Dear All,

Could I endorse what Robin Le Blanc has written and add a few comments.

When we teach research methods courses in political science, we always alert our students to so-called 'cognitive distortions'. One well-known 'cognitive distortion' is over-generalisation and a stereotype is a form of over-generalisation. What concerns me the most, however, is when this over-generalisation is mixed with ethnocentrism (e.g. 'the possessive individualism of the West' - a comment made at a gathering of Japan specialists including myself, in Japan, by a very well-known figure who used to work in the Ministry of Finance); or, when it is mixed with a desire to impose a certain uniformity, or conformity, if you will, on the behaviour of Japanese people - ref.
the ubiquitously used phrase 'We Japanese.....'. I've heard it so many times - 'we Japanese this....' 'we Japanese that....'. I always ask myself - how many Japanese is this person speaking for? I can certainly think of many Japanese who might disagree with him or her (usually him).

That said, I think we need to impose more rigorous standards on the written word, rather than the spoken word, where over-generalising and stereotyping is common, and I'm just as much prone to it as anyone else.

Best wishes,

Aurelia George Mulgan
UNSW
Canberra
Australia