Page 292 - Cultures and Organizations

Yesterday, Now, or Later? 261

ence did not, although science and math scores were mutually strongly
correlated. There was something in high-LTO cultures that contributed
to mathematical skills. Wealthier countries did slightly better than poorer
countries, but the math performance was more correlated with LTO-CVS
than with national wealth. 55
Misho had explained both mathematics and science performance
differences from his monumentalism dimension and Heine’s theory. Cul-
tures encouraging self-enhancement will reduce children’s interest in
self-improvement activities, such as education. In monumentalist cultures
people seek positive information about themselves and dismiss negative

information. It takes a flexhumble culture to encourage admitting that one
needs self-improvement. 56
Older studies had shown that in the United States, Asian students more
than Western students tended to attribute success to effort, and to attri-
bute failure to lack of it, which is in line with Misho’s interpretation. 57
We analyzed the 2007 TIMSS scores, correlating them with LTO-
CVS, LTO-WVS, and national wealth. Again, LTO-CVS correlated only
with math performance, not with science performance, although the two
58
were very strongly mutually correlated. LTO-WVS correlated highly

significantly with both math and science performance, although the math
correlations were always slightly stronger. 59
These results suggest that for the 2007 TIMMS scores, both Geert’s
interpretation and Misho’s interpretation are still correct. Higher scores
on LTO-WVS come with higher scores on both math and science, and this
effect remains when we eliminate the effect of national wealth, at least for
the eighth-grade students. For the fourth-grade students, the better school
results can be entirely attributed to national wealth. 60
At the same time, the correlations with LTO-CVS remain signifi cant

only for math performance, not for science performance. In these correla-
tions there are relatively many East Asian countries. In the correlations
with LTO-WVS, East Asian countries represent a smaller share; these
correlations are significant for both math and science performance, but

always somewhat more for math. We conclude that East Asian students
have a double advantage: they not only work harder but also have a cul-
tural talent for understanding mathematics. This advantage exists already
for fourth-grade students (ten-year-olds), while the hard work effect only
starts to affect the eighth-graders (fourteen-year-olds).
A traditional assumption has been that East Asian students focus on rote
learning instead of comprehension, but the superior performance in basic