‍Where we come from and how we are raised has an enormous influence on who we become. Our cultures shape us in terms of beliefs, values, traditions, how we dress, how we eat and so on. But have you ever thought about its effects on how we see the world? The very famous illusion of Müller-Lyer is found to have a cultural gap, and not even everyone perceives the illusion. On the other hand, what you see as an appealing place can be influenced by where you grew up. Let’s start this topic by a small experiment.  

This article will cover the following points:

1. The importance of culture: Individualism vs Collectivism
2. Differences in perception among cultures

Ask yourself: what does this image represent? Is the orange fish leading the blue group of fish or is the orange fish being chased by the blue group of fish? With everything in psychology, the answer depends on something else, and there is no “correct” answer. In this context, it is dependent on the culture you come from. Curious to find out why this is the case? Then, let’s move on!

(Morris, Nisbett & Peng, 1995)

The importance of culture: Individualism vs Collectivism

Culture is a crucial factor to consider in our day-to-day lives; it explains many differences among individuals, and is a big part of our identities. Moreover, it can show how a group of people acts according to their beliefs. For instance, it influences how you eat certain foods, what kind of clothes you wear, how you speak and communicate with your parents and elderly around you. Even something as small as greeting people differs in many cultures. In Turkey, we hug each other not only on one side, but from both sides. When I came to the Netherlands, it was a culture shock that no one hugged each other from both sides. In Luxembourg, you give three kisses on the cheek, while in most other european countries you only give two!

Cultures[3] are separated into two dimensions: Individualism vs collectivism.

1. When we dive into individualism, the main focus is, clearly, the individual. Groups are there to support the welfare of the individual.
2. Whereas with collectivism, the main focus shifts from a single individual to the welfare of the group. The individuals should act according to what is seen as okay within the society[3]. This view looks at individuals in the group as being dependent on each other.

When you go back to the picture with fishes, you see that the two answers I propose are related to the individualism vs collectivism view  [2] . If you perceived the image as an orange fish leading the group, then you might be from an individualistic culture. In contrast, if you perceive the image as orange fish being chased by the blue fish group then you might be from a collectivistic culture[2].

Differences in perception among cultures

As it was mentioned before, culture influences us in many ways (e.g., from our values, beliefs, to how we eat or what we find as attractive). However, distinct studies show us that culture actually plays a role even in scenarios where you wouldn’t think it does. I will mention three different articles that touch upon various topics in perception (e.g., visual perception, visual illusions, and opinions)[1,4,5].

A study conducted by Petrova et al. (2015)[4] compared the aesthetic evaluation of landscapes between Russian and Japanese participants. The participants saw 70 different images from Japan and Russia, where they evaluated them according to the attractiveness and exoticism of each image. In this context, the study revealed that participants considered “attractive images” as beautiful and somewhere they would live forever. Contrastingly, “exotic landscapes” were seen as unusual places for the participants. Additionally, they grouped all these images according to their personal views. One of the interesting remarks of the study was about the similarity of participants in terms of answers. Japanese participants were similar to each other in terms of attractiveness and exoticism of the images, but Russian respondents differed a lot. Thus, the study concluded that not only culture influences the perception, but also the country’s traditions, and that familiar natural environments have an influence on the evaluation of landscapes[4].

In one of my previous articles, I touched upon what visual illusions were. I recently learned that culture also plays a role in how you perceive visual illusions. For example, the famous  Müller-Lyer illusion[1] (people perceive the inward pointing line to be longer than the outward pointing one, see image below) is apparently not universal, and it has cultural differences.

How does this happen? One of the explanations offered to this situation is called the carpentered environment hypothesis[1]. You grow up learning about the perception of a 3D world which is in line with your environment. People who are from westernised societies see a lot of furniture with vertical or horizontal line corners with many different angles. Moreover, this learning is carried over to the 2D world. When you look at western art, you can see that many objects that are close to you in the picture are drawn bigger than they are supposed to be, whereas the objects that are far away are drawn smaller. …But, if you come from a culture where objects have less angular shapes, you are less likely to perceive the relationships between lines and angles in this manner. Simplistically, differences in experience can influence how a person perceives something (e.g., an illusion, an object, etc.) [1,5]

A third study was done by Xiang and his colleagues (2019)[6], where they investigated the role of culture in climate change inaction. They found that the more unmanageable climate change was perceived by participants, it was more likely that they would not take action to work towards solving the problem. Moreover, the study also found that people with individualist backgrounds were more likely to think that climate change is impossible to solve, which naturally leads them to not do anything about the problem.  As a conclusion[6], the authors propose that people with collectivist orientations might be more likely to demonstrate climate-friendly actions (e.g., eating less meat, recycling, cutting out plastic, using eco-friendly products, etc.) compared to individualistic people.

Conclusion

In this article, we talked about the effects of culture on our perception (both in actions and in a visual way). It can be concluded that culture influences our lives from A-Z from perceiving visual illusions to climate change opinions[1,3,4,5,6]. Next time you are discussing an issue with friends or family members, it could be interesting to dive into the cultural aspect of issues (even climate change). Don’t forget to show them the picture of the fishes to see how they perceive the pictures. The answers might surprise you and lead to even better discussions.

Do you have any examples about how culture affects perception, other than the ones given above? Were you surprised by any of the findings while reading? Don’t forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments!

References

1. Masuda, T. (2009). Cultural effects on visual perception. The sage encyclopedia of perception, 1, 339-343.
2. Morris, M. W., Nisbett, R. E., & Peng, K. (1995). Causal attribution across domains and cultures.
3. Oyserman, D., & Lee, S. W. (2008). Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism. Psychological bulletin, 134(2), 311.
4. Petrova, E. G., Mironov, Y. V., Aoki, Y., Matsushima, H., Ebine, S., Furuya, K., ... & Ueda, H. (2015). Comparing the visual perception and aesthetic evaluation of natural landscapes in Russia and Japan: cultural and environmental factors. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science, 2(1), 1-12.
5. Segall, M. H., Campbell, D. T., & Herskovits, M. J. (1968). The influence of culture on visual perception. Studies in Art Education, 10(1), 68-71.
6. Xiang, P., Zhang, H., Geng, L., Zhou, K., & Wu, Y. (2019). Individualist–collectivist differences in climate change inaction: The role of perceived intractability. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 187.