Perception

This chapter presents perception as a social phenomenon: People construe their own reality, based on their diverging interests and experiences. Hence, perception differs across cultures. The authors describe basic perceptional processes (subjective, active, selective, and categorial perception) and how culture interferes with them. Further, the chapter addresses specific perceptions that are important in cross-cultural consumer behavior: risk, time, color, and person perception. Regarding risk, for example, the “cushion hypothesis” suggests that collectivists perceive risks less intensely than their individualist counterparts. Regarding time, for example, most Western cultures have a monochronic time structure (i.e., focus on specific matters at a time); most African cultures have a polychronic time structure (i.e., tend to multitask). Color associations are based on the symbolic and thus culture-specific meaning (e.g., German associate yellow with jealousy, Mexicans with death). Regarding person perception, physical attractiveness is culture-specific (e.g., very light skin is considered beautiful in China but not in Europe).