To read this content please select one of the options below:

Americans’ cross-cultural schemata of Iranians: an online survey

Saied Reza Ameli (University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran)
Ehsan Shahghasemi (University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran)

Cross Cultural & Strategic Management

ISSN: 2059-5794

Article publication date: 12 September 2017

Issue publication date: 30 January 2018

321

Abstract

Purpose

For about four decades, Iran and the USA have continued to be two most stubborn enemies and this has drawn much research on this subject. Yet, only a very small fraction of this body of research has been allocated to studying the perceptions that the people of the two countries have of each other. Using a mixed method survey, the purpose of this paper is to explore cross-cultural schemata US American people have of Iranians.

Design/methodology/approach

By way of an e-mail survey, the authors collected 1,752 responses from American citizens across 50 American states. The open ended responses were codified and categorized. Three out of six categories were further sub-categorized.

Findings

The outcomes showed that about 40 percent of Americans had negative cross-cultural schemata of Iranians with the media being the main source of negative cross-cultural schemata. Conversely, personal contact and communication with Iranians proved to be the source of positive cross-cultural schemata toward Iranians. Other results showed that US American exceptionalism and negative attitudes toward Iranians had a direct and positive relationship with having negative cross-cultural schemata of Iranians.

Originality/value

As the authors have explained in this paper, very few scholars have taken up the issue of cross-cultural schemata Iranian and American people have of each other. By doing this and several other works, the authors have tried to create a new research interest in academic circles.

Keywords

Citation

Ameli, S.R. and Shahghasemi, E. (2018), "Americans’ cross-cultural schemata of Iranians: an online survey", Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 119-133. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-10-2016-0176

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles