39. Culture Affects How People Think

Point39 (binary/octet-stream)

39. Culture Affects How People Think

Do you focus on the cows or the on the backgrounds? In this example, Western people are more likely to focus on the cows, the foreground subject, and Eastern people would be more likely to look between the foreground and background and focus more on the context between the two. The theory is that people raised in East Asia, where cultural norms emphasize relationships and groups, focus on those things. Whereas Western culture is more individualistic, so people raised in that culture, pay more attention to a focal point first.

People from different geographical regions and cultures respond differently to photos and website designs. In East Asia people notice and remember the background and the context more than people raised in the West do. If you’re designing products for multiple cultures and regions, then you should conduct audience research in all the places you plan to sell the product. When reading psychology research, you’ll want to avoid generalizing the results if you know that participants were all from one region.

Takeaways