It’s an age old question.
Would you rather be a big frog in a small pond or a small frog in a big pond.
A new study by Ph.D student Kaidi Wu from the University of Michigan found that people from East Asian cultures tend to answer that question differently than White Americans.
The Atlantic reports researchers interviewed White and East Asian students from the University of Michigan. The East Asian students were described as mostly American born or students who immigrated at an early age.
The study found 75 percent of the East Asian respondents would rather be a small frog in a big pond than a big frog in a small pond. Only 59 percent of White students answered the same way.
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Part two of the study questioned not Asians in America, but people in China. Would they rather be a below average student at a top 10 college or at a top 100 college where they’d be above average. They also asked the same question about a top 10 global companies versus a top 100.
58 percent of the Chinese preferred a top 10 college and 29 percent preferred a top 10 global company. For European Americans, it was just 27 and 14 percent.
Part three of the study found that the more likely a person is to compare themselves to their peers, the more likely they would rather be a big frog in a small pond.
“Originally we thought maybe it’s because individualism, people want to stand out as the big frog, versus collectivism, people kind of want to … see themselves as part of the big pond,” said the researcher Kaidi Wu to the Michigan Daily. “It turned out, that was not the case. What happened is that there is an alternative dimension called dignity versus face.” East Asian cultures are more about preserving face. American cultures are more about dignity. People are more concerned about how they feel about themselves.
“Think about how many times themes like ‘You are your own person’ or ‘Stop worrying about what other people think’ course through song lyrics and self-help books,” Wu said about White culture to Quartz, concluding: “The choices we make are the products of our culture.”
The study was published in the journal, Social Psychological and Personality Science, and can be found at Research Gate.
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