Culture Clash
Culture Clash
Moving beyond
personal perceptions
in decision makingWhen I took calculus in college, the professor would often assign very difficult problems and also problems that were impossible to solve. However, he would not accept a student's claim that "I can't do it, and so it can't be done!" He wanted students to specify exactly why a problem could not be solved. For example, he expected students to tell what information was missing and must be supplied if the problem is to be solved. This was my first introduction to the concept of "self-referencing."
When people base decisions solely on their own reactions, life experiences, and preferences, they are engaging in self-referencing. To make more informed decisions, they need to integrate other information: the views of others, the experiences of people who have faced similar problems in different countries, the lessons from history available from trips to the library, and the preferences of many people assessed through questionnaires and opinion polls.
Julie Lee, a marketing professor, has taught at the University of Hawaii. She is from Australia and knows that there is a very popular food product there that many Americans find inedible. Vegemite is a popular spread for crackers and bread in Australia, but to many Americans it tastes like fermented yeast paste. Lee asks American students to taste vegemite, and then asks them to design a marketing plan. Her goal is to move students beyond the self-referencing criterion, "I don't like it and so there is no market for it."
Another way of communicating the importance of understanding self-referencing is to blindfold people and ask them to distinguish fine California from French wines, or to distinguish Coke from Pepsi. People are given sips of the wines or soft drinks and are asked to tell which is which. Many people, if they have experience with fine wines or the soft drinks, think they can make the distinctions. While blindfolded, most people cannot tell the difference between the wines or between the soft drinks. This experience hopefully encourages people to move beyond the self-referenced statement, "I think I can do it and so it will be easy to do."
One of the benefits of extensive interactions with people from other cultures is that people must move beyond self- referencing to have good interpersonal relationships. People in different cultures grow up eating different foods, enjoying diverse leisure time activities, developing friendships in different ways, and participating in diverse educational systems. When they interact with people from other cultures, they learn that they cannot talk solely about their own experiences and engage only in their preferred activities. They must move beyond self-referencing to take other people's preferences into account.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Special attention will be given to miscommunications caused by cultural differences. Each column will start with a short example of such confusion. Possible explanations will be offered to encourage thought about these issues.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration,
University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the
College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu