دانلود رایگان مقاله روانشناسی فاصله روانی سوابق ادراک نامتقارن

ABSTRACT

Already on its introduction into the international business literature, the concept of ‘psychic distance’ implied asymmetry in the distance perceptions between country pairs, a characteristic corroborated in subsequent empirical studies. However, predominant empirical operationalizations and their theoretical underpinnings assume psychic distances to be symmetric. Building on insights from psychology and sociology, this paper demonstrates how national factors and cognitive processes interact in the formation of asymmetric distance perceptions. The results suggest that exposure to other countries through emigrants and imports of cultural goods and services have asymmetric effects on psychic distance perceptions. The size of these effects appears to vary with the size of the home country – smaller countries tend, on average, to perceive psychic distances to the rest of the world as smaller than do bigger ones. The reputational status of target countries relative to that of the home country is found to have a non-linear, asymmetric effect on distance perceptions.

7. Conclusion

The findings of this study confirm and provide an initial explanation for observed asymmetries in psychic distance perceptions between countries. Earlier studies have pointed out the possibility of such asymmetries (Shenkar, 2001), and several have provided empirical observations confirming their existence (Brock, Shenkar, Shoham, & Siscovick, 2008; Dichtl et al., 1990; Dow, 2000; Ellis, 2008; Ha˚ kanson & Ambos, 2010). The present paper provides the first, theoretically grounded explanation for why they exist, employing insights from psychology and sociology regarding individual cognition and the formation of social identities. The ultimate objective is to develop a better understanding of the process by which psychic distance perceptions are formed (Baack, Dow, & Parente, 2011; Nebus & Chai, 2014; Parente, Baack, & Almeida, 2008). As is often the case,the findings raise more questions than they answer. While they demonstrate the importance of exposure effects for psychic distance perceptions, the analysis clearly suggests that different modes of exposure have different effects. While some of those differences may be obvious – positive information is likely to have a different impact of perceptions than has negative information – the relative and combined roles of different sources of exposure present a promising area for future research, as are the cognitive processes by which conflicting messages are processed. Similarly, our findings regarding the role of reputation and country attractiveness raise new and interesting questions regarding the dimensions of country characteristics on which such judgments are formed. The issues are important for the understanding not only of how psychic distance perceptions are formed, but also of how and to what degree they can be purposely manipulated for political or commercial purposes.