Cultural Context

---
name: cultural-context
description: "The perception-by-culture lens for psycho-logic — establish HOW a specific region, country, or subculture reads a signal before you send it, because perception is culturally coded and the same move can mean the opposite elsewhere. Use when adapting a product, price, message, or campaign to a new market; when the user asks 'will this work in [country/region]', 'why does this land in X but flop in Y', 'how do people here perceive Z', 'how do we localise/differentiate by region', or is about to copy a US/global playbook into another market. Covers the cultural dimensions that move Sutherland's levers — uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, status/power distance, high- vs low-context communication, mental-accounting norms, trust locus, and taboo/sacredness — and how each rewires reframing, costly-signaling, and experience-design. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic; pair with market-recon for live local data. 日本語・中文の相談（「この地域で通用する？」「适合本地市场吗？」）にも使う。"
metadata:
  version: 1.2.0
---

# Cultural Context — perception is coded by where you are

Psycho-logic works on *perceived* reality, and perception is written in a local language you don't automatically speak. A guarantee that reads as "confident" in one market reads as "desperate — why would they promise that?" in another. Cheapness signals "smart value" here and "they cut corners, how disrespectful" there. Before you reframe, signal, or redesign a moment, establish the local rules for what the move will *mean*. This is the lens; **market-recon** is the fieldwork.

## The principle

Sutherland's levers all act on perception, and perception is set by culture — so **the same lever, unchanged, produces different behaviour in different markets.** The default failure is exporting a home-market playbook and assuming the psychology transfers. It doesn't. What transfers is the *method* (find the perception, not the metric); the *content* of "premium," "trust," "safe," and "expensive" is local and must be re-derived per market.

## The dimensions that rewire the moves

Treat these as hypotheses about the target market — dials, not verdicts. For each move you're about to make, ask which dials bend it.

- **Uncertainty avoidance** — how much reassurance, detail, guarantee, and precedent people need before acting. High-avoidance markets reward explicit guarantees, credentials, and "everyone else does this too"; low-avoidance ones find the same reassurance patronising. *(bends costly-signaling, experience-design)*
- **Individualism vs collectivism** — does "what you gain" persuade, or "what your family/group/neighbours will think"? Social proof and belonging beat personal-benefit copy in collectivist markets. *(bends reframing, costly-signaling)*
- **Status & power distance** — whether visible hierarchy, prestige, and authority *attract* or *repel*. Status signals that lift desire in one market read as vulgar or untrustworthy in another. *(bends reframing, costly-signaling)*
- **High- vs low-context communication** — how explicit the message must be. Low-context markets (e.g. much of the US) want it spelled out; high-context ones (e.g. Japan) read tone, restraint, and what's *left unsaid* — over-explaining signals mistrust. *(bends every message and reframe)*
- **Mental-accounting & price norms** — what "expensive" means, whether round or .99 prices signal quality, whether haggling is expected, which pocket a cost lands in. Price framing is not portable. *(bends reframing)*
- **Trust locus** — where credibility comes from: institutions and certifications, personal relationships and introductions, or peer reviews and ratings. Aim your costly signal at the local source of trust. *(bends costly-signaling)*
- **Taboo & sacredness** — what must not be joked about, discounted, rushed, or made "fun." Cross this and no clever frame survives it. Critical in death, health, money, religion, and family. *(vetoes moves that violate it)*

## How to apply

1. **Define the market precisely.** Not "Japan" but "urban Kanto seniors" or "rural Kansai families." Country is the coarsest unit; region-within-country, urban/rural, generation, and subculture often matter more.
2. **List the moves you were about to make** (the reframe, the signal, the felt-moment fix from the other skills).
3. **Run each move through the dials.** For every move ask: in *this* market, does it still mean what I intend? Which dimension flips it? Rewrite the move to the local reading, or drop it.
4. **Get the live data, don't reason from stereotype.** These dimensions generate *hypotheses*; a stereotype applied confidently is a trap. Send the specifics to **market-recon** to check against real local players, and to **counterintuitive-tests** to validate cheaply before rollout.
5. **Never let a taboo be "optimised."** If a move crosses a local sacredness line, no efficiency gain is worth it — cut it first.

## 日本語の使用例

- 「US で当たった訴求をそのまま日本で出したい」→ 心理は輸出できない。**高コンテクスト＋高不確実性回避**の日本では、はっきり言い切る強い断定コピーや過剰な説明が「押しつけがましい/信用できない」と読まれる。手法は同じでも中身（"高級""安心"の意味）は市場ごとに作り直す。
- 「値下げで攻めれば地方でも勝てるはず」→ **価格の意味は非携帯**。地域や世代によって "安い＝手抜き/失礼" と読まれる。安さを出す前に、その市場での価格の読まれ方を確認。
- 「レビュー星の数を前面に出す」→ **信頼の所在**が市場で違う。紹介・地域の評判・寺や医師の推薦が効く層に、他人のレビューは刺さらないことがある。シグナルは"その土地の信頼の源"に向ける。
- 葬儀/シニア領域：**タブー/神聖さ**が最優先の制約。割引・カジュアル化・スピード訴求は文脈次第で不謹慎に転ぶ。さらに関東/関西で葬送慣習（骨上げ・通夜の位置づけ等）が異なるため、「日本」ではなく地域単位で知覚ルールを立ててから reframing / costly-signaling / experience-design に渡す。

## Cross-check against the canon

Sanity-check any cultural read against these; if it contradicts one, name the contradiction and justify it. When a claim is load-bearing or the user asks for evidence or fresh examples, web-search the named theory or case and cite what you find.

- **Geert Hofstede, cultural dimensions** — the source of the uncertainty-avoidance / individualism / power-distance dials; use his country scores as a first hypothesis, never a verdict.
- **Edward T. Hall, high- vs low-context communication** — the original framework behind "what's left unsaid" cultures.
- **Erin Meyer, *The Culture Map*** — the practitioner's update: the *relative* position between two cultures matters more than either one's absolute score.
- **The ecological-fallacy caveat (McSweeney's critique of Hofstede)** — dimension scores are country-level averages; applying them to an individual buyer or a subculture is a statistical error. That's exactly why market-recon exists.

## Related skills

- **psycho-logic** — the router; this is its Step 0 (establish who and where before choosing a move)
- **market-recon** — turn these cultural hypotheses into live, sourced data on the actual target market
- **reframing / costly-signaling / experience-design** — the moves whose *content* this lens localises
- **counterintuitive-tests** — validate the localised move on behaviour before committing