Cultural Differences - Diferencias culturales

[Art]

Today I was reading an article by Geert Hofstede, who researches cultural differences.

It is sometimes amazing how different people in other cultures behave. We tend to have a human instinct that 'deep inside' all people are the same - but they are not. Therefore, if we go into another country and make decisions based on how we operate in our own home country - the chances are we'll make some very bad decisions.

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/

He has developed five "dimensions" along which he sees cultures as differing:

• Power Distance Index - focuses on the degree of equality, or inequality, between people in the country's society.
• Individualism - focuses on the degree the society reinforces individual or collective achievement and interpersonal relationships.
• Masculinity - focuses on the degree the society reinforces, or does not reinforce, the traditional masculine work role model of male achievement, control, and power.
• Uncertainty Avoidance Index - focuses on the level of tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity within the society - i.e. unstructured situations.
• Long-Term Orientation - explains us the extent to which a society exhibits a pragmatic future-oriented perspective rather than a conventional historic or short term point of view.

You can read about these "dimensions" in more detail on his home page.

You can also compare US and Spanish culture here in terms of his five dimensions:
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php
Of course, Asturian culture may be different. According to his testing, Portuguese and Spanish cultures, for example, are more unalike than I would have guessed.

I was particularly struck by this quote:

In the first session of a new student class, I used to write big: CULTURE DOESN'T EXIST. In the same way values don't exist, dimensions [the five scales I listed above] don't exist. They are constructs, which have to prove their usefulness by their ability to explain and predict behavior. The moment they stop doing that we should be prepared to drop them, or cthem for something better. I never claim that culture is the only thing we should pay attention to. In many practical cases it is redundant, and economic, political or institutional factors provide better explanations. But sometimes they don't, and then we need the construct of culture.

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/dimBSGH.pdf

Of course, his "construct of culture" is how a people rank on those five dimensions.

What do you think he would think of our many discussions about Asturian culture, feeling Asturian, etc.?

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Hoy leía un artículo por Geert Hofstede, quien investiga diferencias culturales.

[trans. Art] A veces nos asombra que la gente en otras culturas se comporta tan distintamente. Tendemos a tener un instinto humano 'profundamente dentro', lo que nos dice que toda la gente es la misma - pero no son. Por lo tanto, si entramos en otro país y tomamos decisiones basados en como funcionamos en nuestro propio país de origen - lo más probable es que haremos algunas decisiones muy malas.

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/

Ha desarrollado cinco "dimensiones" a lo largo las cuales cree que las culturas son distintas:

• Índice de distancia de poder - enfoca en el grado de igualdad, o la desigualdad, entre la gente en la sociedad del país.
• El individualismo - enfoca en el grado en que la sociedad refuerza el logro individual o colectivo y relaciones interpersonales.
• La masculinidad - enfoca en el grado en que la sociedad refuerza, o no refuerza, el modelo a imitar de trabajo tradicional masculino de logro masculino, control, y el poder.
• Índice de anulación de incertidumbre - enfoca en el nivel de tolerancia por la incertidumbre y la ambigüedad dentro de la sociedad - p. ej. situaciones inestructuradas.
• La orientación a largo plazo - nos explica el grado al cual una sociedad expone un perspectivo que tenga una orientación al futuro y pragmático más bien que un punto de vista convencional histórico o de corto plazo.

Se puede leer sobre estas "dimensiones" más detalladamente en su página.

También se puede comparar la cultura estadounidense y española aquí en términos de sus cinco dimensiones:
http: // www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php
Desde luego, la cultura asturiana puede ser diferente. Según sus pruebas, las culturas portuguesa y española, por ejemplo, son más inparecidas que yo habría adivinado.

En particular me llamó la atención esta cita:

[trans. Art] En la primera sesión de una nueva clase de estudiantes, solía escribir grande: CULTURA NO EXISTE. De la misma manera valores no existe, dimensiones [las cinco escalas susodicho] no existe. Ellos son construcciones, que tiene que demostrar su utilidad por su capacidad de explicar y predecir el comportamiento. El momento en que ellos dejan de hacer esto, nosotros debería estar preparado dejarlos caer, o cambiarlos para algo mejor. Nunca demando que la cultura es la única cosa a que deberíamos prestar la atención. En muchos casos prácticos es un factor redundante, y [los factores] económicos, políticos o institucionales proporcionan mejores explicaciones. Pero a veces no es así, y por eso necesitamos la construcción de cultura.

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/dimBSGH.pdf

Desde luego, hace su "construcción de cultura" observando como una pueblo está respecto a aquellas cinco dimensiones.

¿Qué piensas que él pensaría de nuestras muchas discusiones sobre la cultura asturiana, el siento de ser asturiano, etc.?

[Art]

Here is some country data. / Aquí es algún dado por país.

Country/País. PDI IDV MAS UAI LTO
Spain/España . . 57. 51 . 42 . 86 . xx
United States . . 40. 91 . 62 . 46 . 29
United Kingdom. 35. 89 . 66 . 35 . 25
Portugal. . . . . . . 63. 27 . 31 . 104 xx
Italy/Italia . . . . . 50. 76 . 70 . 75 . xx
France/Francia. . 68. 71 . 43 . 86 . xx
Peru . . . . . . . . . 64. 16 . 42 . 87 . xx . . [added later for Elí]

Key / Clavé
xx - no data / sin dados
PDI - Power Distance Index / Índice de distancia de poder
IDV - Individualism / El individualismo
MAS - Masculinity / La masculinidad
UAI - Uncertainty Avoidance Index / Índice de anulación de incertidumbre
LTO - Long-Term Orientation / La orientación a largo plazo

It's interesting that France and Spain are more alike that Spain and Portugal.
I wonder how Asturias would be?

Es interesante que La Francia y España son más parecidos que España y Portugal.
Me pregunto: ¿Cómo sería Asturies?

[Terechu]

I don't know if I understand the ranking, though it looks like a scale from 0 to 100. The language is very vague and unprecise (i.e. "Long-term orientation" can mean millions of things) but it seems that Spain fares pretty well.
Anyway, how do they conduct these studies and come to these conclusions? I think it's impossible to pin down something so abstract, because, as you rightfully ask: would Spain's results apply to Asturias? Heck no! If we take away the language, Asturias has as much to do with Andalusia and most other Spanish regions as with Germany's North Rhine-Westfalia or Bavaria (maybe less, even).
In fact, I believe that any hypothetical results for Asturias would come close to Portugal's. What do the rest of you think?
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No estoy segura de haber entendido el ranking, aunque parece una escala de 0 a 100. El lenguaje es muy impreciso (por ejemplo "orientación a largo plazo" puede significar mil cosas distintas), no obstante parece que España sale bastante bien parada.
¿Cómo hacen estos estudios y llegan a estas conclusiones? Creo que es imposible determinar estas cosas tan abstractas, porque, cómo tú bien preguntas: ¿se pueden aplicar los resultados para España a Asturias? Ni de coña! Quitando el idioma, Asturias tiene tanto que ver con Andalucía y la mayoría de otras regiones españolas como con las alemanas Renania del Norte-Westalia o Baviera (incluso hasta menos!) Es más, creo que los hipotéticos resultados de Asturias serían como los de Portugal. ¿Qué pensáis los demás?

[Bob]

I have trouble accepting complex artificial parameters as measures of culture, especially is they have not been subjected to internal checks, such a looking at five year cohorts within the same population. The individuality parameter for the EEUU seems particularly suspect. We may like to think of ourselves as individualists, but we are essentially a nation of sheep when it somes to political realities.

[Art]

Hmm. I don't want to get into a role of defendng something I barely understand, but I have spent some time looking at an article and his websites.

Terechu, I abbreviated the categories so my post wouldn't get too long. You can read a much more complete description here:
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/
It's not long. Or you could read his book. Heh... well, I am tempted.

Hofstede says that grouping peoples by nation is, in fact, not a good solution, but is the only workable solution. I assume that the problem is in getting enough subjects and figuring out who really belongs in which group.

The complexity is obvious just thinking about "Asturians". Of what group is someone who was raised in Gijón but has lived in Madrid for 20 years? Or what of someone whose parents were from Avilés and who thinks of herself as Asturian, but has always lived in Leon? Or someone from a little pueblo near Sevilla who came to Gijón to work when they were 19 and is now retired? Are they Asturian? And what am I? I call myself "Asturian" quite often.


Bob, to answer your doubts, you'll want to read this pdf in which he addresses those very issues:
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/dimBSGH.pdf
I think you'll see that it is over a long period of time with large numbers of people. It began with research at IBM, but then he validated his concepts with data from other people's studies, as I understand it.

Yes, one of Hofstede's points is that "culture" is an artificial construct, but that's the best we can do and it's all social science ever does.

I don't think Hofstede is American, although he worked for IBM, he seems to be living in the Netherlands. So I don't think he's trying to make anyone feel good about being "American".

I believe that all of these scales are relative, not absolute. I don't know the range, but I see one value over 100. So if Americans score more highly on the scale than most cultures, that doesn't mean they aren't a nation of sheep, too. His quick definition says:

Individualism focuses on the degree the society reinforces individual or collective achievement and interpersonal relationships. A High Individualism ranking indicates that individuality and individual rights are paramount within the society. Individuals in these societies may tend to form a larger number of looser relationships. A Low Individualism ranking typifies societies of a more collectivist nature with close ties between individuals. These cultures reinforce extended families and collectives where everyone takes responsibility for fellow members of their group.

Interestingly, if you compare the way politics works in Spain and in the US, in the US, politicians in Congress don't have to vote with their party (although they often do). In Spain, they do have to vote with the party. (Do they get thrown out of their position and the party if they don't?) So you could see the political structure as - relatively - more individualist in the US.

It's possible that Portugal's results reflect many years of a different kind of political and economic climate. I'm guessing that Asturias is to a degree like Spain, especially given all the migration into Asturias from other regions. But Asturias has some very different aspects, especially in relation to power, don't you think? Well, without data, we're just guessing and we'd be likely to skew toward what we want to believe about ourselves!

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[Eli]

Very interesting, but I would echo Bob’s words. About the ‘brief description’ of individuality “A High Individualism ranking indicates that individuality and individual rights are paramount within the society” I would say that it is probably right on the later but dead wrong on the former. Unitedstatians are by far one of the most homogeneous societies in the western world, not only do they discourage individuality but anybody that dares to ‘stick out’ gets stomped on. That said, they like to claim that individuality is of great importance and that they encourage it.


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Interesante, pero estoy de acuerdo con lo que dijo Bob. Sobre la ‘breve descripcion’ de individualismo “Un alto nivel indica que individualismo y derechos del individuo son de suma importancia dentro de la sociedad” Yo diria que probablemente este acertado en la ultima parte pero completamente equivocado en la primera parte (en lo que se refiere a los Estadounidenses). Los Estadounidenses son la cultura mas homogenea del mundo occidental, no solamente disuaden el individualismo pero cualquier persona que se atreve a atentar a sobresalir termina pisoteado (con ciertas excepciones). Habiendo dicho eso, les gusta alegar que el individualismo es de gran importancia para ellos y que lo fomentan.

[Xose]

A couple things.

First, I question the validity of a study that, when comparing the "masculinity index" of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, puts the U.S. as a higher number. We are a lot of things, but we do let women drive cars.

In response to Eli's comment ("Unitedstatians are by far one of the most homogeneous societies in the western world, not only do they discourage individuality but anybody that dares to ‘stick out’ gets stomped on."), #1 What's an Unitedstatian? and #2, I couldn't disagree with you more on this.

We are more homogeneous than Britain? Than Denmark? Than Finland? Than Italy? Than Spain, even? Come on, man. If you've ever traveled to any of these places you know that we are FAR more diverse. You may think all "white" people are all the same, but they are not, as is clearly shown by the majority of "Asturian-Americans" on this forum. German-Americans have many differences from Italian-Americans or Jewish Americans or Greek Americans or Scotch-Irish Americans. Not to mention the MILLIONS of Chinese Americans, Vietnamese Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, the list goes on and on....

Even here on this forum we have people of very diverse political views, cultural views, etc. We are incredibly diverse and accepting of differences in our peoples.

[Eli]

Hi Xose,

Think that the misunderstanding comes from your definition of ‘western world’ likely Europe, Canada and the US. In my view the ‘western world’ is all the nations that live by the societal standards of Europe, namely all of America, most of Africa and Australia. The rest of the world Asia, the middle and far east, Oceania and parts of Africa are not.

That said, I wasn’t thinking of folks over in Europe, clearly Denmark is full of Danish people and they likely are very much alike, ditto for the rest. I was thinking of western nations were there has been the same type of immigration over the centuries that the US has had. For instance Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica etc. they too have seen immigration from Europe, Africa and Asia. As well as having a local indigenous population. These western nations more closely reflect the population mixture of the United States than Denmark or Germany were there has been little if any immigration over the last 1,400 years.

With that in mind, yes people elsewhere in the western world are more diverse than Unitedstatians. To put it in perspective Peruvians are five times more diverse than Unitedstatians, Chileans are probably more homogeneous while Brazilians are ten times more diverse than Peruvians.

Elí

[Art]

I think there may be a misunderstanding over how studies like these are done. I haven´t had time to read Hofstede's questions -- although there are some available online -- but I´m sure that this study isn´t as lamely straight forward as some are imagining. A social scientist wouldn´t ask someone ¨Are the people of your country masculine or feminine? Do you feel individualistic or community-oriented?¨

No, surveys like these are generally a battery of questions that ask indirect questions. There will be a number of questions that point in one direction or another. The group which creates the scales and the survey looks at the answers statistically to discern patterns. The questions are validated to show that they really do test what the tester thinks they are testing, and to show that the questions give consistent answers over time and with different subjects. Only the best questions are kept.

So it's very different from us sitting around thinking, "Hmm. I think Americans are less individualistic than Columbians." Sure, you can start with that hunch, but you then you're going to spend years testing it using methods that have been developed for social research.

One of my Colombian friends told me in the 1980s that in Colombia students generally work together on their homework and other assignments. He was astounded to discover that American students were often prohibited from helping each other because it was viewed as "cheating" and "dishonest". A Colombian, he told me, wouldn't see that as cheating, but as what friends naturally do for each other. He saw this as one of several examples of how the US was more individualistic rather than collective-oriented. I repeat this story because it's a good example of how the meaning of the category "individualism" is much more nuanced that the image of the Marlboro man would suggest.

[Art]

...Denmark or Germany where there has been little if any immigration over the last 1,400 years.

Ask any German, and they'll tell you about how many Turks have moved to Germany in recent decades. I myself haven't been there recently, but I know there a fair number of Spaniards moved to Germany to find work in the 1960s-1980s. Terechu would know about this more than I do, as she was one of the emigrants.

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[trans. Art] ... Dinamarca o Alemania donde hubo poco inmigración, si existe, durante los 1,400 años pasados.

Pregunta a cualquier alemán, y te dirá de los muchísmos turcos que se han emigrado a Alemania en las décadas recientes. Yo mismo no he estado allí recientemente, pero sé que hay bastantes españoles quienes han trasladado a Alemania para encontrar trabajo en los años 1960 hasta los 1960. Terechu sabría de esto más que yo, porque ella era uno de los emigrantes.

[Eli]

I guess the question would be; On a percentage basis, do you think that the immigration seen in Germany over the last 400 years compares to what has happened in the United States? How about Brazil or Argentina?

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Me parece que cabe preguntar, Te parece que el porcentage de imigrantes a Alemania durante los ultimos 400 años es comparable a la imigracion que han recibido los EE. UU.? Que tal Brazil or Argentina?

[Art]

Of course, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Americas are obviously descendents of immigrants. Go back 2000-3000 years and you could say the same thing about Europe.

Rather than rely on imagination, let's look at some numbers.

Germany has been hovering between 8 and 9% foreign population as a percentage of the total population, 1992 to 2002:
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Glo ... a/data.cfm

The US for that same period had between about 9 and 12%, and in 2005, it went up to 12.1%.
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Glo ... a/data.cfm

But this article says it's very difficult to assess the numbers of immigrants in Germany.
http://www.eumap.org/journal/features/2 ... anylabour/

Germany’s political leaders officially denied until the early 1990s the (already established) fact that their country is a destination for foreigners and hence needs an immigration policy.
...
Today, Germany is without doubt an ‘immigration country’: about 7.3 million foreigners live there, representing nine percent of the total population. Since 1954, about 31 million people moved to Germany, while 22 million left the country during the same period. Many of those who entered did so for work.

Finding relevant data for Brazil is difficult. I'm not finding comparable data, but what I did find is indicative. In the 1980s there was a net outflow of emigrants.
http://www.iadb.org/mif/v2/files/neto_engJP05.pdf

Carvalho (2004) indicated that the net migration flow can not be calculated for the 1995/2000 period because it would overestimate the negative net migration flow due to a huge improvement in census coverage between the two censuses.
...
Based on the 1991 and 2000 demographic censuses, Carvalho (2004) counted 66,217 and 143,644 immigrants in the 1986/1991 and 1995/2000 periods respectively. ... The foreign immigrants corresponded to 48% of the total immigrant flow in the first period, declining to 34% of the second period.

(The rest were former Brazilian emigrants returning home.) The total population of Brazil was 169,799,170 according to a 2000 census. So 48,839 foreign emigrants would be only .029% of the population for that period.

Another 2005 source indicates a negative rate of emigration: -0.03 migrants/1,000 population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographi ... ation_rate

There is no parallel data for Germany, but some interesting details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographi ... mmigration
The official statistics collect only nationality data: Germans 91.5%, Turks 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Italians, Russians, Greeks, and Poles).

While most of the German citizens are ethnic Germans or naturalized immigrants, there are four other sizable groups of people that have lived in Germany for centuries. They are referred to as "national minorities" (nationale Minderheiten): Danes, Frisians, Roma and Sinti, and Sorbs.
...

Germany now has Europe's third-largest Jewish population. In 2004, twice as many Jews from former Soviet republics settled in Germany as in Israel, bringing the total inflow to more than 200,000 since 1991. Jews have a voice in German public life through the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland.

There are also around 500,000 "Afro-Germans".[/quote]
Now, Brazil may have many previous emigrants still living there, but they aren't attracting as many today as the US and Germany have been.

Yes, I realize that this data is comparing apples and oranges, but the general picture is one of Germany as a nation with a high level of emigration, similar to what the US is dealing with.

[Art]

Yikes, after writing the last message I wondered what we were talking about! This is what started it, I think:

Unitedstatians are by far one of the most homogeneous societies in the western world, not only do they discourage individuality but anybody that dares to ‘stick out’ gets stomped on. That said, they like to claim that individuality is of great importance and that they encourage it.

So maybe we're confusing several different issues. Elí seems to believe Americans are of one mind, not individualists. That's a little different than whether we've seen a lot of immigration, isn't it? Immigration may affect it, but you can have diversity based on many factors.

Take a seat: I'm a at a loss for words. What could I say to Elí's point? He sees us as all alike. Maybe this is similar to African Americans and European Americans thinking of each other as all being alike?

[Eli]

Hi Art,

The first post was very informative, however at 10% (much higher than I would have guessed) Germany's immigrants are no comparison to the population of the US were 90% plus is descended from immigrants of immigrants themselves.

What could I say to Elí's point? He sees us as all alike. Maybe this is similar to African Americans and European Americans thinking of each other as all being alike?

Not at all.
It is not a matter of not being able to tell the differences between Unitedstatians on my part, clearly there are many, many differences among them. I would have to be blind, deaf, dumb and stupid not to realize the very marked differences between a man raised in New England and another in the mountains of Kentucky, or those among the black and white population of D.C.

Undoubtedly there are a myriad of differences among Unitedstatians as would be the case in any nation of 280 million people. I failed to convey the idea. While there are many differences among Unitedstatians those differences (however marked they may be) pale by comparison in both number and scale to the differences we see among the inhabitants of Brazil, were wee see some of the most renowned scientific minds of the world and at the same time less than four blocks away people deeply involved in Voodoo witchcraft.

While there are many differences among Unitedstatians, by comparison they are simple ripples within a generally speaking homogeneous society, because for the most part the level of education within Unitedstatian society lies within a much narrower band than that of Brazil for instance. After all, what makes for most of the differences among people is by far the level of education we have. For instance, the same natural phenomena witnessed by an educated mind is a wonder of nature, for an ignorant one is the product of supernatural beings, witchcraft or anything else that mind can understand.

[Art]

Okay, so we're not all alike. There's simply less "standard deviation" among individual Americans than with people in some places? Linking this lower standard deviation to education even makes it sound positive.

Your first statement (which you should feel free to amend as you wish) was:

Unitedstatians are by far one of the most homogeneous societies in the western world, not only do they discourage individuality but anybody that dares to ‘stick out’ gets stomped on. That said, they like to claim that individuality is of great importance and that they encourage it.

That doesn't sound positive.

We're talking about human behaviors that appear in every culture. One of these behaviors is suppression of difference (individualism). There's a very strong human force for "togetherness". We really don't like knowing that someone else is different from us. Again, that's found in every culture.

It's likely that someone living in the US but who was from a Latin culture would feel the effects of this "be like us" force more strongly than someone raised here in this culture. This may be especially true now that there is so much anxiety in the US over Latin Americans supposedly not becoming like us via the Melting Pot. I think part of this anxiety is related to a misunderstanding of how immigration and the melting pot works, but that's a topic for another thread.

Hofstede isn't saying that some countries don't have that pressure to conform. He's talking about the relative balance of:

• the pressure to conform and to act collectively, versus
• the pressure to achieve on one's own and to be less strongly associated with extended family and other groups.

You're going to find both tendencies in every culture, but some will be more one or the other.

Individualism focuses on the degree the society reinforces individual or collective achievement and interpersonal relationships. A High Individualism ranking indicates that individuality and individual rights are paramount within the society. Individuals in these societies may tend to form a larger number of looser relationships. A Low Individualism ranking typifies societies of a more collectivist nature with close ties between individuals. These cultures reinforce extended families and collectives where everyone takes responsibility for fellow members of their group.