{"id":53188,"date":"2021-10-22T10:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T14:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=53188"},"modified":"2021-11-04T09:48:11","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T13:48:11","slug":"analytical-way-of-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/analytical-way-of-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"The Analytical Way of Thinking: Think Like a Westerner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is analytical thinking? Which cultures tend to think analytically?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analytical way of thinking focuses on the individual elements and de-emphasizes the surrounding circumstances. According to Erin Meyer, the author of The Culture Map<\/a><\/em>, the analytical way of thinking is most prevalent in Western countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we’ll consider what analytical thinking means in a cultural context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Defining Analytical Cultures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many people interpret the phrase analytical thinking as thinking with an emphasis on structure, mathematics, or logic. But the key feature of the analytical way of thinking is the tendency to consider something individually<\/em>, de-emphasizing its relationship with the environment. It\u2019s not a tendency to view something through a more mathematical lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In business, this might be seen in how they evaluate risk. Researchers argue that analytical thinkers \u201ctypically expect states of the world to be stable<\/a>.\u201d This could be because they focus on the individual element. Furthermore, \u201cwhen change is occurring, such as a stock growing in value, change is presumed to follow a linear trend\u201d\u2014to the point where Canadians sold falling stocks and bought rising stocks, but Chinese people (perhaps counterintuitively to the Western mind) bought falling stocks and sold rising stocks because they assumed the change wouldn\u2019t continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer states that a common criticism of analytical cultures is that they ignore the overall context too much. Critics think analytical thinkers can\u2019t see the overarching influences on their thoughts or the potential broader impacts of their actions, so they must be incompetent. Critics might also just think they\u2019re rushing and ignoring those influences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Analytical Thinking Develops<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Meyer argues that the analytical thinking of Western countries derives from elements of Western philosophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, she states that Western philosophies assess objects independently without necessarily considering them in the overall context. As an example, Meyer describes how Aristotle ascribed the principles of levity and gravity to particular items\u2014a falling rock had the property of \u201cgravity,\u201d while a floating log had the \u201clevity\u201d property. Rather than viewing \u201clevity\u201d as an interaction between the log and its environment, he saw it as a property of the log itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Since this example comes from Aristotelian physics<\/a>, it may not seem to support Meyer\u2019s claim that philosophy influences culture. But Aristotle didn\u2019t differentiate between physics and philosophy\u2014he and his contemporaries studied \u201cnatural philosophy<\/a>,\u201d which encompassed both physics and philosophy. The two disciplines were indistinguishable until the development of natural science in the 19th century.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer argues that this common Western tendency to consider objects independently\u2014as items with characteristics and not in relation to one another or to external forces\u200b\u200b\u2014is the root of modern-day analytical thinking: Today\u2019s Western businesspeople assess elements independently because their religions and philosophies did so, too.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Another possible explanation for the difference in cultural cognition patterns is the \u201csocial orientation hypothesis.\u201d It suggests that cultures that prize independence<\/a> tend to think analytically, while cultures that prize interdependence tend to think dialectically. Researchers found that when Mexican farmers became more capitalist and thus more independent, they also thought more analytically<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is analytical thinking? Which cultures tend to think analytically? The analytical way of thinking focuses on the individual elements and de-emphasizes the surrounding circumstances. According to Erin Meyer, the author of The Culture Map, the analytical way of thinking is most prevalent in Western countries. 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