Posted by zazenduck on May 23, 2006, at 17:36:27
In reply to National differences » Estella, posted by Declan on May 20, 2006, at 15:12:53
Interesting article.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=105&ObjectID=10350312
Survey shows national stereotypes lack substance
15.10.05
By Claire Harvey
The English see themselves as repressed emotional bricks, Canadians think their average person is extraordinarily nice, Italians believe themselves to be fiery and passionate - but they're all completely wrong.Every nation on earth has a firm stereotype of the "typical" local, but a major international study shows that stereotypes bear little, if any, resemblance to reality.
Character traits around the world are far more similar than we would like to believe - Canadians and Americans are pretty much alike, as are Australians, Kiwis and Brits.
The findings are prompting researchers to ask why we are so determined to create artificial concepts about ourselves. Are we desperate to belong to a distinctive national identity, are we searching for perfection, or just too lazy to assess individuals on their merits?
The research indicates that people should not trust their own judgments concerning stereotypes.
"Everybody finds it very easy to come up with stereotypic notions - it's very natural to the human way of thinking, but it's full of errors and therefore it's very dangerous," says psychologist Dr Robert McCrae, of the United States National Institute on Ageing, who published his findings in the international journal Science.
"It's striking to me that we asked nearly 4000 people around the world to make these ratings of stereotypes, and nobody had any trouble doing that. We need to remind ourselves when we're dealing with different nationalities or age groups or sexes that our ideas are something we should take with a lot of suspicion."
McCrae and Dr Antonio Terracciano asked researchers worldwide to investigate the "national stereotypes" of 49 cultures by asking participants to describe a "typical person" from their own culture, and to describe people they knew personally, whether they liked them or not.
As a control question, they asked the participants to describe their idea of a typical American.
The researchers matched those results with the findings of surveys in which participants were asked to describe their own personality traits.
The results were clear: in nearly every nation there was a strongly held, well-defined - and completely inaccurate - idea of what the "typical person" was like.
For example, says McCrae, you would think that "if you averaged the scores of a bunch of Canadians they ought to be nice on average, because that's what Canadians think they are".
Wrong. Canadians rated about the same as Americans, even though the Canadians described the "typical Canadian" as much nicer than their notion of the typical "arrogant" American.
The survey showed up a fascinating list of misconceptions. Indonesians and Japanese thought they were very neurotic, but actually rated in the middle of the 49 cultures. Australians thought they were very laid-back, but proved only slightly less neurotic than most people in the world.
Indians thought they were very open, but in fact were less so than people in most countries. Chinese people described themselves as secretive, but turned out to be reasonably open.
> People are patriotic in various ways. Some people aren't patriotic. Anyway I see the American people as patriotic in a way that is quite different to how Australians, for example, are. Australians are not patriotic like that. Winston Churchill remarked of Menzies that 'he leads a country he hates'. There are things you could say about Australia I would find offensive...I can't think of any offhand. And somehow, as an Australian, I find it bad form (British influence!) to have *public* feelings about my country. I do think the American people are temperamentally unsuited to being at the centre of whatever they are at the centre of. And the national differences are the big ones here. I realise this belongs on Politics, but since I read it here here it goes.
> Declan
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