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  3. That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past

That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past

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问题     That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past two decades suggest Westerners have a more individualistic and abstract mental life than do East Asians. Several explanations are proposed to account for different ways of thinking.
    One explanation is that stepping into the modern social, economic and technological situation promotes individualism. However, in Japan, a pretty modern country, its people have retained a collective outlook. A second proposal is that if a place is liable to a higher frequency of infectious disease, it is more dangerous to make contact with strangers, which causes groups in this place to turn inward and tend to be collective. This explanation is also been questioned. Europe has had its share of plagues; probably more than either Japan or Korea. And though in southern China, a source of infection often starts there, this is not true of other parts of that enormous country.
    That led Thomas Talhelm of the University of Virginia and his colleagues to look into a third suggestion; that the crucial difference is agricultural. The West’s staple (主食)is wheat, while the East’s rice. Before the mechanical revolution of agriculture, a farmer who grew rice had to spend twice as many hours doing so as one who grew wheat. To promote efficient agricultural production, especially at times of planting and harvesting, rice-growing societies as far apart as India, Malaysia and Japan all developed cooperative labor exchanges. That is, neighbors arranged their farms’ schedules one after another in order to assist each other during these significant periods. Since, until recently, almost everyone was a farmer, it is a reasonable proposal that such a collective outlook would enjoy a controlling position in a society’s culture and behavior, and might prove so deep rooted that even now, when most people earn their living in other ways, it helps to define their lives. This proposal that the different ways of thinking of East and West are, at least in part, a consequence of their agriculture is worth further exploration.
What do Thomas Talhelm and his colleagues assume?
选项 A、The cultivation of wheat requires twice as much time as that of rice.
B、In Malaysia, farmers need their neighbors’ assistance to grow wheat.
C、The major agricultural crop of rice may define cooperative outlook.
D、Farmers are only engaged in their own planting and harvesting of rice.
答案C
解析 本题考查托马斯.托尔赫姆和他的同事们关于东西方思维方式差异的解释。
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