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Cultural Norms
By Mr Daniel Hansson
Important Definitions
• Culture: A shared, learned, symbolic system of
values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and
influences perception and behavior
• Cultural dimension: A construct to explain and
compare norms for a specific type of behavior in
cultures
• Social norms: Expected behaviours and
attitudes in smaller social group
• Cultural norms: Expected behaviours and
attitudes in a society or culture
Important Definitions
• Emic: relates to the intrinsic values of the
society or culture specific behavior that are
important to its members
• Etic: relates to extrinsic (measurable)
properties of a society that are important
for comparison and scientific observation
Questions for Discussion
Think of all cultures that you have had
experiences of. Think of behavior that you
think are very unique for the culture (emic).
Think of behaviors that more or less exist in
many cultures (etics)
A Study with an Emic or an Etic
Approach?
• Chiao & Blizinsky (2010): Found that
depression is more common in countries
with high levels of individualism. In
addition, individualism is negatively
correlated with a high frequency of a short
allele in the 5-htt gene
A Study with an Emic or an Etic
Approach?
• Conway et al. (2005): 194 participants from Japan,
China, Bangladesh, England and the United States
recalled and dated specific autobiographical memories.
A comparison between Chinese and U.S. participants
showed that memories of Chinese subjects had more of
a social orientation than those of American participants
that were more events oriented to the individual. The
study did however also demonstrate the universality of a
phenomenon called the reminiscence bump; the
tendency to recall more personal events from
adolescence and early adulthood than from other lifetime
periods.
A Study with an Emic or an Etic
Approach?
• In 1959, John Howard Griffin disguised
himself into a black man in order to
experience the "black world", i.e., the social
milieu of southern U.S. blacks.
A Study with an Emic or an Etic
Approach?
• Evans & Schamberg (2009): conducted a long term
study of cognitive development in 195 American lower
and middle class students. Participants were measured
on their levels of stress, such as amount of stress
hormones in the blood and their blood pressure between
ages of 9 to 13. Later, at the age of 17, the researchers
measured the participants’ working memory. Participants
were asked to remember a sequence of items. The
teenagers who had grown up in poverty averaged about
8.5 items compared to middle class students who
averaged about 9.44 items.
A Study with an Emic or an Etic
Approach?
• Margaret Mead (1973): Investigated
adolescents in Samoa, and found that they
had gender roles similar to adults and that
puberty was not a traumatic experience
Studies with Emic or Etic
Approaches?
•
•
•
•
Ekman (1973)
Yuki (2005)
Cole and Scribner (1974)
Bond and Smith (1996)
Hofstede’s (1973) Cultural
Dimensions Survey
• A survey on 100.000 employees from the
multinational company IBM from 50
countries about morale in the workplace
• Identified key cultural differences between
countries
• The different trends were called
dimensions
Individualism-Collectivism
• How people define themselves and the
relationships with others
• Individualistic cultures: Self interest
prevails before the interest of the in group
• Collectivistic cultures: The group
interest prevails before self interest
Power Distance
• “The extent to which less powerful
members of institutions and organizations
within a culture expect and accept that
power is distributed unequally.” –Hofstede
• Is also a measure of how cultures deal
with inequalities
Masculinity-Femininity
• Masculine cultures stress assertiveness,
competition, and material success.
• Feminine cultures permit more overlapping
social roles for the sexes, place high value
on feminine traits, stress quality of life,
interpersonal relationships, and concern
for the weak.
Uncertainty Avoidance
• Cultures strong in uncertainty avoidance
are active, aggressive, emotional,
compulsive, security seeking, and
intolerant
• Cultures weak in uncertainty avoidance
are contemplative, less aggressive,
unemotional, relaxed, accepting of
personal risks, and relatively tolerant
Long term-short/term orientation
• Also called confucian dynamism because it measured
Confucian values of perseverance, patience, social
hierarchy, thrift, and a sense of shame
• Is a measure of the time orientation of a culture
• Long-term orientation encourages thrift, savings,
perseverance toward results, and a willingness to
subordinate oneself for a purpose.
• Short-term orientation is consistent with spending to
keep up with social pressure, less savings, preference
for quick results, and a concern with face
Questions for Discussion
Relate to the cultural dimensions when answering
these questions
1. Imagine that you are starting a company in
Guatemala with Guatemalan employees. What
do you need to be aware of and how should
you treat the employees?
2. How would you have to act in order to be
adapted to Japanese society in terms of
values, behavior?
3. What cultural differences may cause conflict in
a relationship between an American and a
South African?
Strengths, Hofstede
• The study has been replicated six times.
Last time 2005
• A large sample from many countries
• Usefulness – to understand cultural
differences in work ethics and behaviour,
to compare cultures
Weaknesses, Hofstede
• Use of self report (validity problems)
• Generalisability problem: only IBM
employees, only certain countries
• Generalisation/stereotyping risk: there are
large individual differences within cultures,
as well as subcultures within a culture
• Culture is non-static and ever-changing