Richard E. Nisbett Quotes & Sayings

Whether you're heroic or heartless may depend on a contextual factor whose impact is far greater than we would tend to assume. — Richard E. Nisbett

objectivity arose from subjectivity - the recognition that two minds could have different representations of the world and that the world has an existence independent of either representation. This — Richard E. Nisbett

The Chinese believe in constant change, but with things always moving back to some prior state. They pay attention to a wide range of events; they search for relationships between things; and they think you can't understand the part without understanding the whole. Westerners live in a simpler, more deterministic world; they focus on salient objects or people instead of the larger picture; and they think they can control events because they know the rules that govern the behavior of objects. — Richard E. Nisbett

What nature hath joined together, multiple regression analysis cannot put asunder. — Richard E. Nisbett

Chinese dialectical reasoning had an impact on the physicist Niels Bohr, who was highly knowledgeable about Eastern thought. He attributed his development of quantum theory in part to the metaphysics of the East. There had been a centuries-long debate in the West about whether light consists of particles or waves. Belief in one was assumed to contradict and render impossible belief in the other. Bohr's solution was to say that light can be thought of in both ways. In quantum theory, light can be viewed either as a particle or as a wave. Just never both at the same time. — Richard E. Nisbett