Richard E. Nisbett

In two studies, this thesis depicts the relationship between minority group status in the United States, perceived discrimination, and coping with stress. Past literature on coping and its types – problem-focused versus emotion-focused – is inconsistent in terms of differences between minority status groups and majority groups. It remains unknown whether or why Black Americans and lesbian or gay Americans may demonstrate coping patterns that differ from White Americans and heterosexual Americans, respectively. What is altogether absent from the literature is the possible mediating factor of perceived discrimination experienced by these minority groups. That is, differences in internal, stable coping processes that manage stress may have been molded by one’s experience with discrimination. Study 1 examines the relationship between race (Black versus White) and coping, mediated by perceived discrimination. Study 2 examines the relationship between sexual orientation (lesbian or gay versus heterosexual) and coping, mediated by perceived discrimination. Both studies confirm the thesis that minority group members exhibit maladaptive, emotion-focused coping more than majority group
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members – but that this difference is explained by the minority group members’ perceived discrimination. Historical and political relevance, social implications, and possible limitations in design and interpretation are discussed.

Through Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential ontology and social psychology’s Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) it is possible to claim that prejudice is predicated on our incorrect ordering of character dispositions
(or personality) with action. In other words, we make the mistake of thinking that people’s character is the cause of action and behaviour. I argue, with the help of Sartre and proponents of the FAE, that this is ontologically incorrect and is the primary cause of prejudice.

These brief remarks outline the methodological flaws that vitiate Nisbett's The Geography of Thought (2004). In particular, (1) he essentializes Asia. (2) He generalizes from small samples to conclusions about radically different populations. (3) His conclusions do not follow from his own data.

In his provocative book on the geography of thought (Nisbett 2003), Richard Nisbett distinguishes the centralized, settled, and agricultural peoples of ancient China, from the inhabitants of ancient Greece who busied themselves in fishing, hunting, and trading. Farming, he writes, “required people to cultivate the land in concert with one another,” emphasizing the importance of cooperation and harmony. Large-scale irrigation required a network of social control, favoring an authoritarian and despotic polity of village elders, regional magistrates, and— ultimately—a central king or emperor (Nisbett 2003, 34). However, the early Greeks occupied an environment that favored “hunting, herding, fishing, and trade (and—let’s be frank—piracy).” These activities require less large-scale cooperation, and when settled agriculture came to Greece (two millennia after it came to China), “many farmers were more nearly businessmen than peasants. The Greeks were therefore able to act on their own to a greater extent than were the Chinese. Not feeling it necessary to maintain harmony with their fellows at any cost, the Greeks were in the habit of arguing with one another in the marketplace and debating one another in the political assembly” (Nisbett 2003, 34–35).