how Asians and Westerners think differently, part 2

I've been meaning to follow-up on my original post about differences between Asian & Western cultures with this second passage from Richard Nisbett's The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why:

I am sometimes accused of a contradiction myself. Why do nonlogical Asians tend to do so much better in math and science than Americans? How can this be if East Asians have trouble with logic? There are several answers to this question.

First, it should be noted that we don't actually find East Asians to have trouble with formal logic, we just find them to be less likely to use it in everyday situations where experience or desire conflicts with it. Second, Eastern lack of concern about contradiction and emphasis on the Middle Way undoubtedly does result in logical errors, but Western contradiction phobia can also produce logical errors.

The Eastern reputation for math skills is really quite recent. Traditional Chinese and Japanese culture emphasized literature, the arts, and music as the proper pursuits of the educated person. In research with young and elderly Chinese and Americans, we and others find that only the Comparably schooled older Chinese and Americans perform similarly in math.

Asian math education is better and Asian students work harder. Teacher training in the East continues throughout the teacher's career; teachers have to spend much less time teaching than their American counterparts; and the techniques in common use are superior to those found in America. (Asian math-education superioity to Europe in these respects is less marked.) Both in America and in Asia, children of East Asian background work much harder on math and science than European Americans. The difference in how hard children work at math is likely due at least in part to the greater Western tendency to believe that behavior is the result of fixed traits. Americans are inclined to believe that skills are qualities you do or don't have, so there's not much point in trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Asians tend to believe that everyone, under the right circumstances and with enough hard work, can learn to do math.

In short, Asian superiority in math and science is paradixical, but scarcely contradictory!