People in the U.S. Think They Are Better Than They Are. Asians Don’t | Hacker News Reader

People in the U.S. Think They Are Better Than They Are. Asians Don’t

scientificamerican.com

44 pointsvinnyvichy66 comments

Growing up in Canada, I remember asking my parents why it was okay to make fun of Americans, but not people from any other country. The answer didn’t make much sense at the time, but I chalked it up as something that I’d understand as an adult.

Now as an adult I still don’t really get it. Reminding themselves of their own perceived inferiority seems like a uniquely rich-American past time. Do you think Scientific Brazil (if it existed) would release a study broadly painting its citizens in such a bad light? What if the study had found the opposite, that Americans broadly displayed some positive trait more than their Asian counterparts, would such a study even be allowed to be published? I certainly can’t imagine it being received well, if it were.

The country which has more people (by a long shot) spending their lives trying to become citizens also has the most present citizens vocally declaring it a broken failure. It’s just never really made much sense to me.

A lot of the people declaring it broken don’t want it to fail.

> I remember asking my parents why it was okay to make fun of Americans, but not people from any other country.

A bit like in europe where you can criticise germany all you want. Since they know their worth and are secure enough they wont mind. Some may even jump in. Similarly east europeans dont hesitate to criticise their own countries.

Criticise south europe and you’ll never hear the end of it.

The US is secure enough for critical self reflection. Canada and brazil not so much.

Canadians make light of themselves all the time. Americans are not really "known" for critical self reflection, the opposite maybe.

Just look at the slew of jokes about traveling abroad and claiming to be Canadian.

Now if you want to see Canadian "politeness" in action, read the comment section on CBC.

> Now if you want to see Canadian "politeness" in action…

In my experience Canadians are quite polite to other Canadians, but not necessarily to non-Canadians

People who are polite don't discriminate based on silly lines on a map or anything based on appearance or even invisible traits.

The CBC comment section is more toxic than the birth child of a terrible subreddit and the worst 1000 games of League of Legends.

To be fair comment sections everywhere are toxic regardless of country or culture.

I find it to be the most toxic comment section I have come across. I also see the moderated comments, which just make it worse.

From supposedly polite Canadians.

Whatever you do dont read the dailymail (uk) comment section and dont attempt to translate the comment section of any non english speaking european tabloid.

50% of the daily mail commenters seem to be Americans

I think there is a bit of a noun and verb confusion here to my comment. An impolite person can occasionally act polite to others in certain circumstances, including due to silly lines on a map, or due to invisible traits.

Perhaps the opposite of that is not true—a polite person is never impolite, which is what I think you are describing.

How did you like Montreal?

Haha, you are so on point!

I was born in Eastern Europe and raised in Canada.

Recently I moved to Southern Europe and had the audacity to criticize some practices. I was almost nuked from the orbit and all of the perceived faults were vehemently defended. That was quite a culture shock to me.

Just the other day i had a lecture here on hn by a south european about how east european countries should leave the eu if they dont like the current state of affairs. Something something gratefulness bread and butter, etc.

In some cultures constructive criticism is seen as a negative thing while in some it is done precisely because you want to improve that which you love.

The issue is that cultures that dont appreciate it will use self criticism against you. Thats in my experience.

I don't know that it's a cultural thing than resentment. Southern EU countries were doing tremendously well out of the EU until the 2008 gfc and then their strategy was shown to be um less than wise. Eastern EU countries have not (yet) fallen into that debt trap and seem to be generally on the up. It'd be nice if Europeans didn't get quite so attached to their own country's performance in games they have little influence over.

> I was almost nuked from the orbit and all of the perceived faults were vehemently defended

You might also just describe perception biased here too.

If I take Italy as an example, you might get "nuked from orbit" (from an eastern European perspective) just because you said your pizza looks better than the one of your friend next table.

And that has nothing with a "lack of self criticism". It is just how basic social interaction are there.

Arguments/spicy conversation are the norm in some culture. Not the exception.

The conclusion is: Behavior study is hard because your perception of "the norm" is always relative to your culture.

> If I take Italy as an example, you might get "nuked from orbit" (from an eastern European perspective) just because you said your pizza looks better than the one of your friend next table.

> And that has nothing with a "lack of self criticism". It is just how basic social interaction are there.

No, not really. Coming from an italian.

> No, not really. Coming from an italian.

I like the "not really" :) But to be fair, I should have replaced "are" by "can be".

Because punching down isn't as funny.

Take that, Canada ;)

One of the rules of comedy is that if you don't want to be an ass, you punch up; not down. It's why you make fun of wealthy people but not children with Down's Syndrome. As far as to the existence of American Exceptionalism, and what it means, I think that's beyond me.

> One of the rules of comedy is that if you don't want to be an ass, you punch up; not down

Seems like a self serving made up rule. Especially now that everyone has found some way to be a victim.

The funny thing is that the people who feel aggrieved that "everyone has found some way to be a victim" are finding their own way to become a victim. The snake is really eating its tail.

> The funny thing is that the people who feel aggrieved that "everyone has found some way to be a victim"

Explain how I'm claiming to be a victim. Does calling out spineless and characterless people imply I've been victimized?

Are you one of the people who feel aggrieved at victim culture?

No, I've benefited from it because I'm "hispanic".

Comedy is a lot funnier when comedians work outside the rules

> One of the rules of comedy is that if you don't want to be an ass, you punch up; not down.

That's "rule" of twitter snowflakes that have hobby of being offended in stead of someone else.

> It's why you make fun of wealthy people but not children with Down's Syndrome.

What about wealthy person with down syndrome ? What about criminals that's clearly "down" in the ladder, is it fine to make joke about them ?

No, it's not because "up or down", it's because generally someone's physical condition that they can't change is hard to make good joke about, aside from the obvious schoolyard insults.

Like, c'mon, we had dark humor for centuries now, it's not new...

I don't entirely get what you're trying to say here, but I think perhaps it would be helpful to think of it more in terms of power than physical condition. It's not really an example from the world of comedy, but as an example, think about how much offense Hillary Clinton generated when she made her "deplorables" comment. It's because she was an elite punching down at the downtrodden, right?

I'd also add that the word "rule" is probably a bit strong. I'd say that comedy is very results oriented in that comedians mostly seem to do their writing by interacting with audiences and just repeating what works. They probably really only have guidelines at best.

I don’t disagree with your point, but I’m pretty sure most of the controversy around “deplorables” was manufactured by right-wing media. Clinton was rightfully calling out the toxic bully culture of the Trump sphere. Y’know, “he's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

> Growing up in Canada, I remember asking my parents why it was okay to make fun of Americans, but not people from any other country.

It's surprising to me how much the word "American" has been appropriated to just mean people from the U.S., when surely as a Canadian, you're also American (i.e. living in North America).

As a UK resident, it would be considered entirely incorrect to use the term "British" to refer to just the English and almost unthinkable for a Welsh person to also abide by that usage.

> It's surprising to me how much the word "American" has been appropriated to just mean people from the U.S., when surely as a Canadian, you're also American (i.e. living in North America).

Also people from Middle American (Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, ...) and South American countries (Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, ...) are Americans. :-)

> Also people from Middle American (Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, ...) and South American countries (Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, ...) are Americans. :-)

I'd be inclined to refer to Mexico as North America, but then I wouldn't know which countries would be called Middle American

North America is everything north of South America.

Central America is the land between Mexico and South America. It's also part of North America, and also part of Middle America.

Middle America is Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean islands, Columbia, and Venezuela. The latter two countries are in South America, the rest is in North America.

Middle America is also a term for flyover country in the US. Which is how it's almost always used in the US.

In the USA, “America” is a name of our country and “Americans” is the name for residents of the country. Canadians, Mexicans, and residents of South America etc are certainly not “Americans”.

This isn’t anything new, and it’s not “appropriated”

I understood America to be the name of the continent (i.e. The Americas) and "United States of America" to be the name of a country. What term would you use to refer to residents of North America or residents of both North and South America?

("United States of America" implies the existence of other, non-united states of America, which I interpret as all the other countries within the America continent)

>What term would you use to refer to residents of North America or residents of both North and South America?

North Americans or North and South Americans

This is also a concept people reference much, much less often than residents of America the country.

That leads to the strange paradox of South Americans not being American

Not strange at all in context.

I always thought it was a bit weird until I discovered people from the US are called "American" in other languages (e.g., German). I also think it's a little odd that we say US rather than USA, but other languages do that as well. I'm sure it's a chicken and egg situation, but changing the term now seems unlikely. I suppose the alternatives are just too much of a mouthful.

It makes more sense to me for other countries to not think about the specific countries/continents, but strikes me as odd for a Canadian to use American in that context (I don't mean it as a criticism, though). Similarly, I would understand a non-brit getting confused between the terms English and British, but I would be very surprised to see a Scot doing that.

And yes, USian doesn't sound or look right.

> when surely as a Canadian, you're also American (i.e. living in North America).

North America includes México at least geographically, so does that mean Mexicans are Americans as well?

American means people from the US because the US has the word America in its name and other countries don't, that's all.

> Welsh person to also abide by that usage.

The Welsh don't like being called British?

> What if the study had found the opposite, that Americans broadly displayed some positive trait more than their Asian counterparts, would such a study even be allowed to be published? I certainly can’t imagine it being received well, if it were.

Yes, there are many studies that have found Americans "better" in some metric. It's quite sad to hear that even Hacker News readers have bought into the right-wing notion about academia having to "censor" itself to not offend supposedly politically correct sensibilities.

As always, treat any social science research with a huge grain of salt [0,1]. This goes double for opinion pieces, and any kind of media coverage of psychology research.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20180219143031/https://putanumon...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oajlP-rqQr4

As an American and working with a lot of really smart people over my career in IT, I don’t see this happening. I find most people I’ve come across suffer from imposter syndrome.

Those I know outside IT work, get paid and spend time with family. I don’t really see any superiority.

That’s just my perspective on a small part of the world. Have a great weekend all!

I wonder if this study is accidentally measuring people’s perception of their potential. I struggle a fair amount with public speaking; it’s a phobia for me, but I also know that I am capable of overcoming it if I prioritize it. So maybe I would seem to think I’m better than I am if the methodology accidentally conflates my belief about my potential with my belief about my current state?

Maybe not even with their own potential but others'. For example, nearly everyone feels that their kids are special high performers in the US, or at least hope they are. We can't all be above average. I've heard that the Japanese have a different way of viewing it - that they hope for average since that's logically what they will get, but still push for fulfilling one's full potential.

This happens due to the fact that working in IT what you see instead is that individuals they deem inferior are not hired. Racism is a very big think in both Asian and American Culture. In systems such as the University of Texas we see outcomes for Hispanics that receive degrees in technology. They just don't get jobs. The results of it are easily translated over for other ethnicities with the notable exception of African Americans which Texas surprisingly has very few African Americans and even less with a bachelors degree or higher.

It tells us a lot firstly that there is a limit to the amount of minorities that are hired every year and that it's artificially set by a group of people systemically due to varying biases, often a sense of superiority. I could list the two groups that actively participate in this but doing so is pointless.

> In our newest area of research—cultural neuroscience—we find that the neural pathways that support positive illusions are absent in certain communities.

Fairly depressing an idea.

How are you ever supposed to find out whether your better prospective aspects & potentials are illusion, delusion, or real unless you give it a shot?

Wouldn't it be more depressing to find out they were delusions than to know your purpose/place from the beginning?

I don't think a more accurate perception of one's own potential is depressing. Giving things a shot has costs. If you undertake risky or costly ventures because you have an inflated idea of your own abilities, most people are going to cause themselves real harm, and others too for that matter.

The happiest countries in the world are generally the Nordics and the Dutch, known for shunning this sort of exceptionalism.

How do we know what is accurate though? We have to try to actually find out, no? How do we know we aren't underbidding ourselves?

Often I find Americans have a lot more confidence in their skills than they should.

Full armchair conjecture, but if someone has more confidence in their skills than they should, typically that leads them to try things that they otherwise may not have attempted?

Seeing failure as a precondition to improvement seems more valuable to me, than the inverse of:

I’m not as skilled as I think I am, therefore I will not try XYZ thing.

This then is a feedback loop of either slower or “negative” improvement overtime.

This goes without saying that for some cases over confidence can be detrimental:

I was confident I was a good snow boarder despite going only a few times years back, and decided to start back up going down a blue trail, only to end up needing knee surgery.

"I’m not as skilled as I think I am, therefore I will not try XYZ thing."

Or you try it knowing there is a learning curve and that you will never be great. People can still participate and enjoy things knowing they are only mediocre at that.

That's me with programming, and it's my favorite pastime regardless. :D

> but if someone has more confidence in their skills than they should, typically that leads them to try things that they otherwise may not have attempted?

Not always. They can also be blinded by the current state of things instead of thinking of new solutions or challenging the status quo. People can be over confident in their code and refuse to write tests or their assumptions based on old knowledge and go down the wrong path...

Agreed, but somehow they end up pulling it off on the other side, so who knows...

My impression is that they are locked in an arms race of confidence and ambition. If we take a step back those are qualities that work best in moderation, balanced with other qualities that are in some ways opposite (realism and modesty perhaps?).

But when one side of those balancing acts gets into focus too much it can become an arms race, a success metric that in a way becomes self-fulfilling more than it deserves. If we look closely, and freed somehow from our baseline expectations (to an American, confidence arms race will just feel normal), we can probably detect similar patterns in just about any community.

Excellent observation! As an American software developer, it rings pretty true.

Funny personal anecdote:

Hiring manager: "Why should we hire you?"

Me: "I'm not sure you should. It depends on the quality of your other applicants."

I'm still tickled by how much that caught them off guard. Radical honesty is one of my mild-Asperger superpowers :)

Me: Asks a question.

Someone: Wow thats a good idea!

Me: Uhh I think it might be a terrible idea.

I’m an American, but I certainly think my life is better for my tendency to bias myself toward a belief in my own capability. If I’m wrong, I fall short of my goal and learn some valuable lessons, but I’m always better off than if I hadn’t tried.

I try a lot more things than I would if I believed I weren’t capable, which means I learn more than I otherwise would (including learning from failure), and all of this extra knowledge makes me more capable than I would be if I settled for a pessimistic view of my capability.

Whatever your attitude toward Americans, I think you would be doing yourself a disservice by settling for a small view of your potential.

This is article is a complete load of bullshit. I know tons of people who are more humble than they should be in the US and they're all successful people. It's difficult generalize about an entire country of 330m people.

If all you hear all the time is that yours is the greatest country on earth, even if it was true at one point, before long it will cease to be true. Same goes for people.

Honestly I kind of think there’s a feedback loop working in the other direction. If you believe that you are capable, you’re more likely to try new things and if you’re really lucky, you fail a lot and learn a ton, which incidentally makes you more capable than you would be if you had a small worldview. Maybe that sort of positivity at the scale of an entire society has made America a greater country than it would have been if Americans were as pessimistic as their critics (both foreign and native) try to make them feel?

Actual title: "People in the U.S. Think They Are Better Than They Actually Are. People in Asia Don’t"

It's still going to stir some shit

As an Asian American, yes.

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