Are North Americans “normal” or are we “weird” and the rest of the world “normal”?
An article by Adam McDowell in the Saturday 21 August edition of National Post explores this question. A team of researchers from the University of British Columbia argues that people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) societies think differently from the other 88% of the world’s population.
Their findings have been published in the journal Brain and Behavioural Sciences and are based in part on the results of people from different cultures playing the “Ultimatum Game”. In this game a person is asked how much of $100 he would offer another person if the rules stated that he would only get to keep his share if the other person accepted the offer. If the offer was rejected, neither person would benefit.
Some of the other findings in the study have implications for marketers operating internationally, the different cultural views on fairness for example, could mean that compensation packages or profit margins that appear reasonable to us may be unattractive to others.
To read the full article, go to National Post.
Wishing you success in all your endeavours.
