Chapter 4 Cultural Influences on Perception
By ; numkwan wongpatum
topic • Cultural Influences on Perception • Theories of Social Perception • Perception, The Self, and Communication • Identify examples of how emotions and goals influence our perception.
Our perceptions, or how we interpret the world, are affected by a number of things, including our biases, our motivations, and especially our emotions. All of these things are rooted in culture. Emotions are universal phenomena - people all over the world feel things. However, our perceptions of our emotions are affected by culture. While some emotions are universal and are experienced in similar ways as a reaction to similar events across all cultures, other emotions show considerable cultural differences in their antecedent events, the way they are experienced, the reactions they provoke and the way they are perceived by the surrounding society. Therefore, culture is a necessary framework for researchers to understand variations in perceptions and emotions.
Culture provides structure, guidelines, expectations, and rules to help people understand and interpret behaviors. Several ethnographic studies suggest there are cultural differences in social consequences, particularly when it comes to evaluating our emotions and behaviors and those of others . Cultural scripts dictate how positive and negative emotions should be experienced and perceived. For example, research suggests that in Western cultures, the dominant social script is to maximize positive emotions and minimize negative emotions. In Eastern cultures, the dominant cultural script is grounded in "dialectical thinking" and seeking to find a middle way by experiencing a balance between positive and negative emotions.
This cartoon illustrates how culture creates a fundamental framework for our perceptions and emotions.
example ethnographic accounts suggest that American mothers think that it is important to focus on their children's successes while Chinese mothers think it is more important to provide discipline for their children. Therefore, a Chinese mother might perceive a good grade on a test as her child having guessed on most of the questions, while an American mother will perceive her child as being very smart. Another example is how Eastern cultures will perceive successes as being arrived at by a group effort, while Western cultures like to attribute successes to individuals.
Theories of Social Perception Two theories of social perception are Attribution theory and Social Comparison theory. These theories explain how we perceive others and also how we perceive ourselves through the social lens of perceiving others. Attribution theory, also called actor-observer bias, focuses on the attribution or causes of an action. This theory demonstrates why individuals have a tendency to blame others for getting themselves into bad situations; however when an individual is in a bad situation him- or her-self, he or she will tend to blame the situation.
For example, if a peer fails a test there is a tendency to blame the peer for not studying hard enough; however if you fail the test yourself, you are more likely to feel that the test was poorly constructed or asked questions not covered by the materials. Of course this is not true across the board, and all of this is influenced by other cultural influences such as gender , race, class, religion, and ethnicity.
Social Comparison theory explains the tendency for individuals to compare themselves with others who closely resemble themselves in order to improve ones own feeling of value. By looking at others who closely resemble us, we are able to form a more positive perception of ourselves. The main pitfall of social comparison theory is that sometimes we compare up, which makes us feel inferior, and other times we compare down, which makes us feel superior.
Bias Bias, or showing an unfair inclination for or prejudice against something, also influences our perception in both positive and negative ways. The Egocentric bias causes individuals to think more positively about themselves than others think of them. The Over-confidence bias causes individuals to overestimate their own confidence. The Status Quo bias demonstrates that individuals give preference to things which are familiar. The Ingroup bias shows a preference for individuals who are in one's own group affiliation. The Halo effect causes individuals to think favorably or disfavorably on an individual due to general traits. False Consensus causes individuals to assume that other share the same beliefs or are in agreement with them.
Motivation Motivational factors also influence perceptions both positively and negatively. An individual who is highly motivated to perform a task may perceive the task as being easier. On the other hand, an individual who lacks the motivation to finish a task may perceive the task as being more difficult.
Emotions The various emotions we experience can influence both how we perceive things and also how others perceive us. Both positive and negative emotions can drive us toward or away from a thing. The feelings we have influence our perceptions of places, situations, people, objects, etc. If an individual feels negative emotions toward someone, for example, then everything that person does or says will be perceived in light of that negative emotion. It is as though we are wearing colored glasses which color the way we see the world. The phrase "seeing the world through rose colored lenses" indicates that our biases, emotions, and social interactions color the way in which we perceive the world.
Perception, The Self, and Communication
“People only see what they are prepared to see.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Perception & Communication • Perception affects communication and communication affects perception—it is an ongoing cycle of influence. Perception shapes how we interpret others’ communication and how we ourselves communicate. At the same time, communication influences our perceptions of people and situations. The two processes are intricately intertwined.
Perceiving Others • Perception: an active process of creating meaning by selecting, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, situations, and activities. • Narrative: The stories people create and use to make sense of their personal worlds.
Common Perceptual Tendencies • Attribution:the process of attaching meaning to behavior. – We judge ourselves more charitably • Situational • Self-serving bias
– We judge others more critically • Dispositional
Desirable Ingroup Members
Outgroup Members
Undesirable Conduct
Dispositional Attribution
Situational Attribution
Situational Attribution
Dispositional Attribution
• We are influenced by what is most obvious – – – –
Intense Repetitious Contrastive Motives
• We cling to first impressions, even if wrong. • We tend to assume that others are similar to us. • We tend to favor negative impressions over positive ones. • We blame innocent victims for their misfortunes.
Situational Factors Influencing Perception • Relational satisfaction. • Degree of involvement with the other person. • Past experience • Expectations • Social roles • Knowledge • Self-concept
Perception and Culture • Different people see things differently • Culture is a major factor on how people perceive things. • Categories such as gender, sub-culture, economic class, and age all influence one’s perception.
This is an image of what exactly a girl or not?
How many legs this elephant
Are the horizontal lines parallel, or do they slope?
This image has a few pages.
Is the book face-down? Or face-up?
Looking up, or looking down?
Empathy and Perception • Empathy: the ability to re-create another person’s perspective, to experience the world from the other’s point of view. • Dimensions of empathy – Perspective taking – Emotional dimension – Genuine concern
Empathy vs. Sympathy • Sympathy: when you feel compassion for another person’s predicament. – It lacks the degree of identification that empathy entails.
• Empathy: when you have a personal sense of what that predicament is like. – The other persons confusion, joy, or pain becomes your own.
Culture’s Influence on Perception How culture affects sensing How culture affects the perception process Distinctions between high & low context The concept of face How cultural interpretations reflect other elements of culture
Language is a perceptual screen • Understanding our worlds is a process wherein we decode and store stimulus. • Language provides us with conceptual categories to apprehend what we experience as well as influences what it is we think and feel (sensations). • Language & Culture’s influence over what we perceive is profound. We will look at this process.
Our Senses and their limitations • Sensation = Sight - Hearing- Smell - Taste – Touch - Body Movements • No two people can assume their sensations to the same stimulus is the same. Part of the differences lies in physical characteristics but another part is the result of how our culture conditions us to respond.
Effect of Culture on Sensing • No two people will sense things the same way and hence could make similar or different meanings out of those sensations. • Depends on the cultural conditioning of the individual. • Seeing things in your environment, in the Pacific Northwest we are attuned to different kinds of humidity, rain, drizzle, foggy wet, downpour, showers, snow, sleet, hail…
The Process of Perceiving • What we learn to perceive is as much related to sensation as it is to culture. • Perception is described as a three-step process – Selection – Organization – Interpretation
Process Step # 1: Selection • On a physiological level, our brains sort out stimuli subconsciously. • Needs often determine what it is we attend to (hunger, temperature, time). • We also learned to select certain stimuli to attend to in our environments. • Language Hearing sounds from another language that are unfamiliar to you in your language.
Process Step # 2: Organization • How do you categorize perceptions? According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, language provides the symbol to group perceptions of any kind together (p. 57). • Numerous categories of colors reflect a culture’s sensitivity to and amount of stimuli present within the culture. • Labeling , ie shibui one word to refer to art and individual taste.
Process Step # 3: Interpretation • Attaching meaning to sense data = decoding • Same stimuli can be interpreted very differently depending on the meaning you attach to it (police officer). • Be mindful of applying your cultural meanings to new cultural experiences. • How do we interpret the meaning of such diverse things as foods and religious icons?
High versus Low Context • Communication model in ch. 2 – context or environment. Edward T. Hall see context as a spectrum ranging from high to low. • Low context cultures rely on language (explicit codes) to convey information. • High context cultures are those that implicitly code their environments (extralinguistic).
The concept of Face • The Chinese have conceptualized “face” in two ways: – Lian (face)- Integrity of the individual’s moral character. Losing this makes it impossible to function (with respect) in the community. Mian zi ( image) – Western idea of reputation or prestige (status) one has achieved in life. ☻Westerners tend to engage in direct face management while Easterners tend to use an intermediary to save face.
Question chapter 4 • How does culture influence our perception? • Identify examples of how emotions and goals influence our perception.
Study groups the culture shock of each country follows. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Thai Malaysia Russia United kingdom Japan
6. China 7. India 8.Korea 9. Australlia