Chapter 23 Consider Your Audience's Cultural Orientation

Consider Your Audience's Cultural Orientation

The audience’s cultural orientation—its core values, cultural norms, cultural premises, and emotions—will significantly affect their responses to persuasion.

CORE VALUES

Audience members of the same culture often share core values, such as self-reliance and individual achievement (in individualist cultures such as the United States); and interdependence and group harmony (in collectivist cultures such as those of China and India). Usually, appeals that clash with core values are unsuccessful, although globalization may be leading to some cross-pollination of values.¹

CULTURAL NORMS

Cultural norms are a group’s rules for behavior. Attempts to persuade listeners to think or do things contrary to important cultural norms usually will fail.² The argument that intermarriage leads to happier couples, for example, will find greater acceptance among Reform rather than Orthodox Jews, since the latter group has strong prohibitions against the practice.

CULTURAL PREMISES

Listeners sharing a common culture usually hold culturally specific values about identity and relationships, called cultural premises. Prevalent among the Danes and Israelis, for example, is the premise of egalitarianism, the belief that everyone should be equal. A different premise exists in Korea, Japan, and other Asian societies, where status most often is aligned strictly with one’s place in the social hierarchy. Bear in mind that it is difficult to challenge deeply held cultural premises.³

EMOTIONS

Culture also influences our responses to emotional appeals. Appeals that touch on ego-focused emotions such as pride, anger, happiness, and frustration, for example, tend to find more acceptance among members of individualist cultures;⁴ those that use other-focused emotions such as empathy, indebtedness, and shame are more apt to encourage identification in collectivist cultures.⁵ Usually, it is best to appeal to emotions that lie within the audience’s “comfort zone.”⁶ A good strategy is to avoid undue emphasis on emotions that may make certain audience members feel uncomfortable.

CHECKLIST: Be a Culturally Sensitive Persuader

☐ Do you appeal to any core values (deeply held ideas of what’s important in life) that might clash with those held by audience members?
☐ Do you attempt to persuade listeners to think or do things contrary to their norms (rules for behavior)?
☐ Do you challenge any cultural premises (deeply held values about identity and relationships)?
☐ Do you appeal to emotions that lie outside of the audience’s “comfort zone”?