About twenty years ago, an American psychologist visited my office. His former academic advisor was a famous social psychologist. According to the visitor, his advisor had said to him, “East Asians are a fundamentally different kind of people.” Although I am not sure whether the visitor gave me the advisor’s exact words, it is not surprising that a person who accepts a cultural stereotype at its face value entertains such a view. In the discussion thus far, however, we have seen that such a view is far from reality and could be very dangerous. In this closing, we first summarize the discussion in this book briefly, then call attention to its possible misunderstandings, and finally discuss how to avoid cultural stereotype.
Summing Up
“Japanese collectivism” is the representative image of Japan. But this image is based on arbitrarily chosen instances such as personal experiences and proverbs; it lacks a scientific basis. Systematic empirical studies have not endorsed this image: In social psychology, empirical cross-cultural comparisons have disclosed that the Japanese are no more collectivistic than the Americans who have been considered the most individualistic nation in the world; essentially the same results have been reported by both questionnaire studies and experimental studies. In the economy, empirical studies and economic statistics have disproved the alleged collectivistic economy of Japan. In real life, although it is easy to find collectivistic behaviors of Japanese, it is just as easy to find their individualistic behaviors as well.
The image of “Japanese collectivism” was first created by American dilettante Percival Rowell who was proud of the individuality of Americans. His preconception that the Japanese are opposite to the Americans made him assert that the Japanese lack individuality on the basis of his limited observations in Japan. This opinion was widely accepted by Americans who shared the same individualism ideology with him. Based on this preconception, American anthropologist Ruth Benedict portrayed Japanese culture as a collectivistic culture in her book published during the American occupation of Japan. This book disseminated the notion of “Japanese collectivism” among the Japanese as well. A variety of cognitive biases such as the confirmation bias and illusory correlation served to sustain “Japanese collectivism” as the common view about Japanese culture in both Japan and the USA.
“Japanese collectivism” is a stereotype about a culture. Such a stereotype creates a simple but distorted image of a culture, which deviates from the reality in various ways. It creates an illusion that the alleged essence of a culture is immutable, determining the mind and behavior of its members. In reality, however, the human mind and behavior are greatly affected by natural and social situations, which also affect the formation and modification of a culture. Nevertheless, the cultural stereotype makes people of the target culture appear to be a fundamentally different kind of people to the eyes of the holders of the cultural stereotype. This biased image is apt to become a hotbed of hostility toward the target culture, which tends to be exploited politically and sometimes causes disastrous outcomes.
Common Misunderstandings
Our study of “Japanese collectivism” has been misunderstood in various ways. Although it is infeasible to avoid all possible misunderstandings in advance, it may be worthwhile to comment on a couple of common misunderstandings.
The first misunderstanding: “The Japanese do not behave in collectivistic ways.” We have not denied that Japanese people think and behave in collectivistic ways on many occasions. What we have pointed out is that they think and behave in individualistic ways as well on many other occasions. In principle, this is true for people in any other cultural groups including Americans.
The second misunderstanding: “The Japanese are more individualistic than the Americans.” There is no reliable empirical basis for this assertion. Although it is true that some empirical studies found that Japanese were more individualistic than Americans, some other studies found the opposite. As a whole, the reviewed empirical studies have revealed that Japanese are not substantially different from Americans with regard to individualism and collectivism.
The third misunderstanding: “There is no such thing as culture and cultural difference.” After we first pointed out that empirical cross-cultural comparisons did not support “Japanese collectivism” (Y. Takano & Osaka, Reference Takano and Osaka1997), a Japanese researcher wrote, “Culture exists!” in a mailing list for researchers of culture. I was later accused of denying culture and cultural difference altogether. It is hard to realize how the denial of culture and cultural difference is concluded from the finding that “Japanese collectivism” was not endorsed by the empirical data. Of course, culture exists. Nobody would deny the existence of language, which is a central component of culture. Nobody would deny the cultural difference that the Japanese language is different from English. It is important to realize, however, that culture is not a fixed entity and that culture is not a primary determinant of human mind and behavior in most cases.
These remarks must be unnecessary for careful readers of this book.
To Avoid Cultural Stereotype
The present discussion of “Japanese collectivism” suggests two basic strategies to avoid cultural stereotype: obtaining accurate factual knowledge and recognizing the importance of situation.
First, accurate knowledge. At the end of Chapter 3, we discussed the case of a researcher who reconfirmed “Japanese collectivism” by recalling karoshi (death from overwork) to dismiss the findings of the cross-cultural studies in psychology altogether. This convincingness of karoshi is based on the impression created by the Japanese mass media, which has been discussing karoshi as a symbol of “Japanese collectivism.” Although karoshi seems to fit in well with “Japanese collectivism,” we may fall into the trap of the confirmation bias (i.e., the bias to search for supporting evidence alone) if we rely solely on the plausibility of the karoshi arguments. If karoshi is peculiar to Japan, the working time of Japanese must be exceptionally long. Nowadays, the relevant statistics can often be found easily by simply searching the internet. OECD statistics show that working time is not longer for Japanese than for Americans. A further internet search leads to the reports that karoshi is found in Western countries as well (see Chapter 3). It also reveals that the frequency of karoshi has never been compared between Japan and Western countries based on reliable statistics. The plausibility of the karoshi arguments depends entirely on the preconception, “Japanese collectivism.” It follows that karoshi has no real power to overthrow the entire empirical studies on “Japanese collectivism.”
In the case of karoshi, a set of statistics is sufficient to cast doubt on its validity as evidence of “Japanese collectivism.” In some other cases, however, a pile of empirical studies is needed to judge whether a statement about a culture is valid or not. As seen in Chapter 2, multiple studies may well report results that contradict one another. A conclusion can be derived with some confidence only when multiple studies show a clear pattern of results as seen in Chapter 2. Otherwise, it is wise to suspend judgment.
Second, the importance of situation. When a certain behavioral tendency is confirmed by relevant statistics or empirical studies, the key to avoiding cultural stereotype is situation. As seen in Chapter 6, human behavior is often greatly affected by situation. Therefore, it is helpful to intentionally search for a situational factor (e.g., the presence of an outside threat) that may have produced the observed behavior (e.g., collectivistic behavior during wartime) before attributing it to an intrinsic property of a culture (e.g., collectivism).
Human beings show exceptional flexibility in changing behavior according to changing situation (see Chapter 6). This flexibility is made possible by their intellectual activity. At a theoretical level, therefore, it is critical to elucidate how human intellectual activity works in producing human behavior. The principal determinants of human behavior are situation, culture, and heredity. Intellectual activity plays a central role in interpreting a given situation and selecting or devising an adaptive behavior, as well as in creating and modifying a culture. Intellectual activity has its own characteristics (e.g., as shown in cognitive psychology) and individual difference (e.g., as shown by psychometric studies of intelligence). To understand culture in more realistic ways avoiding cultural stereotype, therefore, it is critical to understand how intellectual activity works while interacting with situation, culture, and heredity.
