Language Appears to Shape Our Implicit Preferences | Harvard University
Aug 15th
This is a fascinating look at how language actually shapes our preferences and the notion that bilinguals can actually have a different set of preferences or biases depending on what language they’re asked in. The winning quote of the article was “it’s like asking your friend if he likes ice cream in English, and then turning around and asking him again in French and getting a different answer.”
The implications, for multicultural marketing and specifically, marketing to bilinguals, is that bilinguals often live in two discrete cultural paradigms with different values, attitudes, biases, perceptions, and yes, preferences. That makes it doubly important to “sell” them in both languages as there could be conflicting biases, preferences or values in their Spanish-speaking milieu that could counteract whatever messaging they might get in their English-language environment (and vice-a-versa).
Language Appears to Shape Our Implicit Preferences | Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Does a Hispanic community really exist?
May 27th
Media post makes the case (Media Post link) that the Hispanic community is more of a construct, fabricated by marketers rather than an existing cultural cohort. It may be true that OUTSIDE the US, Latin Americans do not necessarily feel an affinity and cultural connection to other Latin Americans, perhaps in the same way Australians might not feel affinity for New Zealanders or the British despite some cultural commonalities. Still, Latin Americans do share a lot, culturally, even while having distinct and diverse practices, traditions and even behavior. They share affinity for the same sports, the same language (though dialects are varied), the same religions, a shared colonial heritage, shared history at times, a shared pop cultural environment, even a shared media environment in many cases. There is also a lot they don’t share, most importantly, the national identities and patriotism which precludes all those other similarities.
It can be argued that across America, there is also a similar diversity of cultures even among native born, White Americans. You can’t tell me that someone from Bangor Maine has more in common with a Texan from Houston than a Peruvian has with a Chileno. Aside from their nationality, there might be very little they see eye to eye on. The same can be said of Mexicans from different regions of mexico. The tapatios from Guadalajara don’t necessarily relate to those from a small pueblo in Oaxaca.
However, when Latin Americans come to this country, they are thrust into an environment so alien to their countries of origin that suddenly they are more likely to find comfort in the language, religion, customs and traditions of other Latin Americans that, in another context, would be considered completely foreign. The number of Argentine-Mexican couples I have met in Los Angeles proves to me that even two very disparate Latin American cultures share enough to make a lasting marital bond. This of course, is not the rule. Still, pan-Latin friendships and relationships are very common among US Latinos largely because there is a shared experience (as immigrants, children of immigrants or Latin Americans).
Still, the oft-quoted “experts” often ignore or downplay some very key facts about the nature of this “wildly diverse” group. Namely, that more than 2/3 of the Hispanic population is of Mexican descent and so there IS a degree of homogeneity that the pundits tend to ignore in their zeal to declare the Hispanic community fractured and therefore a fabricated construct. The other third tends to be concentrated in areas where they are among their own cultural cohorts, e.g. Cubans in Miami, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in New York, Cubans in Union City, Salvadorians in DC, etc. Despite that, we are seeing increasing diversity in the Hispanic population such as in Miami where Colombians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and other nationalities are just as prominent as Cubans. Even in California we are seeing more diversity, though the Mexican cohort is still the dominant one.
In the many ethnographic sessions we have conducted over the years, we have seen more and more subjects refer to themselves as Latino or Hispano rather than simply being from the country of their origin. Younger Latinos, US born Latinos and the biculturals are increasingly seeing themselves as part of a distinct culture within the US mainstream, something they are proud of and are empowered by. And, the reality is, it is a distinct, evolving culture within the mainstream.
It is so de rigeur to say that the Hispanic market is fractured and diverse, that marketers feel intimidated by the supposed complexity of the market. It is no more complex or diverse than the rest of the country. The term Hispanic / Latino is an appropriate substitute for the underlying complexity of the market just as the term “Baby Boomers” is a vast over-generalization of a hugely diverse group of people. You can do targeted efforts on a local or niche basis and you can also do nationwide efforts that target a wider group. But yes, like all targets, Hispanics are not monolithic.
The cultural milieu in adolescence helps shape the future self
May 25th
Interesting Op Ed in the New York Times (NY Times link) makes the case that all the newly minted septuagenarian musicians (Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, among the many turning 70 this year) were 14 during a crucial moment in pop history… the rock and roll explosion of the mid fifties. They posit that had these individuals been born 4 or 5 years earlier, they may have taken entirely new directions. The storm of hormones and self-definition that goes on in the teenage years places a greater emphasis on situations experienced during those crucial years. The cultural context (whether in pop culture, historical events or even personal family events) helps set the stage for who we become as adults.
This is of particular interest to us at Cultural Edge because in the study of the adult consumer, it is important to explore and understand their cultural context as children and adolescents, as well as the context of their parents. With immigrant communities, first, second and sometimes third generation immigrants carry with them this emotional payload from when they, their parents and their grandparents were growing up. Actually, this is true of all targets, to an extent, but for marketers seeking to understand multicultural targets, it takes on an added relevance since it requires most mainstream marketers to understand a culture that is different from their own. If they are Mexican immigrants, where were they in early adolescence? What was going on around them at that time? What cultural movements or events were occurring? If they are African Americans, where did they grow up? What sociocultural situations were occurring during that time in their lives? Everything from the rise of hip-hop, to earthquakes, to 9/11, to wars, Chilean miners, baby Jessica, the shooting of tupac, to any major cultural, historical or political event during that time can impact our views on society, the world and, thus, how they interact with brands, products in the present day.
Think back when you were fourteen and try to see what events may have affected who you are as a person, and how that might impact you as a consumer.
Blacks moving South
Mar 27th
The decline of northern cities shows a reverse migration of Blacks to the South, which saw its biggest population jump since before the “great migration” of the early 1900′s. In our ethnographic sessions with Black respondents in Chicago and other northern cities, this has been a theme among young people looking for better opportunities that are less prevalent in the north. In Atlanta, we’ve seen the growing middle and upper middle class Black community whose move into the suburbs into more traditionally White enclaves, seems to point to a diversification and new openness of the south. As the article concludes, this could be the beginning of the “new South,” inclusive and rich in points of view and cultural backgrounds.
Looks like the 2010 Census is echoing these anecdotes.
New York Times: Many Blacks Moving South, Reversing Trend
Census Data Higher than Projections in most states
Mar 19th
I don’t think it comes as a huge surprise to anyone that the official census counts currently coming in show higher than expect counts for Hispanics in most states. Pew takes a look at the latest data.
Scale Bias Between Hispanics May Contribute to Erroneous Conclusions
Dec 14th
The issue of culture-based scale bias is a significant one in quantitative research. To date, most researchers have focused on the topic of Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic extreme response patterns. It is fairly well established, at least anecdotally, that Hispanics (in aggregate) favor scale endpoints (extreme responses) proportionally more than non-Hispanics, while non-Hispanics (in aggregate) favor mid-scale points proprtionally more than Hispanics. Robert Culpepper and Raymond Zimmerman, conclude in a 2006 Journal of International Business Research article based on their own research that “in the United States, those identifying themselves as Hispanic respond to Likert-type survey items in a way that is substantially different than American non-Hispanics.”
While this is hardly news to any researcher who has conducted any significant number of studies among Hispanics and non-Hispanics, the implication is clear. Researchers should be very careful of the distortionary effects of culture-based scale usage when comparing subjective scalar measurements across these two cultural groups.
Yet the question remains as to whether distortionary effects of culture-based scale usage impact Hispanic-only surveys. A meta-analysis of seven studies conducted between 2008 and 2010 by Cultural Edge Consulting demonstrate that scale usage does indeed differ non-randomly among Hispanics. In fact, the usage of standard Top 3-Box scores can differ on average by as much as 26 percentage points across the three most significant demographic variables impacting scale usage. The variables and their importance are:
| Demographic Variable | Importance |
|---|---|
| US vs. Foreign-Born | 52% |
| Gender | 25% |
| Education | 23% |
This issue has clear implications for comparisons of Hispanic subjective scalar measures across studies or even waves of studies. Unless sample composition is relatively consistent, signficant differences may be as much the result of scale response bias as the result of real variation. Additionally, analytical techniques that rely on variance in scalar items, such as factor analysis and derived importance (among many others), can be adversely impacted across studies or waves by sample composition. What might appear to be instability in data structures may in fact be the result of scale response bias.
To receive a copy of the full white paper detailing the analysis and providing recommendations for avoiding misleading scalar response conclusions, please contact Jim Starks, Director of Metrics for Cultural Edge Consulting.
The new mainstream
May 5th
There’s no surprise that the general market is no longer general. We’re a diverse group of people with diverse backgrounds and increasing cross-cultural pollination. Cultural Edge, while having gotten its start in the Hispanic space, has over the years evolved into a more “cross cultural” approach. More and more clients are looking to go to field across multiple cultures simultaneously. Positioning work is done across cultures, rather than first with the “old mainstream” (e.g. mostly Caucasians). Rather than look at ethnic silos, they are looking at an integrated general market–targeting sub groups individually, but also as part of a whole.