Stankov (2010) has offered an original and provoking theory to account for higher achievement, anxiety, and self-doubt among Asians. Unfortunately, several empirical and conceptual gaps must be closed before the author can make a convincing argument on the relationship between “unforgiving” Confucian culture and high achievement test anxiety self-doubt. The author relies too heavily on a methodology, comparisons using Likert-type response scales, well known to yield artifactual differences between cultures. More importantly, the author has not even clearly established that the scales he uses truly measure an unforgiving nature and that Confucian culture truly is more unforgiving than European culture. Finally even if we ignore the first two problems, the author's argument still is undermined by the number of counter examples that can be generated to his theory.
