Culture and perception

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 557.

Culture teaches us how to perceive. For example, when looking at configurations created by the craters on the moon, North Americans see a man, while Native Americans report a rabbit, Chinese a lady fleeing her spouse, and Samoans a woman weaving.⁶ Whether we are judging beauty, describing snow, or evaluat­ing a child's behavior, our culture influences our assessment of reality. Indi­viduals from different cultures are simply trained to regard the same cues differently; they interpret what they perceive through a cultural lens. For example, some years ago, researchers employed a binocularlike apparatus to compare the perceptual preferences of Native Americans and Mexicans. Each subject was shown 10 pairs of photographs—one photo in each pair displayed a picture from U.S. culture and one from Mexican culture. After viewing the paired images through the binocularlike device, the subjects reported their observations. Results showed that both Native Americans and Mexicans were more likely to report having seen a picture from their own culture.

Similarly, culture teaches us to expect others to behave in certain ways when faced with specific conditions. Misunderstandings can result, however, when each party in an interaction is operating according to different assumptions and rules. Consider, for example, a European American teacher questioning an African American student. As she answers the teacher, the African American stu­dent may not make eye contact with him. Because of deficient eye contact, the teacher may evaluate the student's behavior as disrespectful and conclude that the student is hiding something from him. On the other hand, the student believes that by keeping her eyes downcast when responding to the teacher's questions, she is not being rude, but is displaying respect. That is, afterall, what she has been taught to do.

We have not all experienced the same lessons, and thus we do not attribute the same meanings to similar behavioral cues. When we fail to under­stand this, we exhibit cultural nearsightedness. As a result, we misread cues and miss opportunities to use the differences between us as a means to help ourselves perceive each other more clearly.

We do not necessarily see reality as it is. Our interpretation of what we see is not necessarily objective. The more aware we are of the extent to which cul­ture conditions us, the more willing we become to acknowledge our percep­tual selectivities and open ourselves to alternative perceptions. Doing this can enable us to better understand each other.