Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

290 CHAPTER 7 Thinking, Language, and IntelligenceCULTURE AND HUMAN BEHAVIORThe Effect of Language on PerceptionProfessionally, Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941) was an insurancecompany inspector. But his passion was the study of languages,particularly Native American languages. In the 1950s, Whorfproposed an intriguing theory that became known as the Whorfianhypothesis.Whorf (1956) believed that a person’s language determinesthe very structure of his or her thought and perception. Yourlanguage, he claimed, determines how you perceive and “carveup” the phenomena of your world. He argued that people whospeak very different languages have completely different worldviews.More formally, the Whorfian hypothesis is called thelinguistic relativity hypothesis—the notion that differencesamong languages cause differences in the thoughts of theirspeakers.To illustrate his hypothesis, Whorf contended that the Eskimoshad many different words for “snow.” But English, he pointedout, has only the word snow. According to Whorf (1956):We have the same word for falling snow, snow on the ground,snow packed hard like ice, slushy snow, wind-driven flyingsnow—whatever the situation may be. To an Eskimo, this allinclusiveword would be almost unthinkable; he would say thatfalling snow, slushy snow, and so on are sensuously and operationallydifferent, different things to contend with; he uses differentwords for them and for other kinds of snow.Whorf’s example would be compelling except for one problem:The Eskimos do not have dozens of different words for“snow.” Rather, they have just a few words for “snow” (Martin,1986; Pullum, 1991). Beyond that minor sticking point, thinkcarefully about Whorf’s example. Is it really true that Englishspeakingpeople have a limited capacity to describe snow? Or donot discriminate between different types of snow? The Englishlanguage includes snowflake, snowfall, slush, sleet, flurry, blizzard,and avalanche. Avid skiers have many additional words todescribe snow, from powder to mogul to hardpack.More generally, people with expertise in a particular area tendto perceive and make finer distinctions than nonexperts do.Experts are also more likely to know the specialized terms thatreflect those distinctions (Pinker, 1994). To the knowledgeablebird-watcher, for example, there are distinct differences betweena cedar waxwing and a bohemian waxwing. To the nonexpert,they’re just two brownish birds with yellow tail feathers.Despite expert/nonexpert differences in noticing and namingdetails, we don’t claim that the expert “sees” a different realitythan a nonexpert. In other words, our perceptions and thoughtprocesses influence the language we use to describe those perceptions(Rosch, 1987). Notice that this conclusion is the exactopposite of the linguistic relativity hypothesis.Whorf also pointed out that many languages have differentcolor-naming systems. English has names for 11 basic colors:black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange,and gray. However, some languages have only a few color terms.Navajo, for example, has only one word to describe both blueand green, but two different words for black (Fishman, 1960).Would people who had just a few words for colors “carve up”and perceive the electromagnetic spectrum differently?Eleanor Rosch set out to answer this question (Heider &Olivier, 1972). The Dani-speaking people of New Guinea havewords for only two colors. Mili is used for the dark, cool colorsof black, green, and blue. Mola is used for light, warm colors,such as white, red, and yellow. According to the Whorfianhypothesis, the people of New Guinea, with names for only twoHow Language Influences ThinkingAll your cognitive abilities are involved in understanding and producing language.Using learning and memory, you acquire and remember the meaning of words. Youinterpret the words you hear or read (or see, in the case of American Sign Language)through the use of perception. You use language to help you reason, representand solve problems, and make decisions (Polk & Newell, 1995).Language can influence thinking in several ways. For example, when you hearabout a course titled “Man and His Environment,” what image comes to mind? Doyou visualize a group of men tromping through the forest, or do you imagine amixed group of men and women?The word man or the pronouns he and his can refer to either a male or afemale in English, because English has no gender-neutral pronoun. So, accordingto the rules of the English language, the course title “Man and His Environment”technically refers to both men and women.However, several studies have shown that using the masculine pronoun tends toproduce images of males and exclude females (Beasley, 2007; Crawford, 2001). In aclassic study by Nancy Henley (1989), participants were given identical sentencefragments to complete. Examples included “If a writer expects to get a book published. . .” and “If an employee wants a raise . . .” Participants in the first group weregiven the masculine generic he to use in finishing the sentences. Participants in thesecond group were given either they or he or she to use in completing the sentences.