Perception of fairness in culturally dependent behavior: Comparison of social communication in simulated crowds between Thai and Japanese cultures

Abstract

Living in unfamiliar cultures is difficult because of the differences in thinking patterns, viewpoints, and greeting styles involving physical contact. Cultural misunderstanding may cause major problems. The solutions for solving such problems may differ depending on the cultural backgrounds of the concerned individuals. In this paper, we present our findings about the cultural understanding of learners during interactions based on experiments involving simulated crowds pertaining to perceived communication differences between Thai and Japanese participants. The participants are asked to live in a shared virtual space to obtain multiple tickets available at two service counters. A virtual service person provides a ticket upon request at each counter. In our experiment, the waiting style (line and group waiting) and the service person’s fairness (fair and unfair service) are varied. Participants from Thai and Japanese cultures focus on different features while waiting. Thai participants tend to focus on queue jumpers and emotional feeling, whereas Japanese participants emphasize on speed as their reason for selecting a counter.