An astonishing fact about these physical differences is that they could only have evolved less than 70,000 years ago – a blink of an eye in terms of evolutionary timescales. This is because overwhelmingly, the DNA, fossil and climatic evidence converges on 60,000 to 80,000 years ago as being the period in which a tiny group of modern humans made a crossing out of Africa to set up fragile roots in Asia. This group's offspring – perhaps no more than 100 to 200 people strong – then went on to populate the rest of the world. Members of this group bred only negligibly with prior species of humans in other regions. At the time of settling on the shores outside of Africa, all non-Africans must have looked the same and, in all probability, not much different from the African cousins that they had left behind. Most, but not all, of the physical differences that are apparent can be related to adaptations required to survive in the multifarious environments that modern humans encountered as they spread to populate the rest of the world.
However, while discussing physical differences is uncontroversial – if only because it is self evidently obvious – the idea that people's underlying psychology might be different is more difficult for people to accept. Sure, we have no problem acknowledging small behavioral differences. It's clear that people from different parts of the world differ in manners, eat different things, wear different clothes, and like different sports. However, despite these relatively superficial variations, many informed and educated people fundamentally do want to believe that we are all the same deep down. Contrary thoughts are left to those who don't know any better. Suggesting such differences in polite company typically generates embarrassment. This is not just because people want to be politically correct; rightly we do not feel comfortable putting our friends or acquaintances into boxes.
The issue of differences between groups is therefore, to put it mildly, controversial. All too often, we can risk exaggerating differences between people and failing to recognize the fact that humans everywhere have the same desires, fears, motivations and challenges to overcome in life. In fact, when it comes to global business, it is not a bad idea to sometimes put aside notions of cultural differences and assume that everyone is pretty much the same. When looking at other cultures sometimes we exaggerate differences, and at other times we oversimplify and assume uniformity where there is variety and differentiation. In fact, there are powerful reasons for why we engage in such stereotyping beyond the obvious need to feel good about ourselves in relation to others.
Our social world is complex and taxes our cognitive and emotional coping strategies. The human brain evolved predominantly in hunter–gatherer times when humans typically congregated in groups of between 50 and 100. Our brains are finely tuned instruments for navigating that early environment. The only problem is that, unless you happen to be a Kalahari Bushman or an Inuit, this finely tuned instrument is required to operate in environments that were never imagined back when it was constructed. Imagine turning up to sort out a problem on a piece of complicated IT software armed not with an operating manual but with a soldering iron, and you will begin to get the picture. One of the simplifying processes is to stereotype people and to relate to them as members of a group as opposed to having to understand every person we need to engage individually and from scratch. A danger in talking about psychological differences between people from different cultures is simply that it reinforces narrow and frequently false stereotypes about people.
This has not always been the case. In Victorian England and most of European society at the turn of the century, it was common for people to overtly and with confidence opine about the attributes of others. Favell Mortimer – a descendant of the family that founded Barclays Bank – wrote widely about other people. Two of her most popular books were The Countries of Europe Described and Far Off: Asia and Australia Described.4 Mortimer presents, with breathtaking insensitivity and at times open contempt, her views on the nations of the world. The Spaniards are “not only idle they are very cruel;” and the French “like things smart but are not very clean.” When she talks of Italy, Mortimer cannot get over the number of murders committed in the country and how unsafe it feels. Further afield, if anything her observations grow even more rancorous. On Afghanistan, she observes “the men are terrible looking creatures – tall, large, dark and grim.” The Burmese, she informs her readers, are “very deceitful and tell lies on every occasion.” When she comes to Siam, she makes the judgment that “there would be very little trade in Bangkok if it were not for the Chinese.”5
This is the sort of writing that gives observations on different people a bad name. The point of all this is that stereotypes, even strongly held ones, can all too often be wrong. One reason for this is that people frequently fail to account for contextual factors when interpreting others' behaviors and thus attribute tendencies to people that are more accurately ascribed to the situation that they inhabit. This effect is so powerful that it has a name in psychology: the fundamental attribution error. A second reason that stereotypes are frequently wrong is that they are often less about describing the world than justifying our position or actions within it. Mortimer's views make a good deal more sense when looked at through the lens of rationalizing British imperial activities.
Unconscious Bias
Few people nowadays would openly serve up the kind of fare that Mortimer offers her readers. However, as the whole field of unconscious bias in psychology has uncovered, even people who are openly and vehemently against anything that smacks of stereotyping often show evidence of intergroup bias when their behavior is examined more closely. A legion of studies have demonstrated that when one looks at people's actual behavior and decision making, or aspects of their reactions they cannot control, they do hold profound views about intergroup differences. If, for example, white people are shown on a computer screen positive and negative adjectives, each paired with a white or ethnic sounding name and asked to say whether the adjective is good or bad, they show much faster reaction times when the positive adjective is paired with a white sounding name or the negative ones with the ethnic sounding name. When the pairing violates people's internal stereotypes, by putting positive adjectives next to ethnic sounding names or negative ones next to white-sounding names, the brain takes time to orient itself to this unexpected reality.6
In fact, a range of research looking at things people cannot control, such as reaction times, recall, or neuropsychological responses, shows that people hold unconscious biases not just toward other ethnic groups but also with respect to gender and all manner of other groupings in our social world. The differences are higher typically in people who are openly discriminatory in their thinking, but also invariably show up with even the most ardent liberals.7
So just because people don't like to flaunt their views Mortimer-style these days – this does not mean they do not hold underlying views about group differences. However, before we jump to the conclusion that everyone is full of irrational stereotypes, there is an interesting twist to the unconscious bias data. Black people in the earlier example also show evidence of holding the same biases, but a bit less strongly. In fact, a whole host of research on both conscious and unconscious stereotypes shows that often, but not always, the group itself shares the views that others hold about them. In general, while people differ in the values they attach to particular qualities – generally valuing the traits they possess over those with which they are less associated – they nevertheless often agree on what qualities their own and other groups possess. Why should this be so? Is there a conspiracy to envelop everyone with a global false consciousness to which we have all succumbed?
One strong strand within psychological research of group perceptions holds that some, but not all, stereotypes have a kernel of truth to them.8 There is strong evidence that people formulate views of other groups because of certain tangible bits of data and evidence rather than picking them out of thin air.9 It's a theory substantiated by the finding that many stereotypes seem to reflect people's observations of extreme or salient events. Simplistically, if you see a lot of Indian children in the Spelling Bee