« Ecofreaks Vandalize Hummer | Main | Gen II Moonbat Brigade Signs Declaration of Interdependence »
July 19, 2007
Moonbat Study Finds Victims of Communism Less Egocentric Than Americans
Posted by Dave Blount at July 19, 2007 11:52 AM
Cognitive psychologist Boaz Keysar of the University of Chicago has demonstrated the remarkable ability of academics to prop up their liberal prejudices with supposedly scientific research by running an experiment that worked like this:
Keysar and his colleagues arranged two blocks on a table so participants could see both. However, a piece of cardboard obstructed the view of one block so a "director," sitting across from the participant, could only see one block.
When the director asked 20 American participants (none of Asian descent) to move a block, most were confused as to which block to move and did not take into account the director's perspective. Even though they could have deduced that, from the director's seat, only one block was on the table.
Most of the 20 Chinese participants, however, were not confused by the hidden block and knew exactly which block the director was referring to. While following directions was relatively simple for the Chinese, it took Americans twice as long to move a block.
You could take from this that victims of Chinese communism are conditioned to see everything from the point of view of their bureaucratic masters, the better to stay alive. But Keysar chooses another explanation:
That strong, egocentric communication of Westerners was nonexistent when we looked at Chinese. The Chinese were very much able to put themselves in the shoes of another when they were communicating.
You see, as LiveScience puts it:
Collectivist societies, such as the Chinese, place more value on the needs of the group and less on the autonomy of the individual. In these societies, understanding other peoples' experiences is a more critical social skill than it is among typically more individualist Americans.
But Americans' shortcomings are nothing tens of millions of dead and generations of totalitarian slavery couldn't cure.
Killed over 70 million of his own people, but made the survivors less "egocentric."
On a tip from V the K.
