PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article 450 Copyright © 2001 American Psychological Society VOL. 12, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 2001 CULTURE, CHANGE, AND PREDICTION Li-Jun Ji, 1 Richard E. Nisbett, 1 and Yanjie Su 2 1 University of Michigan and 2 Beijing University, Beijing, China Abstract—Five studies showed that Chinese and Americans perceive change differently. Chinese anticipated more changes from an initial state than Americans did. When events were changing in a particular direction, Chinese were more likely than Americans to predict change in the direction of change. Moreover, for patterns with changing slopes, Chinese predicted greater change in the way slopes changed, in com- parison to Americans. In addition, people who predicted change were perceived as wise by Chinese more than by Americans. Implications for social attribution, tolerance for contradiction, persistence on tasks, and the illusion of control are discussed. There is an ancient Chinese story about an old Chinese farmer. One day his horse ran away. His neighbors came to comfort him, but he said, “How can you know it isn’t a good thing?” A few days later, his horse came back, bringing a wild horse with it. His neighbors came to congratulate the old man, who said, “How can you know it isn’t a bad thing?” A few weeks later, the old man’s son tried to ride on the new horse and fell off, breaking his leg. Again, the neighbors came to com- fort the old man, who said, “How can you know it isn’t a good thing?” Some months later, a war broke out, and all the young men in the re- gion were recruited for the war. The old man’s son was spared because of his broken leg. The story goes on in the same way, as long as the au- dience’s patience holds up! This famous Chinese story suggests that things are changing all the time and people should not be misled by a local state of events. Indeed, an extreme state of events suggests that its opposite is about to occur. VIEWS ON CHANGE: EAST VERSUS WEST The East and the West have different views on change. The idea of change and transformation between two opposite states is the main theme of the I Ching (Ritsema & Karcher, 1994), or Book of Changes. The book not only discusses change in one direction (from young to old or from small to large), but also discusses changes from one ex- treme to another extreme. For example, when a moon is full, it starts to wane; when a moon is new, it starts to wax. This is the relationship between yin and yang: When yin reaches its extreme, it becomes yang; when yang reaches its extreme, it becomes yin. The pure yin is hidden in yang, and the pure yang is hidden in yin (see Wei, 1939 version). This also applies to human events. “For misery, happiness is leaning against it; for happiness, misery is hiding in it . . . . The righteous sud- denly becomes the vicious, the good suddenly becomes the bad” (chap. 58). Therefore, yin and yang are dependent on each other, and trans- formations between the two occur when one of them becomes extreme. In the eyes of ancient Chinese, the world we live in is never a stag- nant world. The energy keeps moving, and the ch’i (spirit) keeps changing. So does Tao, which is the ultimate principle of change that encompasses everything and functions in everything (Liu, 1974). Ac- cording to Tao Te Jing (Lao Tsu, 2000 version), Tao moves in endless cycles: To shrink something You need to expand it first To weaken something, You need to strengthen it first To abolish something You need to flourish it first To take something You need to give it first (chap. 36) The heavy is the root of the light The unmoved is the source of all movement. (chap. 26) This kind of dialectical thought has a long history among the Chi- nese people. Objects are understood as unstable and inseparable from subjects. This type of thought emphasizes not only the coexistence and interpenetration of the two parts of a contradiction, but their change and transformation into one another as well. It also emphasizes considering things from a long-term and systematic perspective and deemphasizes immediate gain and loss (Li, 1999). Given that the Chinese emphasize change more than stability, it would not be surprising that “irregularity, but not regularity, attracts the Chinese attention. For example, they looked for irregularities in nature—earthquakes, novae, and eclipses—as signs from heaven. Consequently, when they discovered that lunar eclipses followed a regular pattern, their interest in this phenomenon decreased” (Cromer, 1993, p. 93). Western traditions are quite different. For example, Parmenides (born 515 B.C.?) thought that everything that existed had always ex- isted. Nothing could come out of nothing, and nothing that existed could become nothing, nor even become anything other than what it was. Parmenides demonstrated that change was impossible with the ar- gument that for something to change it would have to cease to be what it was, but nonbeing is self-contradictory and therefore nonbeing cannot exist. He trusted his reason more than his senses, as did Plato, who was concerned with what is eternal and immutable in nature and morality. Thus, “the Greek thinkers . . . became captives of their own meth- ods. They rejected the validity of empirically observed phenomena such as motion and change because of the logical arguments of Par- menides . . . . The Greeks in a sense became slaves to the linear either- or orientation of their logic” (Logan, 1986, p. 153). Earlier Greek philosophers, to be sure, were concerned with change. Heraclitus (ca. 540–480 B.C.) thought that constant change, or flow, was in fact the most basic characteristic of nature. “Things are in flux” and we cannot “step into the same river twice” (Heraclitus, 1962 ver- sion, pp. 14,17). Aristotle was also preoccupied with natural processes having to do with changes. But most Greeks were not inclined to em- phasize cyclical or oppositional change, as the Chinese did. For the Greeks, if the world changed from one state to another, this was an indi- cation that it would continue on the same path, in a linear fashion (see Fisher, 1964). Address correspondence to Li-Jun Ji, Craine Hall 306, Department of Psychol- ogy, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6; e-mail: lijunji@ psyc.queensu.ca.