Cultural Dimensions Flashcards
Individualism vs collectivism
In individualist cultures, people define their personality in terms of their own personal characteristics, their success, and their unique features. Among the strongest values in society are personal autonomy, competitiveness and self-sufficiency.
In collectivist cultures identity is linked to the social group and values associated with belonging to a group take priority over personal values.
Power distance index
A higher PDI score indicates that the hierarchy between the less powerful and the more powerful is firmly established in society and rarely questioned.
A lower PDI score indicates that people question authority and believe that authority figures are not
particularly superior to themselves.
Masculinity vs femininity
Masculine values include achievement, autonomy and competitiveness
Feminine values include caring, cooperation, modesty and compassion.
Uncertainty avoidance index
This refers to the extent to which people can tolerate ambiguity. Cultures that rank high on this index tend to avoid risk-taking and are intolerant of events that are unexpected or unknown. Cultures that rank low on this index are more tolerant of uncertainty and embrace new situations more easily.
Indulgence vs restraint
Societies that promote indulgence allow a free gratification of basic and natural human desires, such as having a holiday or just having fun.
Societies that promote restraint regulate gratification of needs with strict social norms.
Long term vs short term orientation
Cultures that score low on this dimension (short-term orientation) are conservative, they rely on the past for guidance and they value traditions highly. A high score (long-term orientation) indicates a culture that is pragmatic and oriented towards the future and future challenges.
Berry and Katz (1967)—the influence of individualism and collectivism on conformity
✪ Collectivism is associated with higher conformity to group
norms.
Aim: To investigate whether cultural differences in individualism versus collectivism affect conformity.
Participants: This study looked at individuals from the Temne people of Sierra Leone and the Inuit people of Northern Canada. The Inuits live as a hunting and shing society. This way of life promotes individualism. People are responsible for their survival on a daily basis, and there is little accumulation of food in the society. The Temne are a food-accumulating society whose way of life promotes collectivism. They are rice farmers who harvest one crop a year. In order to survive until the next harvest they rely on sharing food among group members.
Procedure: The researchers measured conformity using the Asch paradigm: participants are shown a series of lines of varying length, with one target line on top of a page and several other lines below. Participants are then asked to identify which of the other lines is of equal length to the target line. They are also tricked into believing that most of the other participants (Temne or Inuits, respectively) pick a particular line as the correct answer; however, this line is actually not
equal to the target line. The measure of conformity in this procedure is whether or not the participant will accept the suggestion of the “majority” and pick an incorrect response because most other group members have chosen it.
Results
• The Temne had a signicant tendency to accept the suggestion of the group and select the incorrect response.
• Participants from the Inuit group were mostly unaffected by this suggestion of the “majority”.
Conclusion
The researchers concluded that the individualist Inuit participants conform less often than the collectivist Temne because conformity to group norms is ingrained as a cultural value in the Temne society, which depend on tight social relations.
Finkelstein (2010)—the effect of individualism and collectivism on volunteer behaviour
✪ People in individualist societies volunteer for different reasons from people in collectivist societies.
Aim: To examine the effect of culture on volunteer behaviour.
Method: Online self-report questionnaires that measured a variety of possible reasons for volunteering including:
• altruistic motivation to help
• the desire to strengthen social ties
• role identity (volunteering for the sake of consistency
with one’s self-image)
• career-related reasons.
Participants:
194 undergraduates at a US university who participated in exchange for extra course credit.
Results
• Collectivism was more strongly related than individualism to altruistic motivation and the desire to strengthen
social ties.
• Collectivism, but not individualism, correlated with helping in order to sustain role identity.
• On the other hand, individualism was most closely associated with engaging in volunteering for career- related reasons.
Conclusion: The researchers concluded that individualists and collectivistsdiffer in why they choose to volunteer, but not in the willingness to volunteer itself.
