Defining dimensions of culture Flashcards
What is culture?
Originating in anthropology
Increasing impact on social sciences over course of 20th century
Kroeber & Kluckhohn (1963) famously listed 161 different definitions!
What are some examples of anthropology definitions of culture?
“That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man [sic] as a member of society” (Tylor, 1871)
“The man-made [sic] part of the human environment” (Herskovits, 1948)
Culture includes both physical artefacts and social system
What are psychological definitions of culture?
The totality of equivalent + complementary learned meanings maintained by a human pop., or by identifiable segments of a pop., and transmitted from one generation to the next (Rohner, 1984)
“The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group […] of people from another (Hofstede, 2001)
What are social systems (cultural groups)
The behaviour of multiple individuals within a culturally-organised population, including their patterns of interaction and networks of social relationships” (Rohner, 1984)
Might include nations, organisations, families, etc.
Social systems ‘have’ cultures
Cultures do not ‘have’ social systems
Cultures make behaviour comprehensible
What are problems of psychologists face whilst studying culture?
Theorising based on stereotypes = why exploring is important + being aware of power differences (be open minded)
Methodology issues = working in diff. languages, comparability of constructs in language, response style (rude to disagree in culture), cultures are not indvdls.
What is the emic approach?
Berry (1989)
Grounded in spec. cultural context
No claim to generality or attempt to compare
What is the epic approach?
Berry (1989)
Aspire to universality or at least comparability
Impose etic vs derived etic
What does cultural psychology aim to do?
Question: How do cultures ‘work’?
Psychological study of cultural processes
Focus on reflexive relationship between indvl + social system
Usually ‘within-culture’ focus
Social anthropology = social cognition from 1990s
Qualitative studies in single cultures = experiments in two or more cultures
What does cross-cultural psychology aim to do?
Question: How and why do psychological processes differ across cultures?
Influence of culture on psychology
Focus on cross-national comparison
Culture as a level of analysis
Get away from relativism = higher-order universality
Origins in social/organisational psychology
Mainly surveys, some experiments
What does indigenous psychology aim to do?
Question: How can psychology become more globally representative?
Overcoming power dynamics by empowering diverse local perspectives (~decolonisation)
Indigenous methods
Initially avoid cultural comparisons
“Psychology” = Western indigenous psychology
Can lead to cross-indigenous approach
Aims to build research from diff. cultural groups.
Describe the early cross-cultural studies.
Failures to replicate US findings:
Conformity (rest of world > US & Europe)
Social loafing (US effects reversed in Pacific Asia)
Problem is how to explain these differences
Showing differences between nations is just desc., but social science needs explanation
Need a theory of how cultures differ
Attempts to construct cultural ‘map of the world’
Who is Hofstede and what did he do?
IBM (HERMES) employee surveys
Originally conducted 1967 + 1973
> 116,000 respondents = 72 countries
Qs abt job satisfaction, perceptions of work situations, personal goals + beliefs
Wide variety of response formats
Hofstede conducted secondary analysis to look for dimensions of cultural variation
What did Hofstede find in his research?
Aggregated the data = ecological level of analysis + units of his analysis were the different countries.
Robinson’s (1950) paradox = same variables might relate to each other diff. @ diff. levels of analysis
State %immigrants and %literacy (r =.526)
Individual immigrant status and literacy w/in state (r = -.118)
Different explanations at each level of analysis
Ecological fallacy = falsely extrapolating group-level findings to individual level of explanation
Reverse ecological fallacy = wrongly attributing prop. of indvdls to cultures
What is acquiescence bias and how did this affect Hofstede’s research?
Methodological problem
People in different cultures use response scales in different ways
Variation in acquiescence – in some cultures people tend to agree more with everything
Hofstede’s solution
Country mean agreement with all items
Subtract and/or control in analyses
What was Hofstede’s analysis?
Analysis at ecological level = Sufficient data for CC analysis of 40 countries
For each item = weighted country mean
- Combination of averages w/in diff. occupational groups w/in IBM (marketing + service depts.)
- Corrected for acquiescence where possible
Theoretically guided data exploration led to
‘discovery’ of 4 dimensions of CC variation
What is power distance?
Extent to which members of a society accept that power in institutions + organisations = distributed unequally
Survey items to measure
- Employees afraid to disagree with managers
- Subordinates perceive Bosses = autocratic/ paternalistic (vs democratic/ consultative)
- Subordinates = like Bosses to be autocratic, paternalistic or democratic (vs consultative)
Highest: Malaysia, Guatemala, Panama
Lowest: Austria, Israel, Denmark
What is uncertainty avoidance?
Degree to which the members of a society feel
uncomfortable w/ uncertainty + ambiguity =
leads them to support beliefs promising certainty + to maintain institutions protecting conformity
- Company rules should not be broken—even when employee thinks in company’s best interest
- % employees expecting to stay at least 5 years
- How often feel nervous or tense at work (stress)
Highest: Greece, Portugal, Guatemala
Lowest: Singapore, Jamaica, Denmark
What is individualism?
A preference for a loosely knit social framework in society = indvdls supposed to take care of themselves + their immediate families
What is collectivism?
A preference for a tightly knit social
framework in which individuals can expect their
relatives, clan or other in-group to look after
them, in exchange for unquestioning loyalty
Descibe indivdualism as a dimension
Assessed by items about work goals:
- IDV: personal time, freedom, challenge
- COL: training, physical conditions, use of skills
Highest: USA, Australia, Great Britain (richer)
Lowest: Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama (poorer)
Strong negative correlation with PD (r = -.68)
Enormous amount of subsequent research
For review, see Triandis (1995)
For critique, see Oyserman et al. (2002)
For riposte, see Schimmack et al. (2005)
What is masculinity?
A preference for achievement, heroism, assertiveness, and material success
Assessed by items about work goals:
MAS: earnings, recognition, advancement, challenge
FEM: relationship with manager, cooperation, live in desirable
area, employment security
Highest: Japan, Austria, Venezuela
Lowest: Sweden, Norway, Netherlands
What is femininity?
A preference for relationships, modesty, caring for the weak, and quality of life
What is a limitation of masculinity as a dimension?
Unfortunate choice of name by Hofstede = Masculinities and femininities differ across cultures. E.g toughness vs. tenderness
Reverse ecological fallacy?
Has some predictive value = e.g., %GNP spent on international development
This dimension is uncorrelated with IDV (r = .00)
FEM: focus on relationships, others in general
COL: focus on in-groups, social position
What is Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural variation?
Power distance (PD)
Uncertainty avoidance (UA)
Individualism (vs. Collectivism) (IDV)
Masculinity (vs. Femininity) (MAS)
Provides 4D cultural map of the world
Guided much future research (mostly DIV)
What were the criticism of Schwartz on Hofstede’s work?
Content too narrow = weren’t designed to measure cultural differences
Some world regions unrepresented = IBM didn’t have offices there
Effects of sample type = was the sample representative of the country
Historical change = old data
Culture-level vs. individual-level dimensions
Meaning equivalence of items
What is the Schwartz Values Survey (1990-now)
Adapted items from various sources to create 56 things people may value = research into structure of values
- Individual and cultural levels of analysis
Items derived from diverse sources
- Rokeach Values Survey, Chinese Culture Connection, social sciences and humanities, research collaborators
Initial study sampled teachers + students
Currently >80,000 participants in 82 countries
What did find when looking if the items behaved differently between each nation (within-cultures analyses)?
Do items have similar meanings in each culture?
Separate within-culture smallest space analyses in each sample to check for similar structure
Responses ipsatised w/in participants to control for acquiescent response bias
Therefore, analysis is of relative value endorsement
Similar structure observed in most samples = security, traditional, stimulation.
What were the cultural differences Schwartz found (between-cultures analysis)?
40 of 56 values showed similar positions in
structure within all cultures
Country means for ecological analysis = intellectual autonomy, harmony, hierarchy, mastery
Standardisation to remove acquiescence
Ecological smallest space analysis shows
circumplex model of seven value types
Comparison of the levels
Within-cultures
- Openness to change vs. conservation
- Self-transcendence vs self-enhancement
Across-cultures
- Autonomy vs. embeddedness
- Harmony vs. mastery
- Egalitarianism vs. hierarchy
NB differences in selected values
Comparison to Hofstede
Some conceptual similarities
Correlations (see Schwartz 1994):
- Individualism + autonomy + egalitarianism vs
power distance + embeddedness + hierarchy
- Mastery correlated w/ masculinity - femininity
- Harmony correlated w/ uncertainty avoidance
What happened in the Minkox-Hofstede mdodel?
Minkov (2018; see also Minkov et al., 2017,2018)
Reanalyses of existing data (e.g., World Values Survey)
- New samples from 56 nations (N > 52,000)
- New items to measure Hofstede dimensions + more
- Bipolar format to account for acquiescence
- Between-culture analysis only
Individualism replicated (≈ low power distance) = only dimension t0 replication well
Masculinity and uncertainty avoidance not replicated
New dimension of monumentalism vs flexibility
