People are human, and when they make decisions they are affected deeply be their ethnicity, religion, customs, traditions, and culture. Our leaders represent out culture and history.

Psychocultureal Approach
National character
The national character of our leader is shaped by many things including all aspects of culture and history
It is very important – US born people have different perspectives of the world than Russian born people have or the world (Russian are more paranoid)
Every country that now borders Russian heartland on the European side, except Georgia and Ukraine, is no in NATO- scary for Russia
Perceptions / Misperceptions
Based on national character history, and culture
Ex. Perceptions of Germans and Japanese that have long outlived history. Both are constantly fighting the perception of them being dangerous – demilitarizing, etc
Ex; perceptions of US national defense – West Coast, US say they have this in case North Korean attack, but China and Russia are still worried about it
Ex; Czech and Poland do the same in case of Iran, but Russia is worried about this
Russian speech says that the US is hypocritical because it criticizes countries for invasion of privacy while we ourselves our guilty of violating these human rights
Not based on the perceptions of perceptions of reality, only perceptions of morality
Realist believe ideology is not rational
Countries believe in what they say

Theories of Misperceptions
Jervis
Wrote an article about how perceptions and misperceptions affected foreign policy and decision making
Expectations affect perceptions
Ex; Cuba Bay of Pigs Invasion by the US 1961- expectation that the Cuban people wanted to overthrow Castro “everybody hates communists” perceptions was false. Always be caustions of what