A Comparison between the U.S.A. and Egypt

Intercultural Differences in the Perception of time: A Comparison between the U.S.A. and Egypt

    When we talk about different perceptions of time, we first have to consider that time is not an absolute value. It is very much linked to our own view of time and even within one culture these views can sometimes slightly vary. We all know people who are more of less at ease with time and we all have met at some point those who struggle against it and frequently get defeated. Time itself has been measured in different kinds, for example the time that nature provides through days and nights or seasons, the time of certain events, or - beginning from some point in history on- the time the clock provides for us.

    When comparing two fundamentally different cultures like the Egyptian and the American, one would leave out essential background information related to the subject, if one failed to have a closer look at the underlying systems and their origins that play into the insights about the subject of time in general. The perception of time, its nature, pace, exactness, importance, and duration are all constructs that are individually perceived, even though we are able to measure them in seconds, minutes and hours, days, and years. We are able to do that, because we defined these measurements, however, these measurements might not reflect our perception.

    While standing at the line of the checkout in a store, time tends to pass slowly, however, when we enjoy ourselves with a friend having an insightful conversation over a cup of coffee or tea, time might just slip through our fingers without us being aware of it. We also tend to attach different priorities and degrees of importance to time; we might have different opinions in what we should use our time for, or if time is really important in the course of an event. Obviously, this might differ by scenario: we might be likely to give a different consideration to events like a business meeting or a job interview, as opposed to an appointment with a friend or an invitation to a sales demonstration (where as the buyer we might be more relaxed about things like punctuality, because we are in the economically stronger negotiating position). Naturally, these considerations exist in both American and Egyptian culture, however, there are underlying major differences in the overall handling of time, as we will see later on in more detail.

    The Egyptian society bases itself on two sets of values, whose understanding is pivotal for the comprehension of their cultural interpretation of time; one is the awareness of a heritage of knowledge of a several thousands of year old civilization, the other consists of the values and principles of Islam. Even though, there are other religious minorities, they tend to adopt similar or equal perceptions and views in the relevant points for this paper. Egypt adopted a semi-capitalistic system that allows its citizens to be independent (from the state) business owners, but it also has a massive administration apparatus that employs a large percentage of the national employees, it has strong worker unions as well as a solid and a generally available social network of free government services and healthcare.

    In short, American culture based is based on a Judeo-Christian background with a strong tendency towards a Protestant/Calvinist context; as any other Western culture, it also bases its philosophical and scientific ideas on the Greek traditions. While Calvinism strongly encouraged ownership and generating profit, America is today the home of the probably most aggressive form of capitalism with only little social welfare offers to fall back on.
Because of Greek influences to the culture, in form of Cronos the god of time –where we derive the chronological order from - and biblical impact that depicts time as a timeline from the Creation of the World to the Day of Judgment, early scholars like Augustine concluded that time is a linear function.(Fornieri)

    This has been the prevailing concept in the West, where it finds its expression in our schedules, planning charts and chronological time lines, resumes and biographies.
The concept of eternal recurrence or eternal return is an ancient Egyptian idea based on the notion that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self infinite time or space in similar form for an infinite numbers of times. The concept was taken up by the Phthagorans and Stoics, but fell widely into disuse with the spread of Christianity late on.
With the advent of the Quranic scriptures a very detailed description of the functioning of the universe was handed over to a population already set on perceiving time as a cycle. One of the verses, amongst others, clearly confirming that time has to be circular because of the orbiting of the planets, is the following: “Do you not see that Allah causes the night to enter the day and causes the day to enter the night and has subjected the sun and the moon, each running its orbit for a specified term, and that Allah with whatever you do is Acquainted?” (Quran: 31;29)
The kind of perception our culture adopts in the description of time as linear or circular seems to show correlations to our savings and consumer behavior, as studies by U. Dholakia  on "The effects of Circular and Linear Time Orientations on Personal Saving Estimates and Saving Behaviors" and by M.Venkatesan on "Time and Consumer Behavior" demonstrate. (Dholakia, Venkatesan). These considerations are therefore to be taken into accoutn when dealing with a culture of a different perception.

"Now is the only time there is. Make your now wow, your minutes miracles, and your days pay." These are the words of the well known American inspirational and motivational author and speaker, Mark Victor Hansen, addressing his audience about how to build quality of life through using time in the best possible way.
"By the time surely man is in loss, except those who believe and do good, and exhort one another to Truth, and exhort one another to patience." (Quran: 103;1-3)
While both quotes address the importance of time and even more concretely the importance of a person's time of his or her life, the undercurrent is pointing in two fundamentally different directions. In both cases one is asked to make the best out of the timeframe that is limited to one's life time, however, what is the best, what are the priorities needs a closer look? In an industrialized, capitalistic oriented, and individualistic minted society the maximization of materialistic gain accumulated during a certain period of is crucial, as these gains can be re-invested to bear even more fruits in the future: "Time is money." - This also finds its expression in the custom of actually putting a price on the availability of money in form of interest.  But the expectation to invest time in the most wow-able and miraculous way, is not only limited to materialistic gains. When work free time is available, the individual wants to make sure that there is plenty of good entertainment and fun available during this time , accompanied by fulfillment and self actualization - after all Hansen is foremost an inspiration speaker. There has to be a positive balance at the end of the time period in question for the individual to know, that they did not just waste the time or let it pass without capitalizing on it in a way that serves one's personal benefit. In the International Student Guide to the US it reads: "U.S. Americans take pride in making the best use of their time. In the business world, "time is money". Being "on time" for class, an appointment, or for dinner with your host family is important. U.S. Americans apologize if they are late. Some instructors give demerits to students who are late to class, and students of most universities have institutional permission to leave the classroom if their instructor is 10 or 15 minutes late." (Bean) Or as a well-travelled Irish blogger puts it: "So many things in America are rushed afar too much [for] my liking. Fast-food is something we have all around the world now (thanks America…) but even in posh sit-down restaurant your food will usually come out in less than five minutes after ordering! There are also obsessions with get-rich-quick and lee-fat-quick schemes, pills that solve all your problems after a single swallow, people cutting to the chase in casual conversations far too quickly (after the customary empty "How are you? Great!)"
The Quranic verse on time points us in a different direction: time is not here for pleasure and gain, but ‘to do good’ and to be patient, as well as remembering others to be patient. Making monetary gains is allowed and considered a blessing that needs to be shared in the Islamic and Arab culture, as money needs to circulate in order to bring the maximum benefit for the entire society. Displaying luxury or stashing money away is frowned on; instead there are clear regulations in how much money needs to be shared with the needy of the society in order to purify one’s wealth. Doing good is exceeding the obligatory part and giving additional charity. Accumulating money in bank accounts is also not an option, as interest is forbidden, and re-investment on a shared risk basis is encouraged. The society and community and its social and economical health are at the center of the consideration when it comes to spending time and money made during this time. However, time can also be used to help, assist and support others through deeds; as little as taking the time for a smile is considered charity.

    In a time perception where events are likely to repeat themselves and situations believed to be recurring, it is important to oil the interpersonal mechanisms and stay on top of the information flow of the community and the business partners. When ‘be patient’ and ‘exhort one another to patience’ becomes the underlying principle on how to spend time, it becomes obvious that this contrasts strongly with the view of an individual time perception. Time is something to share with others, not to use for our individual pleasure or gain.
Cultures that are characterized by extensive information networks among family, friends, associates, and even clients by close and personal relationships are classified as high-context cultures. (O’Hara-Devereaux, Johansen) Members of this kind of culture keep well informed about the people in their lives. When examining events and communications, this extensive background knowledge is automatically recalled and used to give meaning to the situation at hand. In interpreting nothing that happens is seen as an isolated event, but everything is connected to a meaningful context. People rely on their history, status, relationships and other information including religion to assign meaning to events. Individuals in high-content cultures are similar to marketing people; in the marketing culture, driven by rapport-building practices that attach high value to relationships, the best marketing people are good at understanding, accepting, communicating, and blending with the views of their customers. The one with the latest and most extended information is on top and most successful.
On the opposed end of the high-content culture lies the low-content culture characterized by an intense focus on the communication event itself, which could be a word, a sentence, or a physical gesture: the message itself means everything. As low-context culture individuals tend to compartmentalize their lives and relationships, they allow little interference of ‘superfluous’ information that is outside the actual communication event. Therefore, in order to give precise meaning to an event, they require detailed information in a communication, where the context is made explicit through the message.
One might assume that low-context communications are much wordier and longer, as explicit information must be provided at every event. However, the opposite is mostly true as low-context cultures use language with great precision and economy, driven by their perception of the value of time. High context messages tend to be promiscuous: words are spent not only to get information across, but also to confirm the relational context and are therefore spend in bigger numbers. To an engineer (low-context) a marketing professional seems fuzzy and imprecise, most likely they would appear like wasting their time in chitchatting and complimenting each other.
These differences between low- and high-context cultures lead to fundamental different styles of time management. While Americans are obsessed with the most efficient use of their time as a low-context culture, they develop language and planning skills that allow them to cut down on time spent in negotiations, decision making, and even streamlining personal relationships. On the other hand, Egyptians tend to take time to build and maintain their relational bonds of all kind, looking for depth of communication rather than efficiency. Being late to an appointment -which would be inacceptable in a business situation in the USA – or taking a long time to get down to business, is the accepted form in most Mediterranean and Arab countries, where time is perceived as much more flexible, and is not allowed to govern the sequences of events at the expense of social and relational content.
In context with today’s extension of business and trade, intercultural experts often examine punctuality as a factor that differs from culture to culture and treat it as one of the key points travelers should be aware of. As the last several paragraphs demonstrate, punctuality is part of the general perception of time and the time management of a culture based on its cultural significations -referring to its high- or low-context. When measuring the exactness of clocks or the punctuality of our business partners, we have to keep in mind that underlying fundamentally different genral perception of time and its best use are more likely to be blamed for the different arrival times than the Swiss precision watch or the exactness of the railway clock. Where time is used in low-context cultures, it is measured diligently, and punctuality is a must that can cost you dearly if you disrespect it. In a high-context culture punctuality for obvious reason does not occupy the same important rank. Consequently, it does not come as a surprise that an American business partner will feel offended if left waiting for more than five minutes, while the Middle-Eastern one would not even expect someone to be exactly on time.
In 1998, the psychologist and time researcher, Robert Levine, published the humorous results of the time differences he experienced around the world. (Levine) One of the since often repeated experiments of this book is the measurement of pace or tempo of a nation. It is usually determined by three factors of the walking speed of the average pedestrian, the time it takes to purchase a stamp at the post office counter and the timeliness of clocks. While New York was in the top ten walking speed, Cairo, Egypt found itself somewhere in the middle of the study, a lot slower.
 
    Buying a stamp in a high-context culture, where the public servant will take the time for a chat with his customer takes obviously longer in Egypt, too – even more so when the customer is not a foreigner. Timeliness of clocks, as explained above, is not a priority either. Conclusively, pace is much more pronounced in the USA than in Egypt; to the point that, as already mentioned by Levine, they adopt an extreme and habitual sense of time urgency, feeling compelled to rush even in the absence of real external time pressure. Diane Ulmer and Leonard Schwarzburd call this the “hurry sickness”. (Levine) They concluded that people with this disease suffer form a range of difficulties, ranging from health problems, particularly those related to the cardiovascular system, to the fragmentation of social relationships and to low sense of self-worth.
The Levine study concluded that the overall pace-of-life score tended to be higher for places with a vital economy, a high degree of industrialization, larger populations, cooler climates and a cultural orientation towards individualism. (Levine)
Another often cited field of research to point towards the different cultural use and perception of time is the monochromic versus polychromic time approach. In a monochromic perception - that refers back to the linear timeline as opposed to a circular idea of time - people do one thing at a time. The time is tightly compartmentalized, schedules are almost sacred. The polychromic approach, however, is multi-track circular: it allows many things to happen at the same time, without a determined ending. With time being open, completing the task or communication takes priority over adhering to a schedule. Actually, monochromic time is a characteristic of a low-context culture while polychromic time is proper to high-context cultures. (O’Hara-Devereaux, Johanson) An American, as coming from a monochromic culture would typically not consider formally greeting a person arriving during a phone call; he might, on the contrary, consider that offensive to the caller. An Egyptian, as member of a polychromic culture would be more likely to pursue multiple conversations simultaneously – and would consider it rude not to do so.
A further field concerned with the cultural differences in the perception of time is chronemics; chronemics are the study of the use of time in nonverbal communication, and characterizes the way an individual would perceive and value time, structure his time and react to time. The subjects of study are punctuality, willingness to wait, and interaction (including e.g. speed of speech, how long people are willing to listen, movements…) as well as time as an expression of status (a boss can halt the progress to hold an impromptu meeting, but an employee needs an appointment to see the boss). As for the latter, it is often the case that in a high-context culture, even though hierarchy and status exist, access to the boss and time of speech are handled in a more relaxed way than in a low-context culture, where these kind of interruptions would do harm to the schedule and planning of time.
After language, time perception seem to be the most difficult cultural component to adapt to, when arriving in a foreign culture. Many times, we are not aware how personal we take our use of time and how easily we can feel pressured or offended by the opposing behavior of other individuals. A hasty Western business man haunted by is tightly scheduled flight back or his next appointment might soon be perceived as someone, who is trying to ‘sell a pup’ to his Egyptian counterparts, and who is trying to overwhelm them without taking the time to build up trust and relationships. The Egyptian, who might be perceived as laid-back and uninterested, might confuse his American interlocutor and overall seems to lack goal orientation. However, they just both travel the time on different rails with different priorities.

    The habit to make a fast deal is relatively new to history. In the past, even people in Western cultures used to base their business relationships solely on long standing often personal relationships that carried a certain guarantee for success, because of the past experiences, but also because of the personal commitment of the participants. Nowadays, with the Western World leading many business areas, this type of relations has partly been replaced by considerations of the fastest, cheapest, most profitable single transaction versus a long standing relationship. The quality of the products often tells a story about it. In order to deal with each other, efficiently, overcoming many cultural hurdles requires a deeper understanding of the other culture in a world that is becoming smaller and more accessible. We are still mostly focused on the values and ideas of our own cultural environment, often still struggling to understand. However, in today’s world, we are frequently in a situation that requires to open our minds to the understanding of different views. Instead of treating these differences as challenges, we could choose to treat them as personal enrichments. Certainly, a hurry-sick person could benefit from the insight of the possibility to treat time in a different way and not to become its slave but its master. Middle Easterners have in many fields adopted the linear idea of schedules, even if the implementation sometimes varies. They accepted to follow the Gregorian calendar long time ago, a calendar that is a Western (Roman) way to measure time, while simultaneously using the Islamic calendar.
Information has become more available with the number of studies done in the fields of anthropology and intercultural communication. As individuals and as cultures, we can only benefit from the knowledge about cultural differences and the comprehension of their effects and consequences on us as human beings. New insights not only make our business relations smoother and more efficient, they also offer a new window of personal possibilities for growth.







Works Cited

Bean , Marian. "An Adventure in American Culture & Values." International Student Guide. n.d. n. page. Web. 7 Oct. 2013. <http://www.internationalstudentguidetotheusa.com/articles/culture.php>.

Dholakia, Utpal, ed. “Erasmus Institute of Management.”The Effects of Circular and Linear Time Orientation on Personal Saving Estimates and Savings Behavior. Erasmus University, 07 Oct 2013. Web. 7 Oct 2013.

Fornieri,  Joseph, ed. "Grossmont College." St. Augustine. Grossmont College, 07 Oct 2013. Web. 7 Oct 2013. <www.grossmont.edu/toddmyers/augustine.ppt>.

O'Hara-Devereaux, Mary, and Robert Johansen. Bridging Distance, Culture, and Time. 1st edition. Globalwork, 1994. Print.

Levine, Robert. A Geography of Time. 1st edition. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Print.

Venkatesan, M., ed.”Association for Consumer Research.” Time and Consumer Behavior.  Association for Consumer Research, 07 Oct 2013. Web. 7 Oct 2013.