Cultural Dimensions

Hofstede
- Conducted one of the most comprehensive studies on culture
- Asked employees of a multinational company to fill in surveys about morale in the
workplace
- He carried out a content analysis on the responses he received, focusing on the
key differences submitted by employees from 40 different countries
- Through his research he identified patterns across cu;tures that he called cultural
dimensions

What are cultural dimensions?

Different constructs based on values and cultural norms that distinguish one culture
from another.

Hofstede proposed that these dimensions work on a continuum and that different countries
have different

Power distance: The extent to which a culture respects authority and status
Collectivistic vs individualism: the degree to which people are integrated into groups.
Sometimes referred to as an “I” vs. a “we” orientation.
Uncertainty avoidance: a society’s tolerance for ambiguity. Tolerance for ambiguity means
less strict rules in society and openness to change.
Masculinity vs femininity: Masculine societies are defined by a focus on achievement,
competition and wealth; feminine societies focus on cooperation, relationships and quality of
life.
Long-term vs short-term orientation: the connection to the past and attitude toward the
future. Short term orientation means that traditions are kept, whereas long term orientation
has more of a focus on the future.
Indulgence vs restraint: indulgent cultures allow people to enjoy life and have fun.
Restrained cultures have structure control through strict social norms. Indulgent cultures
tend to believe that they are in control of their lives; restrained cultures are more fatalistic.

Individualism/collectivism & conformity

One effect of cultural dimensions on behaviour is the impact of individualist/collectivist
cultures on conformity.

Conformity can be defined as adjusting behaviour in accordance with perceived expectations

or conventions.

Research has shown that people from individualist cultures tend to conform significantly less
than people from collectivist cultures.

Why?
- Individualist cultures value freedom, autonomy, uniqueness
- In collectivist cultures, the interest of the group is valued over the interest of the
individual; social harmony is valued and shared responsibility and interdependence.
- Those who stand out from the crowd will be rewarded whereas the opposite is
believed in collectivist cultures
Study outline!! Bond & Smith
- Conducted a meta-analysis of 133 studies in 17 countries
The compared only studies that used the Asch experimental paradigm and to ensure studies
were conducted under similar conditions, they only included studies that used live
confederates giving incorrect answers rather than ‘fictitious group norm’ studies where
participants were simply told that other people had given particular answers (i.e. what Berry
did) and excluded any studies that looked at additional variables such as writing the answers
down or not having unanimous group pressure.

This resulted in the data from a total of 4,627 participants being used in the analysis

Results:
- Collectivist cultures had a significantly higher rate of conformity than cultures
classified as individualistic. For instance, countries like Japan, Hong Kong and Fiji
had higher rates of conformity than France, UK and USA
Evaluation:
- Higher statistical power and a more robust point estimate than is possible from the
measure derived from any individual study. This analysis included data from over
4000 participants
- Employed a strict criteria for inclusion in the analysis eliminating studies that did not
use live confederates or that included other variables which could influence the
results, this allows for more effective comparison of results from different studies
- One potential limitation of meta-analyses is the reliance on the available body of
published studies, which may create exaggerated outcomes due to publication bias-
studies which show negative results of insignificant results are less likely to be
published

Study outline!! Berry

Aim: To compare the level of conformity in two types of societies by applying a version of the
Asch Paradigm.
Method:
Berry used three different cultures
1) The Temne of Sierra Leone, a society that is based on rice farming (highly
collectivist)
2) The inuit people of Baffin Island in Canada, which survives by hunting and fishing
(highly individualist)
3) Scottish people as a reference group.
Each group was made up of people who had never had a western education and maintained
the traditional way of life - and people who were ‘in transition’ - either having a western
education or western employment. The control group of Scots was made up of both urban
and rural Scots. There were approximately 120 participants in each group

Researchers used a variation of the Asch paradigm

Participants were tested alone and wrote their answers down on paper
They were shown a large sheet of paper with one line at the top and 8 lines beneath
In the critical sheet with nine lines on it, one here at the top, and eight beneath it. This time I
am going to give you a hint. Most Temne (or eskimo or scottish depending on the group
being tested) people say this line (wrong line) is equal in length to the one at the top. Which
one do you say? The researcher did not give the correct answer but instead gave a wrong
one.

Conformity was the measured by the distance between the participants answer and the
correct one (further distance = higher conformity)

Results:
The Temne people had significantly higher levels of conformity to group norms than the other
two cultures.
The Inuits, on the other hand, had an even lower rate of conformity than the scots.
In all 3 groups, traditional/rural had slightly higher rates of conformity than modernised ones
but these were not statistically significant between groups. This means, it made no
difference whether the participants were living the traditional life or were highly exposed to
Western culture.
Conclusions:
The results suggest that cultures have different rates of conformity to group norms. This can
be explained by the values that are encouraged through socialisation, enculturation and
parenting practices of those cultures.
The values encouraged in a particular culture are influenced by their economic systems. In
economies where initiative and independence are values (eg, hunting, fishing, low food
accumulation), then kids will be raised to be individualistic and independent so they can be
successful. In communities that have economic systems that rely on cooperation (eg, rice
growing), values associated with collectivist cultures such as compliance, conformity will be
encouraged.
Evaluation:
The study was well controlled. The researchers used an experimental method which allowed
them to have a control condition. In addition, they administered the test in the native
languages of the different groups to make sure that language would not be a confounding
variable.

Matching two lines in an experiment is an artificial task, and one which has no real life
consequences for the participants. It is debatable whether this task accurately represents
conformity in real life, and so the ecological validity of this study is questionable

The study is rather dated- it was conducted in 1967 and so there are questions of its
temporal validity. In a more globalised world with more access to media, it is questionable
whether these conformity rates are still valid today.

It is also important that we don't make the ecological fallacy, believing that since an
individual is a member of one of these groups, that he would be more or less likely to
conform. The results of such research can lead to stereotyping about cultural groups.

Power distance & plane crashes

Some researchers have suggested that there is a relationship between power distance and
plane crashes arguing that high power distance may increase the risk of plane crashes.
In high power distance cultures other crew members may be more reluctant to speak out if
they feel that the captain is making an error. Alternatively they may use mitigated speech as
opposed to direct communication (Enomoto & Geisler).
Evaluating the theory!!
Hofstedes theory on cultural dimensions was the first large scale attempt to quantify
cultural differences - in other words, to take something as complex as culture and try to
represent it by numerical scores. The cultural dimensions continue to be a useful and
important way of recognising and studying differences between cultures, and many
psychologists have used the dimensions as a tool for comparing behaviours across
cultures. Hofstede’s model has been instrumental in the implementation of many business
systems, including: compensation practices; training design; conflict resolution and
leadership styles.

A major criticism of Hofstede’s theory is cultural homogeneity. Hofstede’s theory assumes

the domestic population is a homogenous whole- he equates nation states with cultures.
However most nations are made up of different ethnic units each with their own unique
cultural differences. For example the Encyclopedia of World Cultures identifies that in the
Middle East there are 35 different cultured in 14 nations etc.

In his initial research Hofstede used a ‘one company approach’ - only employees of IBM
completed the surveys.

Some psychologists have argued that a study fixated on only one company cannot
possibly provide information on the entire cultur system of a country and that IBM
workers may not be representative of most people from their country- they are likely to be
educated, IT professionals, so their values and attitudes may not be the same as less
educated people or people in different occupational fields.

To counter this Hofstede said that the use of a single multinational employer eliminated the
effect of the corporate policy and management practices from different companies
influencing behaviour differently, leaving only national culture to explain cultural differences.
It is however, important to note that the surveys focused on attitudes of people toward the
work environment may not transfer to all areas of their daily lives.

Hofstede warns against the ecological fallacy - that is, when one looks at ttwo different
cultures, it should not be assumed that two members from ttwo different cultures must be
different from one another, ir that a single member of a culture will always demonstrate the
dimensions which are the norm of that culture.

In fact, there is a great deal of variation within a culture - although, on average, Americans
may be more individualistic than Japanese, there may be some Americans who are more
collective in their outlook abd there may be some Americans who are more collective in their
outlook and there may be some individual Japanese who are more individualistic.

Although these dimensions simply give psychologist a way to generalise about cultures in
order to better discuss the role that culture plays in behaviour, we have to be careful of
stereotyping, recognising that these expectations of the behaviour of a member of a
different culture opens up the possibility of stereotype threat.