Several weeks ago I listened to a very interesting Freakonomics podcast hosted by Stephen Dubner. “According to a decades-long research project, the U.S. is not only the most individualistic country on earth; we’re also high on indulgence, short-term thinking, and masculinity,” said Dubner. The podcast included comments from a number of social scientists but was particularly focused on the work of Gert Jan Hofstede, social sciences professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, whose research is focused on artificial sociality, - the study of human social behavior based on computational models. He's continued to lead a major research project on national cultures started more than 50 years ago by his father Geert Hofstede who passed away in 2020.
“Every person carries within him- or herself patterns of thinking, feeling, and potential acting that were learned throughout the person’s lifetime,” wrote the Hofstedes in their 2011 book Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, coauthored with Michael Minkov. “Much of it was acquired in early childhood, because at that time a person is most susceptible to learning and assimilating. As soon as certain patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting have established themselves within a person’s mind, he or she must unlearn these patterns before being able to learn something different, and unlearning is more difficult than learning for the first time.”
The thinking patterns that guide our behaviors can be thought of as mental programs, a kind of software of the mind. “This does not mean, of course, that people are programmed the way computers are,” said the authors. “A person’s behavior is only partially predetermined by his or her mental programs: he or she has a basic ability to deviate from them and to react in ways that are new, creative, destructive, or unexpected.” Culture, the software of the mind, “only indicates what reactions are likely and understandable, given one’s past.”
In the podcast, Gert Jan Hofstede discussed the power of culture: “It is what we got fed with our mother’s milk and the porridge that our dad gave us. … If you’re part of a society, you’re like one drop in the Mississippi River. You may decide to go another way, but that doesn’t make the river change. So we’re all constraining one another through our collective culture.”
The Hostede national culture project has identified six fundamental dimensions that determine a society’s overall culture. The six dimensions are:
- Individualism versus Collectivism: the extent to which individuals feel independent, as opposed to being interdependent members of larger societal groups;
- Power Distance: the extent to which the less powerful members of society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally;
- Masculinity: the extent to which the use of force in endorsed socially;
- Uncertainty Avoidance: a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity;
- Long-term Orientation: a society’s ability to deal with change; and
- Indulgence versus Restraint: a society’s attitude toward freedom versus duty.
Let me briefly describe each dimension.
Individualism versus Collectivism
Individualist societies have an “I” consciousness, were everyone is expected to look after themselves and their immediate family. They tend to focus on speaking one’s mind, the right to privacy, and acquiring new skills to get ahead. Collectivist societies have a “We” consciousness, in which people from birth onwards are integrated into extended families and strong cohesive groups. They tend to stress group loyalty, relationships, and harmony.
“In an individualistic society, a person is like an atom in a gas,” said Gerd Hofstede in the Freakonomics podcast. “They can freely float about. And life is an adventure. The best thing you can become is yourself. And in a collectivistic society, a person is like an atom in a crystal.”
Individualism prevails in developed and Western countries, while collectivism prevails in less developed and Eastern countries. Not surprisingly, the US has the highest individualism index (91), followed by Australia (90), Great Britain (89), Canada (80), Hungary (80) and the Netherlands (80). Most European countries have an individualism index over 50. India has an index of 48, Japan (46), and Russia (39); China, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam have an index of 20, South Korea (18), and Indonesia (14). In Latin America, Argentina’s index is 46, Brazil (38), Mexico (30), and Chile (23). Most other LA countries have an index below 20.
Power Distance
Power distance suggests that a society's level of inequality is accepted by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality are fundamental facts in any society because without acceptance of government and business leadership, today’s large societies could not possibly function. A high power distance index means that hierarchy is well established and accepted in society; a lower index signifies that people question authority and prefer more distributed power.
Autocratic governments like Russia, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, most Muslim countries and several Latin American countries have relatively high power indices. The US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand have low power indices.
Masculinity versus Femininity
Masculinity is defined as a preference in society for achievement, assertiveness, competition, and the material rewards for success. Its counterpart, femininity, means a preference for cooperation, modesty, quality of life and caring for the weak. In a more masculine society, men and women adhere to the more patriarchal gender roles, e.g., finances versus emotions. More feminine societies tend to have less poverty and higher literacy rates.
Masculinity is high in Japan (95), Austria (79), Italy (70) and Mexico (69); moderately high in Germany (66), Great Britain (66), the US (62), and Australia (61); moderately low in France (43), Spain (42), South Korea (39) and Thailand (34); and low in Denmark (16), Netherlands (14), Norway (8), and Sweden (5).
Uncertainty Avoidance
Uncertainty avoidance means a society’s tolerance for ambiguity. “It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, and different from usual.”
Societies with a high degree of uncertainty avoidance generally have stiff codes of behavior, guidelines, and laws. Those with a lower index show more acceptance of differing ideas and ambiguity, and tend to have fewer regulations.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index scores are high in Russia (95), Poland (93), Serbia (92) and other East and Central European countries; in Peru (86), Argentina (86), Chile (86), Mexico (81), and other Latin American countries; and in Japan (92) and South Korea (85). They are lower in Canada (48), the US (46), Great Britain (35) and other English speaking countries; in Sweden (29), Denmark (23), and other Northern European countries; and in China (30), Vietnam (30), and Singapore (8).
Long-Term Orientation
“In a long-time-oriented culture, the basic notion about the world is that it is in flux, and preparing for the future is always needed. In a short-time-oriented culture, the world is essentially as it was created, so that the past provides a moral compass, and adhering to it is morally good.” Societies with a high long-term index view adaptation and pragmatic problem-solving as a necessity. Poor, short-term oriented countries tend to have little to no economic development.
Long-term orientation is another area in which the US (26) is a substantial outlier among developed economies. A number of Latin American and African countries have indices below 25. East Asian countries rank highest in long-term orientation, including South Korea (100), Taiwan (93), Japan (88), and China (87); Eastern European countries also rank high, including Ukraine (86), Estonia (82), Russia (81); so do Germany (83), and Switzerland (74).
Indulgence versus Restraint
In an indulgent culture, it’s good to be free and do what your impulses want you to do, whereas in a restrained culture life is hard and duty is the normal state of being. An indulgent society is one that allows “relatively free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun. Restraint stands for a society that controls gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms.”
Latin American countries rank highest in indulgence, including Mexico (97), El Salvador (89), and Colombia (83); so do English speaking countries, including New Zealand (75), Australia (71), Great Britain (69), Canada (68), and the US (68); and Northen European countries including Sweden (78), Denmark (70), the Netherlands (68), and Iceland (67). Restraint prevails in Eastern Europe, including Hungary (31), Poland (29), and Russia (20); in Asia including South Korea (29), India (26), and China (24); and in the Muslim world, including Morocco (25), Iraq (17), Egypt (4), and Pakistan (0).
What would you advise a country that wanted to change its culture, asked Dubner. “It’s rather futile to advise somebody what their national culture should be because there’s no way you can change it,” replied Hofstede. “[I]f you look 100 years ago and you look at the cultural map of the world, you can read writers from different countries, you will see that there is astonishing continuity.”
How about cultural convergence in 20 to 50 years? “There is no evidence for convergence other than if countries become equally rich, they all go to more individualistic,” answered Hofstede. “But the Chinese, even rich, will be a lot more collectivistic and a lot more long-term-oriented than the Americans.”
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