Are East Asians inherently more neat and tidy than South Asians?

[Adecypher]

Look forward to your response.

Oh I totally forget to ask you about the underlined query below...IF NOT they WHY for that query...

Very interesting debate and I agree to it partially because this is dependent on the characteristic (such as age, educational background, economical status etc) of the sample you have selected for the behavioral impact study who had undergone environmental change or changes. As you mentioned in your post that how Pakistanis and Indians exhibit neatness which is related to their "new" environment...an interesting question to ask is what behavior change a westerner would exhibit in a different environment/Country (for example in Pakistan or India) ... would his/her behavior overtime will start to mimic the locals? Would he/she break the red light signal as some of the locals do etc? If NOT then why?

 

[Kambojaric]

I studied abroad in Heidelberg University for a summer internship, and let me tell you --- Germans are probably one of the most cleanest or at least organized people I have ever met. Probably more so than Japanese. They are, the Germans that is, very meticulous on what they do. I had a room mate in my dorm with me, he was so clean and kempt , always woke up on a particular time (6am), made his coffee pure black, no sugar. Made his bed all the time, and ironed his clothes every morning. I would sometimes just stare at him on days that i was in the room with him just to see how he folds his clothes because he had an art to it.

Germans. Definitely, they are meticulous folks.

Definitely agree about the Germans. Had a similar experiance with one of my German coursemates at Manchester University. Guy had his whole scheduale planned out for days ahead. From my experiance the least clean people were Nigerians lol. And they are awesomly skileld at being late as well. Before I went to Uni in UK I always thought we Pakistanis were absolutely rubbish as far as sticking to the time was concerned. 5 years later I think we are pretty decent now haha.

 

[Aepsilons]

Very, very valid point. You mean innate ability has to be capitalized and our ability to juxtapose ourselves in social environment to gain maximum effect is contingent on the former.

Otherwise high IQ remains latent. However social skills are also another aspect of intelligence.

Absolutely Sir. For an example --- Bill Gates. Gates has a decent (fairly high) IQ, but what he had higher was emotional intelligence. He could have stayed in college to graduate with his bachelor's degree, but he saw the importance in understanding computer software , programming first. In fact when others chided him for doing that, he had the emotional maturity to buffer against such pre conceived notions of college = success. Not so. He , tho not finishing college, founded Microsoft, and revolutionized the computer and the internet that we know it.

He succeeded not because of his IQ (his IQ was above normal, it was not super high), but he because of a mixture of his high emotional maturity + some intelligence.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

There probably is but nothing significant. If everything was determined by genes then why did North West Europe conspiciously obscure itself for millenia after millenia after millenia until only in the last 500 years did it start making waves?

Of course within that sliver of human history ( 500 years ) the generations who lived through began to get things to their head and starts to delude that their prowess was in the genes. Clearly history blows that myth.

Have a look at this map of Ancient Civilizations at the dawn of time. If you transpose a modern political map over this you get. Some of them are a laugh, Eygpt, Iraq , Pakistan ???? Seriously .......

Mayas/Aztecs > Mexico
Incas > Peru
Nile Valley > Eygpt
Mesopotomia > Iraq
Harappa/Indus > Pakistan
Huang Ho > China

The North West of Europe ( including the much trumpeted Nordics ) don't even come on the radar screen. So much so for tick tock of the determinate genes that this bunch would later start believing in their own innate superiority. With many still do. Go to Stormfront and you will see.

As me move forward in time civilization begins to permeate from Middle East into the first European country - Greece which conveniently happened to have it's face staring into Middle East. From the original nodes it starts spreading.

Then look at Alexander the great and his Empire on his journey to conquer the known world. Have look at the map below. All it includes is modern Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria,Isreal,Lebnon, Eygpt, Libyia, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan,Uzbekistan,Afghanistan, Pakistan. All these countries today don't exactly get pulses going. Greece today is beggar of Europe, Syria is imploding, Iraq is war zone and rest are also just about keeping head over water. Yet in the past this region was centre of world civilization.

Only after this would history shift further west to Rome and even than most of North Est Europe remianed a backwater with Germany as the home of vandal and savages - According to the civilized Rome.

The mistake people make is judge a changine world within their own lifetime. Little do they know they are just small blip on the course of history. Soon I suspect the focus of the world will shift to China and you will increasingly start to hear about claims of "inherant superiority of Chinese" This is bound to happen. success can get to peoples head when they equate that with blood.

Lesson of history. We should be humble for you never know what tides of time will deliver.

exactly this.

Rome, Greece, Persia, India and China (specifically northern/central China) were the hearts of ancient and medieval civilization. In particular, Rome, Athens, Baghdad, Chang'an and Luoyang were the largest cities in the world for much of history..

Today? Chang'an (now Xi'an) and Luoyang are parts of the poorest provinces in China - Shaanxi and Henan. In particular, Luoyang is not that good and even the capital of the province has been moved to Zhengzhou, wereas Luoyang was the capital of all China for much of history.

Greece is beggar of Europe. Italy not exactly doing much better.

I need not say much about Baghdad.

Meanwhile, the stable, high income countries in the world today were barbarian backwaters except France. Britain only achieved stability after the Roman conquests, and even then, Romans were a minority and it was considered an unprestigious frontier. Germany and north of Germany were regarded as the land of savages, and even into the medieval times, French and British feared Viking barbarians for their cruelty, not for their art and literature. Japan was just a bunch of warring tribes.

 

[Mr.Nair]

I will not say whites are always super clean, how many of them will wash hands(even though they use fork and spoon) before taking food and how many will wash mouth after food ! I never consider using tissue only in toilets even you have soap and water all around.

 

[Aepsilons]

Definitely agree about the Germans. Had a similar experiance with one of my German coursemates at Manchester University. Guy had his whole scheduale planned out for days ahead. From my experiance the least clean people were Nigerians lol. And they are awesomly skileld at being late as well. Before I went to Uni in UK I always thought we Pakistanis were absolutely rubbish as far as sticking to the time was concerned. 5 years later I think we are pretty decent now haha.

To add on your appraisal on German students, lol, I also noticed when I was in Heidelberg that German folks know how to differentiate their professional and personal lives. I really really was jealous of some of my classmates how they can separate those things apart, for me, it took me time to find a way to separate work stress from personal life.

I think it is in German society, the environment, that encourages this need to develop self biofeedback systems. In fact that's what differentiates them (the Germans) from the French, the Belgians, the Italians, the Spanish, and the Portuguese because the latter 5 have this 'siesta' culture. The Germans , on the other hand, have a systemic culture.

This is why it really is a cultural, societal factor. Not genetic or biological.

 

[Beidou2020]

I will not say whites are always super clean, how many of them will wash hands(even though they use fork and spoon) before taking food and how many will wash mouth after food ! I never consider using tissue only in toilets even you have soap and water all around.

I really want to say what I'm thinking right now regarding this sentence, but I will resist the temptation

 

[Spectre]

I studied abroad in Heidelberg University for a summer internship, and let me tell you --- Germans are probably one of the most cleanest or at least organized people I have ever met. Probably more so than Japanese. They are, the Germans that is, very meticulous on what they do. I had a room mate in my dorm with me, he was so clean and kempt , always woke up on a particular time (6am), made his coffee pure black, no sugar. Made his bed all the time, and ironed his clothes every morning. I would sometimes just stare at him on days that i was in the room with him just to see how he folds his clothes because he had an art to it.

Germans. Definitely, they are meticulous folks.




There is a developing theme in personality psychology, and in behavioral psychology as in psychiatry--- on the correlation between high intelligence and bipolar disorder , and personality disorders. Interesting isn't it?

Intelligence Linked to Bipolar Disorder | Psych Central

Yes definitely, it would be interesting enough to see if there is active discrimination based on this hypothesis. That would be really ironic day when intelligence becomes a liability rather than asset.

 

[Aepsilons]

Oh I totally forget to ask you about the underlined query below...IF NOT they WHY for that query...

Very interesting debate and I agree to it partially because this is dependent on the characteristic (such as age, educational background, economical status etc) of the sample you have selected for the behavioral impact study who had undergone environmental change or changes. As you mentioned in your post that how Pakistanis and Indians exhibit neatness which is related to their "new" environment...an interesting question to ask is what behavior change a westerner would exhibit in a different environment/Country (for example in Pakistan or India) ... would his/her behavior overtime will start to mimic the locals? Would he/she break the red light signal as some of the locals do etc? If NOT then why?

Hi @Adecypher ,

You ask a very important and valid question ! And I'm glad you asked it, actually. Your question delves into what we in the field of psychology and neuroscience refer to as the "Law of Adaptation". Law of adaptation is a concept that is being taught in evolutionary psychology as well as in developmental psychology and is a scientific paradigm.

The premise of the Law of Adaptation states that because there are limits on the numbe rof different tasks a creature can be designed to do well in, creatures with the capacity to redesign their environments have an adaptive advantage over those who can adapt only passively to existing environmental structures. This is uniquely similar to another concept in biology and psychology known as 'Environmental redesign'. Organisms, ergo humans, will adapt to the environment they are placed in -- in order to survive and to succeed in. So as to your question, yes, I'm sure if a westerner was placed in a South Asian environment long term, he or she would adopt all the cultural and societal nuances in order to survive and flourish. Else experience extinction, and that is unlikely since humans, wherever we are, are designed to react and adapt to ensure their existence.


I hope that helped answer your query.


Regards,
@Nihonjin1051

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Absolutely Sir. For an example --- Bill Gates. Gates has a decent (fairly high) IQ, but what he had higher was emotional intelligence. He could have stayed in college to graduate with his bachelor's degree, but he saw the importance in understanding computer software , programming first. In fact when others chided him for doing that, he had the emotional maturity to buffer against such pre conceived notions of college = success. Not so. He , tho not finishing college, founded Microsoft, and revolutionized the computer and the internet that we know it.

He succeeded not because of his IQ (his IQ was above normal, it was not super high), but he because of a mixture of his high emotional maturity + some intelligence.

Absolutely. The ability of humans is too complex and multi dimententional.No linear measurement tools that try to use metrics on a continuum have succeeded in defining our ability. Modern IQ tests are at best a crude measure of a complex matrix. They may give you some insight but you would be foolish to rely on these alone.

I give one example, albeit a monster from history. Adolph Hitler failed at everything in his life. School, art, money and while in the army achieved the towering rank of Corporal.

Later on this man would end at the top of one of the worlds most educated, advanced countries from which position he dominated men who were better educated and had proven themselves in the past while he was beggar on the streets. Now they walked in his shadows.

Nobody can argue that he displayed incrediblle ability although his energy and vigour was directed in the advancing evil to new heights ..

@FairAndUnbiased I would like to remind you that 95% of Indus is in Pakistan but I will overlook it so that we don't derail this thread.

 

[Adecypher]

Hi @Adecypher ,

You ask a very important and valid question ! And I'm glad you asked it, actually. Your question delves into what we in the field of psychology and neuroscience refer to as the "Law of Adaptation". Law of adaptation is a concept that is being taught in evolutionary psychology as well as in developmental psychology and is a scientific paradigm.

The premise of the Law of Adaptation states that because there are limits on the numbe rof different tasks a creature can be designed to do well in, creatures with the capacity to redesign their environments have an adaptive advantage over those who can adapt only passively to existing environmental structures. This is uniquely similar to another concept in biology and psychology known as 'Environmental redesign'. Organisms, ergo humans, will adapt to the environment they are placed in -- in order to survive and to succeed in. So as to your question, yes, I'm sure if a westerner was placed in a South Asian environment long term, he or she would adopt all the cultural and societal nuances in order to survive and flourish. Else experience extinction, and that is unlikely since humans, wherever we are, are designed to react and adapt to ensure their existence.


I hope that helped answer your query.


Regards,
@Nihonjin1051

Thanks a ton for the explanation...but I know this will not absolve me for getting a deeper understanding on why "goodness is not innate, but is something that can be trained and elicited"

 

[Kambojaric]

To add on your appraisal on German students, lol, I also noticed when I was in Heidelberg that German folks know how to differentiate their professional and personal lives. I really really was jealous of some of my classmates how they can separate those things apart, for me, it took me time to find a way to separate work stress from personal life.

I think it is in German society, the environment, that encourages this need to develop self biofeedback systems. In fact that's what differentiates them (the Germans) from the French, the Belgians, the Italians, the Spanish, and the Portuguese because the latter 5 have this 'siesta' culture. The Germans , on the other hand, have a systemic culture.

This is why it really is a cultural, societal factor. Not genetic or biological.

Agreed. Your enviroment when growing up plays a huge role on the adult you end up becoming. I am not a fan of these racial theories because as far as I can see smart people have come from all "races" (the term race is archaic in itself due to the fact that we humans really are one race in the first place and race is merely a social construct) as have dumb people. The differences I believe come from cultures. Germans have the culture of working hard with messing about not being acceptable (this article highlights this point well Why Germans Work Fewer Hours But Produce More: A Study In Culture | Amol Sarva Referring back to my German coursemate he would work his *** of in the library whilst we would be messing around but he still had a better social life than most of us outside of uni (playing sports, in an orchestra etc). If only this culture could penetrate into more countries!

 

[Spectre]

Hi @Adecypher ,

You ask a very important and valid question ! And I'm glad you asked it, actually. Your question delves into what we in the field of psychology and neuroscience refer to as the "Law of Adaptation". Law of adaptation is a concept that is being taught in evolutionary psychology as well as in developmental psychology and is a scientific paradigm.

The premise of the Law of Adaptation states that because there are limits on the numbe rof different tasks a creature can be designed to do well in, creatures with the capacity to redesign their environments have an adaptive advantage over those who can adapt only passively to existing environmental structures. This is uniquely similar to another concept in biology and psychology known as 'Environmental redesign'. Organisms, ergo humans, will adapt to the environment they are placed in -- in order to survive and to succeed in. So as to your question, yes, I'm sure if a westerner was placed in a South Asian environment long term, he or she would adopt all the cultural and societal nuances in order to survive and flourish. Else experience extinction, and that is unlikely since humans, wherever we are, are designed to react and adapt to ensure their existence.


I hope that helped answer your query.


Regards,
@Nihonjin1051

This fact is well documented. The British Term for it was "Going Native"

When Britisher Officers were based for a long time in India during the colonial days they were observed to have adopted all local mannerisms. These increased to such a degree where some Britishers started identifying with Indian causes, (Founder of Congress party was British Women).

This was regarded as a threat at that time to perceived British Supremacy and as such officers had strict restrictions aimed at how long they could stay in India.

Similar observations were based in USA were Englishmen often took on mannerisms of native Indians.

I wonder how similar it is to Stockholm Syndrome where the victim starts identifying with their captors.

 

[Mr.Nair]

I really want to say what I'm thinking right now regarding this sentence, but I will resist the temptation

It's plain and simple wash once a$$ with soap and water

 

[Aepsilons]

Agreed. Your enviroment when growing up plays a huge role on the adult you end up becoming. I am not a fan of these racial theories because as far as I can see smart people have come from all "races" (the term race is archaic in itself due to the fact that we humans really are one race in the first place and race is merely a social construct) as have dumb people. The differences I believe come from cultures. Germans have the culture of working hard with messing about not being acceptable (this article highlights this point well Why Germans Work Fewer Hours But Produce More: A Study In Culture | Amol Sarva Referring back to my German coursemate he would work his *** of in the library whilst we would be messing around but he still had a better social life than most of us outside of uni (playing sports, in an orchestra etc). If only this culture could penetrate into more countries!

Very well said @Bamxa , and you hit the nail on the head when you said that success is due to your friend working tirelessly in the library. And I also agree with you , i , too, am not a fan of the racial theories. In fact these racial theories were authored by European Imperialists during the 19th century to reinforce the concept of White Superiority and the Inferiority of colored peoples who are to be lorded over. lol.

I always find it funny when even some of my fellow East Asians start using the same racial theories that the European Imperialists touted a century ago to legitimize their right to rule. In the end, its not about race, its about environment and one's own inner drive.

Like for example in the UK. The Richest man in the UK is not even a White Anglo Saxon, but a British man of Indian origin named Lakshmi Mittal.

LOL!!