How Culture Affects Our Perception In The Face Of Death

By Tim | Thursday, May 26, 2011 | 10 Comments

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Like anything else, it turns out the way we respond to our mortality is influenced by our culture. A new study in Psychological Science reveals the differences between European Americans and Asian Americans in the way they react to their own mortality. The study came to the conclusion that European Americans tend to get worried and try to protect their sense of self, while Asian Americans on the other hand are much more likely to reach out to others.

I read the description of the study, and somehow I didn’t come to the same conclusion on how Asian Americans react to mortality. For example, in one test, they asked the participants to think about either their own death or dental pain (the control group), and then asked the participants to take a survey on their attitudes towards prostitution. When asked to think about their own mortality, European Americans were much harsher on punishment issues on prostitution, while Asian Americans reacted the opposite and tended to be kinder (while the Asian American control group was more conservative).

The explanation provided by the study is that European Americans protect their sense of self by putting down others who aren’t like them. I can sort of buy that explanation, but the explanation about Asian Americans reaching out to others in the face of death didn’t seem to fit.

While I agree Asians Americans are much more family oriented, and the self isn’t as important (I once wrote “I tell my friends that in American culture it’s duty to God, Country, Self, and then Others, but in Chinese culture, it’s Family, God, Country, Others and then Self, and sometimes I think Self doesn’t exist in Chinese culture”), I tend to believe that Asian Americans were gentler and more kind in their attitudes more out of the general belief in a kind of karma that many Asian Americans hold. When you believe you’re going to die (or think about your impending death), I believe you tend release any negative energy you might have, or maybe you start to believe that what affects others (outside your family), has no consequence to you.

The conclusion the study came up with that Asians tend to “reach out to others” isn’t really something I associate with Asian Americans. My parents, when faced with their own mortality in the face of terminal cancer did not go out and try to do good in the world or reach out to others in need. In fact they didn’t share their diagnosis with anyone outside the immediate family, not even close friends. But they did act more kindly to their immediate family, forgiving sins past and present, an attitude inline with the study results. As they say, when you’re faced with your own mortality, the little things don’t seem to matter as much anymore, and it seems for Asian Americans, that seems even more true.

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mwei

am I the only one disturbed by all these recent spates of psychological studies trying to live up to the Kipling colonial era mindset of “east is east and west is west and never shall the twain meet” with dubious conclusions of how Asians are such “inscrutable others?”

of course, the research data needs serious scrutiny, even if it’s to be passed off as social science, but I’m seriously wondering just how far apart culturally are “Asian-Americans” from the rest of the “European-Americans” in terms of the sampling bias Ma-Kellams picked. and that’s a pretty big reach from attitudes towards prostitution and work injury to “reaching out to others.”

lastly, if you think the self doesn’t exist in Chinese culture then you haven’t seen the drastic changes in the past 10 years where everything is about self-centered greed in the modern rapid changing society.
timat8asians

@mwei You’re probably right about “self” in Chinese culture. My context is of course my own generation and I’m a mid-40′s Chinese American. I can definitely see the one-child families causing a lot more self-centered children, changing that cultural norm, where family was always first.
GoGo

@mwei “that’s a pretty big reach from attitudes towards prostitution and work injury to “reaching out to others.” Good point. How does not wanting to harshly punish prostitutes equate to reaching out to others, exactly? Seems like two separate things to me.

As far as how different are Asian Americans from European Americans, past research has shown that the farther removed Asian Americans are from Asia (ie 2nd gen vs 4th gen), their behavior tends to look more and more similar with European Americans and presumably there wouldn’t be any significant differences between Asian Americans and European Americans past a certain point (I believe past literature has shown around 4th or 5th generation, but i’m not sure.) The thing is right now, with the exception of some Chinese and Japanese Americans who have been here since the turn of the century or earlier, the vast majority of Asians in America are still 1st or 2nd gen. Hence, that is why cultural studies like this on Asian Americans and European Americans often show that there is still some significant differences in thinking/behavior between the two groups, but in a few years, the story won’t be the same (unless there’s continued massive migration from Asia, and the population of 1st and 2nd Asian Americans continues to outnumber 4th gen or more).
mwei

@GoGo @mwei I’d say if it weren’t for immigration you’d be hard pressed to find many 3+ generations of Asians. and I’m not even going to bring up the taboo topic…

inasmuch the cultural differences between Asian-Americans and European-Americans, I can’t say I see that much difference beyond the superficial cultural ones. people are people.
timat8asians

@mwei @GoGo I don’t know about the people are people thing. I remember when I was in business school, they talked about this study that showed the difference between the “American” way of thinking and the way “other” cultures (note, not necessarily Asian) thought. First the professor asked everyone to answer a question privately. If your best friend and you were in car, and your friend was driving, and you were caught speeding, would you lie in court for your friend and say s/he wasn’t speeding? Everyone who said “no” they wouldn’t lie was someone who was generally born and raised in the U.S. Everyone who said, of course they’d lie for their best friend was generally an immigrant or a child of an immigrant. Apparently the studies bore this out as well. Americans overwhelmingly said they would not lie. But most others (including immigrants to the U.S., said of course, they would lie for their best friend).

The second part of the experiment raised the stakes. It then asked if you and your best friend were in the car, and s/he was speeding, and you accidently killed someone, would you lie about the speeding for your friend? The results were even more dramatic with that question. Any “Americans” who had said yes to the first example, decidedly said no to this one, and similarly for “non-Americans’, more said of course they would lie for their friend.
GoGo

@mwei not sure what you mean by “if it weren’t for immigration you’d be hard pressed to find many 3+ generations of Asians” …all generations come from the first generation so yeah, if there weren’t any immigration at all you’d be hard pressed to find 1st or 2nd gen Asians as well, haha

Agree with Tim about the “people are people” comment. there are differences in cognition, perception and behavior between Asian Americans and European Americans, and this has been pretty reliably demonstrated in the field (the whole area of cultural psychology is dedicated to this). of course what bothers me is when people use the findings to make broad generalizations and support stereotypes without taking in account variance on an individual level (it is valid to say, for example, that Asian Americans on a whole tend to seek social support less than Euro Americans, but it is not valid to say that you seek social support less BECAUSE you are Asian American or that Asian Americans seek social support less BECAUSE [insert unsupported third reason based on stereotypes] ). Cultural psych studies get a bad rep because people tend to use the findings to jump to crazy conclusions and generalize across to EVERY individual in that cultural group, but it is still valid and important to study our differences and hopefully learn something about our cultural environments and how they affect us.
timat8asians

@mwei @GoGo I should also comment that the reasons “Americans” said they wouldn’t lie, I believe has something to do with the “self” being most important in American culture. Preserve self at all costs, which means you do what’s best for you, and you don’t lie so you won’t get caught lying. As for “others”, and in Asian culture (at least in the past I’ve noted), family, and even close friends are more important than “self”, so of course you lie for your family or your best friend.

My professor at the time also linked it to some belief in the justice system working out. That “Americans” trust the justice system so they wouldn’t lie, and the justice system would do the right thing. I’m not sure I believe that as I know plenty of Americans who are skeptical of the justice system.
mwei

@timat8asians @mwei @GoGo thanks at least for the clarification on self preservation vs the reality. I was just going to bring up the whole “cheating is rampant in schools and universities” card – unless you consider “cheating” isn’t the same as “lying”

and of course we know corporate corruption is also rampant in the US and standard operating procedure in China. I don’t quite buy the whole US business culture vs “other” cultures, that’s more of the same old jingoism we’re constantly being fed in the media.

like I said, people are just people.
mwei

@GoGo I meant there will be more hapas and “quapas” and less of what you consider “real Asians” – which I don’t even understand what that term means – because of the big taboo topic about Asian marriage rates… I’m just going to leave it at that.

I’m saying that people are people in terms of most everybody have the same desires, dreams, hopes and goals for living the best life they can. It’s the cultural, environmental, and social differences that create the superficial differences. I have traveled internationally a bit and beyond the basic language and culture differences and nuances I can’t say people are all that different from one another.

I took some cultural anthropology classes and have never heard of a thing like “cultural psychology” until this article. I’ll try to go read on the field, but my impression is that unless they have solid data to back up their claims, the social sciences is not infallible: like a certain Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa
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