39. Culture Affects How People Think

8c0656d9-52c7-4ea8-b38f-eee0ca13eea0 (image/jpg)

d6ce92c2-2d31-4bfc-9ac1-d4f1a84c5fed (image/jpg)

What's noticed most? Cows or background?

Caption: : Photo by listverse.com

Caption: : Photo from shutterstock.com

Answers toward the previous question tend to deviate depending on where you are from West = Individualistic ; East = Relationships People from the West tend to focus on a main or dominant foreground object, while people from East Asia pay more attention to context and background

In East Asia, cultural norms emphasize relationships and groups, thus they pay more attention to context Western society is more individualistic, thus they learn to pay attention to focal objects

Culture influences thoughts!

People from different geographical regions and cultures respond differently to relative images East Asia people notice and remember the background and context more than people in the West do Conduct audience research in multiple locations if designing for a multi-cultural and multi-geographical regions Be wary of overgeneralizing results!

859e32e3-209c-4cbc-899b-06273752d279 (image/jpg)

Caption: : In any culture, the cow still goes moo. (Photo from pinterest.com)

To Sum It Up...