US V/S THEM

After years of trying to figure out Indian curiosity -- where relatives/co-passengers scan you from top to bottom, ask questions beginning with the innocuous, "Where are you getting off" to the more cutting, "Are you divorced? Why don't you have kids?", I'm beginning to wonder if it's an attempt to include you in a wider community -- no offence meant at all.

Even if this argument appears a little stretched -- I'm sure curiosity has its uses, apart from just forming a connection -- there must be something more to the Indian method of communication than meets the eye. It's true that we're not very "friendly" when it comes to greeting/smiling at people we meet on the street, but I've seen perfect strangers bond on trains, share food and part with heavy hearts, like they've known each other for a lifetime. In the course of a routine conversation, we often go into intimate details of families, contacts and so on, taking in every detail of the person we're talking to -- facial expressions, dialogue, props and all.

US researchers have studied communication patterns among the Americans and Asians for long, and point to this "individualistic" versus "inclusive" method of communication between the cultures. The methods may be different when it comes to us Indians, but the attempt, I think, is primarily to put "you" before "I".

Here's a sampling of the research:
A study by University of Michigan researchers led by Hannah-Faye Chua and Richard Nisbett (2005) found that when shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene.
The July issue of Psychological Science carries the results of a study that suggests "rugged American individualism could hinder their ability to understand other peoples' point of view." In contrast, the Chinese are more skilled at understanding other people's perspectives, perhaps because they live in a more "collectivist" society.
LiveScience quotes study co-author and cognitive psychologist Boaz Keysar of the University of Chicago as saying, "This cultural difference affects the way we communicate. 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."
Psychologists at Hokkaido University in Japan have found that the Japanese gaze at the shape of a person's eyes, while Americans focus on the mouth. When people from the two cultures interact, these crisscrossed sightlines can even lead to miscommunication!