The aim of this study was to analyse how two groups of pharmacy staff, one Finnish and one Swedish, perceived video‐taped customers who were receiving prescribed antibiotics. The study was based on a model derived from cognitive and interactional psychology.Customers who were presumed to want more extensive drug and health information tended to be regarded as more compliant than other customers. “Independent” customers tended to be regarded as less compliant than other customers. Few differences were found between the results for the Finnish and the Swedish groups, indicating that the professional culture in the two countries is similar. The study found that the pharmacist's judgment of the level of drug compliance is influenced by the pharmacist's metacognitive assumptions regarding the customer's personality and the situation within which the customer