then I decided to look at the background people.

Now I know what they were going for with the changes in the background people, and clearly he comes off as more sinister in the bottom pic based on the context of the picture. However, even if he was being cruel to someone, how does that suddenly make him not happy? I’ve know quote a few people who found the misery of others to give them happiness (don’t give me that “true happiness” line. Happiness is happiness). So, in the end I still went with the first answer. He does look happy in both pics, just for very different reasons.

#3. I have a hard time believing that westerns didn’t go more with 3 and 2. The instant I saw that image I thought “monkey and banana, of course!” I don’t know any westerners that wouldn’t immediately think that. Sure, the monkey and panda are both mammals (or animals if you want to go super generic), but I don’t necessarily instantly think “oh, monkey and panda go together!”

#4. I mean this one is just stupid. Both the “western” and “Asian” answers to this one is bad. Admittedly the Asian one makes more sense, as it’s half right. But once again, I can’t actually imagine most westerners picking the air being released answer.

Being as this is the only question with a only one possible right answer, the fact that more people ine the survey didn’t pick “Contains Helium and blown by the wind” is quite scary.

Thank god most people on this site were more intelligent.

The Overthinker

“Monkey and banana” is a cliche found in kiddy cartoons. “Monkey and panda” requires knowledge of biology. Ergo, the better answer.

Buster

Please? With the question “belong together” a somehow “possessive” relationship between the two subjects is implied which is only giving by Monkey + Banana. If the question was, “which of these are similar/order by categories, etc.” the animal pairing would make more sense.
LB

So if you were shown pictures of silica sand, a drinking glass, and water, and asked which two went together, your answer would be?

Just curious.

The Overthinker

I would definitely consider silica and glass the better answer. I would be impressed by anyone who would answer that.
LB

I was hoping you’d say glass and water, but not because you put water into the glass but because both water and glass are liquids (although of vastly different viscosity).
The Overthinker

Actually glass is not a liquid.
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html
or
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/Glass/glass.html
and even
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#Physics_of_glass
which has a nice summation.

Yes, I too once thought, based on what I had heard, that it was a liquid, but found out recently that it is what is called an “amorphous solid.”
LB

I stand corrected. Thanks for the links.

yawn

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why
http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Thought-Asians-Westerners-Differently/dp/0743255356/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251307484&sr=8-11

Can Asians Think? Understanding the Divide Between East and West
http://www.amazon.com/Asians-Think-Understanding-Divide-Between/dp/158642033X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251307484&sr=8-1
Cliff

I guess I think like both which is kinda funny since I’ve never been oversees and I’m african-american
http://fukuokadreaming.wordpress.com crew

Hmmm I scored the first two as western and the second 2 as eastern, so I guess it confirms the lost cultural identify of my nation, the Philippines!
Tian Men Pai

Go read up on Cross Cultural Psychology.
Tonnes of stuff documenting difference in cognitive process between people socialised in Asian societies and Western ones.
And yeah, the IQ gap between Asians and Westerners is real.

mike3

However, I tend to think this has much more to do with culture, than with genetics. If genetics is involved, it is not the major contributor.

Oh yeah, and I am skeptical of how well IQ tests can measure *genetic* intelligence.

niknak

so… according to the results, my brain is Asian?
this survey is pure BS the balloon one especially irks me. The balloon was moving because it is filled with helium gas which happens to be less dense than air. it has nothing to do with air escaping, and even if there was no wind the balloon would still move. rawr.
Obtuse

Taking part in this would only prove that I’m somehow, somewhere not entirely sure of being myself.

Fuck tests!
domine

this is just essentialist bullgogi. people are people. people communicate differently but we are all the same.
Gojira

Rather than protesting like all the cool hippies I’m just going to take this test, record my progress and let that speak for itself.

With #1, my first instinct was towards group B because of the stems. This was the only part where my answer agreed with the explanation.

For #2, I decided they were both happy. However I think that my instinct was not so much “western” as “honest.” I cannot fake a smile to save my life. If I were smiling in a group of frowning people I would definitely have had a reason. Perhaps the poll insinuates that the eastern tendency is to smile even when you’re unhappy?

#3 I went with the monkey+banana pair. My tendency was simply towards the thing that I could visualize easiest: a monkey eating a banana. I could not visualize a monkey and a panda together, and definitely not a panda eating a banana. Now if they had replaced the panda with, say, a chimpanzee, I might have gone with the two animals.

#4 I chose the wind. Like #2, I don’t think this choice was so “eastern” as it was “observant” unless they mean to say easterners are more observant than westerners. Ignoring the fact it’s an obvious computer mock-up, the clouds were moving rapidly, so it just seemed logical to me that the wind would have been blowing.
http://koreabeat.com Korea Beat

“The Geography of Thought” is a good book on this topic, and discusses many similar studies. I went into it as skeptical as the OP, and like domine thought it was too essentialist, but by the time I got to the last page I believed there is quite a bit to it.
Bossy

TV filler that’s all it is. I don’t think it meant anything just filling up time space. Sure they got a lot of ratings for the controversy.
mike3

I got Asian on all 4 questions even though I’m not… geez…

I thought this peculiar: “I can’t help but laugh at the choice of pictures for Question #2. They have set it up so that Westerners (white people) will select an answer that sends a not-so-subtle message about how they ignore the unhappiness of minorities.” I didn’t see that at all. Heck, I didn’t even really notice that they were different “minority” races until it was pointed out. I just thought, gee, they don’t look happy. I didn’t see them as “race XYZ”, I just saw them as “People” that didn’t look happy. If only more people were able to gloss over race like that and not see it as any more or less exceptional than, say, the color of their eyes, I think the world would be better off.

There is only One Humanity, diverse it may be, but ONE nonetheless.
Sunnie

This test is not convincing…

I’m Korean, born and grew up in Korea for 24 years, but all of my answers are

characterized as “western” in this test…

HUM… it’s quite reckless to generalize people’s thoughts you know…

Test : Do you think like an Asian?

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