Episode 24 - Are you WEIRD?

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Simply walking down the street, you come into contact with people speaking different languages, practicing different faiths from different ethnic communities, different degrees of privilege. Speaker 1 00:00:12 And this is something that I take for granted. Navigating diversity is really a way of life in India. Speaker 0 00:00:30 Hello, this is Joseph shawls and welcome to the deep culture podcast, where we explore culture and the science of mind. And I'm here with today's cohost Ishi to re beginning the first episode of season three, episode 24. It is great to be back with you. Speaker 1 00:00:50 Hi Joseph. It's really great to be back for season three. Speaker 0 00:00:54 So Ishi, the title of today's episode is are you weird? And by the standards of today's episode, I am weird, but you Ishida are not weird, Speaker 1 00:01:07 But we aren't talking about being strange or bizarre. When we say beard, we are using it as an acronym, w E I R D Speaker 0 00:01:19 W Western E educated, I industrialized are rich and democratic. Speaker 1 00:01:29 So the so-called weird countries are for example, the us Canada, the countries of Western Europe. And so as a us American hug, Joseph come from a weird country. Speaker 0 00:01:43 Whereas Yu Ishita having grown up in India were raised in a not weird country. Speaker 1 00:01:50 And this acronym goes back to an academic article, published in brain and behavioral sciences in 2010. And the title was the weirdest people in the world. Speaker 0 00:02:04 And the main point of the article was that the field of psychology had a problem. Researchers were trying to understand the human mind, the psychology of human beings in general, but research studies were overwhelmingly from Western or so-called weird countries. And the research subjects, often college students simply weren't typical of people around the world. Speaker 1 00:02:31 That's right. And we've talked about how our minds are shaped by culture before on this podcast. Things like how we process information, how we experience emotion, our identities, Speaker 0 00:02:46 And this article was pointing out this blind spot, reminding us not to assume that what's normal for us is the same for the rest of the world. Speaker 1 00:02:57 And in season three of this podcast, that's what we will focus on are cultural blind spots. Speaker 0 00:03:05 And those blind spots often relate to things that we take. So for granted that we never notice them. Speaker 1 00:03:12 And this is really at the core of being a cultural bridge person, discovering that what is normal for you is not normal for other people. Speaker 0 00:03:22 So to get this going in today's episode, we're going to take a closer look at one of those blind spots, the weird phenomenon, attitudes, or ideas that may be taken for granted in Western societies, which may not make so much sense in other cultural communities. Speaker 1 00:03:40 And in particular, whether the field of intercultural education is influenced by a weird perspective. Speaker 0 00:03:48 And that brings us to part one, a weird person in India. Ajita I have to start by sending out a big thank you to your father. Uday Ray. Speaker 1 00:04:15 I'm sure he'll appreciate that you met him and my mother in August in India, it was fun to hang out with you there. And my father is a huge fan of this podcast. Speaker 0 00:04:26 Well, I am honored as you know, it was my first time in India. I was in Mumbai as well as in Bengal, in Eastern India, where you live with your family. I loved it. And your father gave me books, including in a land far from home, a Bengali in Afghanistan, by ed mu Ali. It's about the travel experiences of a Bengali educator in Afghanistan at the beginning of the 20th century, Speaker 1 00:04:57 A book about cultural exploration. Speaker 0 00:05:01 Yes. And I was inspired by the inscription that your father wrote on the inside cover. He wrote like minds break the barriers of geography, language or culture effortlessly. Speaker 1 00:05:16 Well, my father and mother are both educators. My father is really a humanist. He has this broad perspective in the tradition of Rav tag. Speaker 0 00:05:29 So just remind our listeners who Rav Tago was. Speaker 1 00:05:35 Well, he was a Bengali writer and poet, the first non westerner to win a Nobel prize in literature, but he was much more an educator, social reformer, a philosopher, an artist. He has had enormous influence on Bengali and Indian culture and society. And he was a world renowned intellectual. Speaker 0 00:06:02 While I was in Bengal, I visited the village of San Kittan, where I went to the campus of vifa Bardi university, which Tago founded. I went with you and our good friend and colleague Dolan Gupta who went to school there. It was, it was just magical. Speaker 1 00:06:24 One thing that inspires me about Tagal is that he embodies a kind of non-contradiction Tagal was a humanist and very much an internationalist, a sophisticated. He traveled the world, met with world leaders, and yet he was very much a Bengali. He fully embraced his cultural roots. Speaker 0 00:06:49 So for Tao or being a global citizen, did not conflict with having a strong cultural identity. Speaker 1 00:06:55 That's right. And as an Indian and as a Bengali myself, I find his, I embrace of his Bengali and Indian self, even as he traveled the world to be inspiring. Speaker 0 00:07:08 Well, it does strike me that these days, if you say global citizen, it somehow sounds like you are supposed to go beyond culture. Like you belong to the world and not to where you grew up. It's a, it's a very internationalist idea. Speaker 1 00:07:26 And from my perspective, and I think Tagal would've agreed with me. We can never really go beyond the effects of culture. It's a very deep part of who we are. Speaker 0 00:07:39 Well, it seems to me that the idea of going beyond culture is a very Western perhaps even particularly American idea. It seems to treat culture as a form of identity, almost something that we choose. Speaker 1 00:07:55 And that makes sense. If you grow up in a society that emphasizes individualism, you might think that I, as an individual can choose to be a global citizen growing up in India, it's really clear that we are shaped by our cultural background. We navigate deep diversity every day. Speaker 0 00:08:16 Well, the United States has a lot of cultural diversity as well, but I feel like as an American, I grew up with this idea that, you know, people everywhere in the world are basically the same. We're basically just a human. Speaker 1 00:08:33 And what fascinates me is that when people say that they present it as a simple fact, Speaker 0 00:08:40 But it is largely a cultural assumption that people are the same and people accept it without much thought. Speaker 1 00:08:48 Yes. And I think that applies to intercultural theory as well. For example, we hear a term like intercultural competence. Speaker 0 00:08:58 Yes, yes. That's a real buzzword these days, Speaker 1 00:09:02 But it's very individualistic. Like one more skill to add to my resume. Something to help me get outcomes. Speaker 0 00:09:19 Yes. And, and this brings up an important point. Something that we discussed during my visit to India, because just before coming to India, I spent a week in Switzerland at a conference of intercultural researchers. And I must say the majority of them were from these so-called weird countries. Speaker 1 00:09:40 And so it wouldn't be a surprise to find terms like intercultural competence being used in an individualistic way. Speaker 0 00:09:48 Well, one thing is for sure, intercultural theory is largely generated in a small number of countries predominantly these so-called Western countries. And the same is true of intercultural communication textbooks. Speaker 1 00:10:04 And yet a country like India with enormous cultural diversity and the legacy of people like to go is not producing nearly as much theory, research and education Speaker 0 00:10:18 While I was really happy to learn more about the intercultural field in India, but that does raise a larger question about whether the field of intercultural education is being dominated by this so-called weird perspective. And if so, what are we missing? Speaker 1 00:10:41 And that is something we'd like to focus on during season three of this podcast, we are going to be hearing from cultural bridge people working in non weird contexts Speaker 0 00:10:52 Like you Ishita working in India. And we also have a new member of the podcast team, em, Ray seven, who is an intercultural educator working in Turkey and will hear from podcast team members, Zena Matar, who is raised in Lebanon. Speaker 1 00:11:09 And of course, Yvonne van Paul is still with us as well as Danielly Speaker 0 00:11:15 And will try to dig deeper into topics that may sound simple, but aren't, we'll look for our blind spots and we'll dig deeper into things like culture and emotion and culture and values. And we'll take a new look at this idea of the global citizen. Is there really such a thing Speaker 1 00:11:40 I'm also looking forward to digging deeper into the complexity of culture. We have an episode planned called the butterfly effect Speaker 0 00:11:49 And that's all to come in season three. So IITA, let's dig a bit deeper into this idea of so-called weird people, Speaker 1 00:12:14 As we were saying, beard is an acronym and it stands for Western educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. It first got known through an article by Joseph Hendrick, Steven Heney and a no Zion titled to be these people in the world. Speaker 0 00:12:36 And basically this article was a critique. It was questioning a hidden assumption, sometimes found in psychological research that we could understand how the human mind works simply by testing subjects from a narrow slice of the world population. Speaker 1 00:12:55 And here's a quote from the article. We are societies, including young children are among the least represe populations. One could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involved domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior. Speaker 0 00:13:20 So as a us American, that makes me a member of one of the least representative populations in the world. Yet many psychologists, uh, many of them American had been assuming that we could understand the human mind simply by studying these so-called weird populations. Speaker 1 00:13:44 And probably lots of people assume that human mind works fundamentally the same around the world, Speaker 0 00:13:51 Which is not so strange. I mean, the way our mind works is simply normal to us. So as an American, going to India, I might notice that people there eat different foods or behave differently, but how can I tell if people's minds are working differently? Speaker 1 00:14:11 Because how people act cultural differences in behavior are a lot easier to notice than the workings of one's mind. But before we go too far over here, I think we should point out that we aren't trying to divide the world into weird versus non weird. Speaker 0 00:14:31 We are not saying that people from the same country are all psychologically identical. Mental processes are much, much too complex to make blanket statements like that. Speaker 1 00:14:43 But at the level of large populations, there are important differences that can be measured. There is an enormous amount of research into mental processes among people living in different societies. Speaker 0 00:14:56 People from so-called weird societies are psychologically unusual in a number of ways. So what are these differences that we're talking about? According to the article, they relate to fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior. Speaker 1 00:15:18 The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spacial, reasoning, categorization, influential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self concepts, and related motivations and relatability of IQ. Speaker 0 00:15:54 Wow, that is quite a list. Some of these things seem to be related to information processing like visual perception while some other things on this list relate to the way we make sense of the world, like inferential induction. In other words, how we come to conclusions and reasoning styles. And then there are other things which relate to some very personal elements of the self, like moral reasoning, the ways in which we judge right and wrong and self concept. In other words, how we experience identity. Speaker 1 00:16:38 Okay. So this is really a wide range of profound differences and the easy to lose sight of. It's hard to understand how our mind works and even harder to know how your mind might work differently than mine. Speaker 0 00:16:57 And this was on my mind in India, where I felt like I was getting a tiny sense of just how deep and complex cultural difference can be simply walking down the street. You come into contact with people speaking different languages, practicing different faiths from different ethnic communities, different degrees of privilege. Speaker 1 00:17:23 And this is something that I take for granted. Navigating diversity is really a way of life in India. Speaker 0 00:17:31 Well, I know I loved watching you switch back and forth between languages, between Hindi, Bengali, and English. And sometimes you did it in the same sentence. So as I was experiencing all of this diversity, I found myself wondering how common is intercultural education in India? Speaker 1 00:17:53 Well, not very, it's not widely known. There are very few classes in intercultural communication, few graduate degrees, not much intercultural training in Indian companies, Speaker 0 00:18:08 Right? So India is one of the most diverse countries on earth. And I assume it has plenty of intercultural challenges, right? Speaker 1 00:18:17 Absolutely. Speaker 0 00:18:18 Yet the study of intercultural communication is not common. Why not? Speaker 1 00:18:25 I sometimes feel that intercultural theory can be hard to relate to in the Indian context, Speaker 0 00:18:33 Hard to relate to. Speaker 1 00:18:35 Well, you see navigating cultural complexity is part of everyday life in India. It's very personal. And yet intercultural theory is often highly abstract. If you open an intercultural communication textbook written in the us or Europe, it often starts with a long discussion of the definition of culture. It says things like culture is a complex phenomenon and there are many competing definitions. Speaker 0 00:19:10 Yes, I, I see that all the time Speaker 1 00:19:13 To put it bluntly, that definition of culture does nothing to help me navigate the deep diversity I experience every day in India. Speaker 0 00:19:23 I can see that Speaker 1 00:19:24 And intercultural education can also be ideological. A friend of mine, for example, an Indian employee of a multinational corporation was saying that intercultural training in her company didn't help her make sense of her experiences. For example, there were complaints that Indians don't speak up enough and yet in direct communication is part of everyday life in India. It reflects deep parts of Indian culture, and this wasn't recognized at all in the trainings. Speaker 0 00:20:02 So for whatever reason, the ways that intercultural trainings were done in this person's company were not helpful for someone who navigates cultural diversity every day, Speaker 1 00:20:15 Precisely. Speaker 0 00:20:16 And you feel that this is not an uncommon perception, that intercultural theory can be hard to relate to in the Indian context. Speaker 1 00:20:26 Honestly, that's what it feels like to me. Speaker 0 00:20:29 Well, if so, that's a problem. And that brings us to part three. Are you a global citizen ISTA? You've said that intercultural theory can be hard to relate to the Indian context. So let's get another perspective from someone working outside of this so-called weird context. Speaker 1 00:21:12 Yes. A new member of the podcast team, Emory seven. Speaker 4 00:21:17 Hello, Joseph. Hello, ISTA. Glad to be with you today. Speaker 0 00:21:20 Great to have you here with us. Emray and you were born and raised in Turkey and you are working at CVAs ch university. Speaker 4 00:21:32 Yes. In the international relations office. In a nutshell, I host people from all around the world and I teach intercultural communication. And I even translated one of your books in Turkish. Speaker 0 00:21:46 Well, I am incredibly honored Speaker 1 00:21:50 Emery. I understand that you have a very intercultural family. Speaker 4 00:21:54 I do indeed. My wife holds passports from four countries and speaks five languages. So I cook in a very intercultural kitchen. Speaker 0 00:22:05 Well, and of course, Turkey is also traditionally considered the mat place of east and west Constantinople. Now Easton bull was the capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Uh, it was known for its cultural diversity Speaker 4 00:22:23 And today Turkey is currently holding the highest number of refugees in the world, according to the, uh, UN refugee agency. Speaker 0 00:22:31 So Emory, you've been part of the discussion that the podcast team has been having about this so-called weird phenomenon. And I'm wondering about the question that IITA and I have been discussing in this episode, how well does intercultural theory meet the needs of your context in Turkey? Speaker 4 00:22:52 Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is that concepts and definitions often originate in English and they can be rather obscure or vague in other languages. And Turkish is one of them, for sure. Uh, the word competence, for example, has more than a 15 different translations. That was quite a challenge for me when I was translating your book. Speaker 1 00:23:19 It's fascinating for me to hear about Emory's experiences because my context in India is so different and yet there are parallels. I agree with them Marie, about not having equivalence for terms like competence. And then where do we go with those terms and definitions? How do they help my audience navigate real life diversity? But let's get back to the weird question. The Japan intercultural Institute has been carrying out a research project about the attitudes of intercultural trainers. It's called what's wrong with intercultural theory. Speaker 0 00:24:04 Yes. We have a sample of about 100 intercultural specialists, a large majority come from the so-called weird countries and most of them have more than 10 years experience. Speaker 1 00:24:17 So these are people who might be interested in the theory and research that you found in the conference in Switzerland. Speaker 0 00:24:26 Exactly. And in this research, we asked questions about intercultural concepts. For example, as we mentioned, many textbooks start out by spending a lot of time talking about the definition of culture. Speaker 4 00:24:43 The odd thing is that those books will often say, nobody agrees on the definition. It's too complex. Speaker 1 00:24:51 You know what I find funny about that people use the word culture every day. They understand what it means, but then you take a class in intercultural communication and then you don't understand the word anymore. Speaker 0 00:25:07 Well, I feel like us education often emphasizes words and concepts. As though if you understand the concept, then you understand the phenomenon. And so textbooks often start with definitions Speaker 1 00:25:24 Related to this. We asked whether specialists were quote familiar with theoretical issues and scholarly literature related to the concept of culture. Speaker 0 00:25:38 And more than 90% described themselves as knowledgeable about theory and scholarship related to the concept of culture. Speaker 4 00:25:48 That's impressive. Speaker 0 00:25:49 It, it is, but there was something quite interesting. 40% also said that the concept of culture was difficult or very difficult for learners to understand. One typical comment was I believe if explained it can be very useful, however many struggle with the concept of culture and how to understand it. Speaker 1 00:26:14 I find this to be very interesting for me working in the Indian context to spend a lot of time explaining the concept of culture seems rather abstract. Speaker 4 00:26:27 I feel the same way about the Turkish context. Uh, when I talk about culture, I mean, what I mean by culture seems to be very different from what ups up in my listeners mind. Speaker 1 00:26:40 So is this focus on concepts and abstractions? Part of the weird perspective? Speaker 0 00:26:47 Well, I guess you two will have to tell me Speaker 1 00:27:02 There's another survey question, which got my eye. We asked about the idea of being a global citizen. Speaker 0 00:27:10 Yes. The item asked whether you agree with this statement, I identify more deeply as a global citizen than with a particular country or cultural community. Speaker 4 00:27:23 Now I was impressed to see that more than half 54% agreed. They identify more with being a global citizen than with any cultural community. Speaker 0 00:27:37 Well, I think many intercultural specialists kind of take for granted this idea that being a global citizen is a noble goal, but I'm not so sure that this is the case for many people in the world who have a strong sense of cultural identity. Speaker 4 00:27:57 And I can say that I'm not a typical or conventional Turk, both by how I look and way of life, or maybe manners to my wife. Being a foreigner herself has been asked by Turkish people many times where I am from not where she's from. Speaker 1 00:28:16 So you're not typically Turkish. And even your wife at four passports fits in better. Speaker 4 00:28:23 That's true. But especially after my stay in the us, I felt that I have a Turkish soul, which is my reality. And this is who I am and being a cultural bridge person cannot hinder it. Rather. It helps me meet to know my cultural self. Speaker 1 00:28:44 And I think that equals tag go as well. Being a bridge person brings us back to our cultural home. Speaker 0 00:28:54 So let's get back to this idea of the so-called weird perspective in the world of intercultural education. We've talked about all this stuff and where does this leave us? Speaker 1 00:29:08 Well, some things are just facts. It's simply true that the greatest part of the theory and research in the intercultural field comes from weird countries. Speaker 4 00:29:21 And of course there is nothing wrong with that. It is a product of those societies and there is no reason to blame or condemn anyone. Speaker 0 00:29:32 But if there are blind spots that come from this so-called weird perspective, we should be aware of it. And we do need to take advantage of the diversity of experiences outside this so-called weird world. Speaker 1 00:29:48 Well, that gives us lots to explore in season three, but I think it's about time to wrap up this episode. Speaker 0 00:30:03 Well, just before we do, we should mention some of the sources from today. If you want to learn more about the so-called weird perspective, you can check out the original 2010 article, the weirdest people in the world by Hendrick HeNe and no Zion published in brain and behavioral sciences. Joseph Hendrick also has a 2020 book out with the same title, the weirdest people in the world. And again, the book that Ishita father U Ray gave me was land far from home, a Bengali in Afghanistan, by Sayed mu Ali. I highly recommend it. Speaker 0 00:30:49 The deep culture podcast is sponsored by the Japan intercultural Institute and NPO dedicated to intercultural education and research. I'm the director of GII. If you're interested in culture and the mind check out GIS brain, mind, and culture masterclass, it is a blended learning course and online community of cultural bridge people to find out more, just do a web search for the Japan intercultural Institute. And you can also find more information about the research. We mentioned, just look for learning circle and you'll see what's wrong with intercultural theory. And also in other deep culture podcast news Emray has designed a new logo for the podcast. Thanks so much. Emray it is totally cool. Check that out. And if you like today's episode, please spread the word on social media. Also, you can write us at DC podcast, Japan, intercultural.org. Once again, thanks to ETA's father Uday Ray for his inspirational example of intercultural understanding and thanks to the whole podcast team, Yvonne VanderPol, Zena Matar, Danielly eco Fritz as always sound engineer Robinson, Fritz, and thanks to you today as always is, and welcome to you. Emray I'm so happy to have you with us.