An international city like Hong Kong offers an opportunity to understand cultural differences - the underlying attitudes that contrast with your own, the unfamiliar expectations and aspirations. There is delight in that experience alone, of course. But why not make that knowledge work for you by taking things a step further? Once a certain amount of information has been absorbed, there is a great chance to make explicit decisions about elements of other cultures you would like to learn from or even adopt; attitudes that suit your personal needs and aspirations better than the ones you grew up with. Multiculturalism, in other words, is an incredibly fertile ground for personal growth. To maximise the multicultural experience, it helps to recognise explicitly the differences in how other people operate and find out why they do what they do. Such knowledge makes it easier to make informed choices about how to get the best of both worlds. The trouble is that, unless you are a psychologist, your personal 'working theory' about people may not necessarily be obvious to you. Everyone has a set of guiding assumptions, and these attitudes play a huge part not only in how we feel and behave, but also in what we expect from ourselves and from those around us. Take self-esteem, a frequently misunderstood aspect of the self. Studies show that the typical 'Asian thinker' regards self-esteem as the feeling you get when you are engaged in tasks that stretch your abilities to their fullest extent and which require persistent effort and repeated experiences of overcoming hurdles. By contrast, the average 'American thinker' looks at self-esteem as the result of an accumulation of experiences of success - winning rather than losing. Broadly speaking, the Asian thinker operates from a set of assumptions that psychologists call incremental theory, while the American thinker is an entity theorist. So, what can these two perspectives teach us? The Asian approach allows for change. It does not assume that present achievement predicts future potential, providing the right supportive environment and judicious pressure is applied, from the family or from society as a whole. The very fact that a task is difficult for an individual, and yet the individual nonetheless masters it, is valued. In contrast, many American thinkers are repelled by pressure to succeed in a sphere that may not necessarily be of one's choosing. In education, for example, Asian students regularly outstrip American ones. But the American thinker would view the heavy emphasis on disciplined slogging as draining the joy out of the learning experience. There is some truth to this. Chinese people have their fair share of anxiety rooted in the dread of bringing shame or humiliation to their family. And it could be argued that their self-esteem is overly dependent on this form of approval. But, then, neither are American people free from performance-related anxiety and depression. The difference is, they 'don't have the achievement to show for it', notes Carol Dweck, a Columbia University professor and a leader in the fields of motivation, personality and development. In the American view, self-esteem is in some ways more fragile. This is why they avoid at all costs activities that are seriously challenging. If a task does not come relatively easily to a worker or student, it is 'not his or her thing'. The American does not value plugging away at an activity despite the lack of any obvious affinity. Intelligence, in the American self-view, is a gift, a fairly static quantity, not a malleable set of skills. So struggling at a job gets zero respect, while breezing through receives the highest accolades. Consequently, Americans lavish praise on those who succeed at things they find easy. Since the entity theory of self-esteem is often based on winning, it depends on a significant body of 'losers' in order to work. However, this attitude also means that Americans are willing to work around other people's 'strengths and weaknesses'. Consequently, it can foster in individuals the sense that it is worth investing a lot of time and effort to find what you are particularly good at and enjoy. This trait may account for the preponderance of specialists in the United States and partly for how Americans tend to dominate internationally in so many fields, since they so perfectly nurture their stars. For the rest of the population, however, there is an instinctive avoidance of challenge, in order to protect one's image of oneself. This has produced the constant theme of The Simpsons and other under-achieving anti-heroes of American popular culture, whose popularity shows us something of the 'loser' classes. Asian incrementalism holds that self-esteem is a self-controllable and empowering experience. However, motivation can be overly linked to a desire not to bring shame on the family, and poor performance may result in humiliation. The alternative fosters astonishing stars, but mostly Homer Simpsons. Jean Nicol is a Hong Kong-based psychologist and writer everydaypsychologist@yahoo.com