The Rules That Make Us
How Culture Shapes the Way We Act, Think, Believe, and Buy
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Apr 14, 2026
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A business anthropologist reveals how cultural intelligence is the essential tool for understanding human behavior.
“Filled with illuminating case studies, this is a stimulating examination of the hidden influences that guide people’s actions.” ―Publishers Weekly
Why do people do what we do? To answer this question, many of us turn to psychology. But it’s not enough to understand how we think. We also have to recognize the influence of where and how we live. From the ways we bring up children and welcome guests, to the products we buy and how we spend our free time, our culture creates who we are.
Trailblazing anthropologist Oliver Sweet has spent decades using cultural insights to help businesses, governments, and NGOs achieve their goals—whether he’s working with the Gates Foundation to encourage South African men to get HIV tests or helping a pet food company break into a new market in Brazil. Now, in The Rules That Make Us, Sweet shows us how to strengthen our own cultural intelligence. Drawing on research conducted in thirty-five countries, he maps culture’s hidden rules: how it governs our behavior and creates our assumptions, how it’s shaped by technology, and even how it can help us predict the future. This book is an indispensable guide to an essential new way of understanding our families and colleagues, our customers and constituents, ourselves and our world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sweet, head of ethnography at the market research firm Ipsos, debuts with a practical exploration of how culture affects behavior, broadens perspectives, and helps predict and shape the future. He draws heavily from his experience at Ipsos, where he has worked with numerous brands and government leaders in the U.K. His work has shown him that culture can be broken down into three interlocking parts, which he refers to as the "Cultural Trinity": identity (how people see and express themselves), community (who people interact with and feel validated by), and belief systems (how people decide what's right and wrong). This framework enabled him, for example, to help the toothpaste brand Sensodyne make inroads in India. By recognizing that in India brushing one's teeth is a personal ritual connecting body and soul, Sensodyne was able to tailor its marketing to be more culturally relevant. Elsewhere, he discusses how technology impacts culture, positing that brands will use AI to sell people products in increasingly personalized, convincing ways; for instance, companies might use AI to comb through people's digital footprints and create custom ads for everyone in the world. A concluding section titled "Life Lessons from a Business Anthropologist" offers useful tips for understanding people, emphasizing the value of careful observation and asking "why" questions. Filled with illuminating case studies, this is a stimulating examination of the hidden influences that guide people's actions.
