Go out there and make it happen. And all those things need to be realigned when you really have a true culture change. And I could see there, a little bit similarly to the U.S., how the various ethnicities are trying to live together. He takes on questions like: Why do kids with summer birthdays get the flu more often? So, Japan has been hit by Mother Nature for centuries. So the scientific discipline of psychology is dominated by Americans. It was freedom from all these debilitating things because the state would be able to provide for you. This really contrasts with lots of places where there are legitimate traditional authorities and people tend to defer to those authorities. Youre culturally confident. This feeds back into what Michele Gelfand was talking about earlier, in the context of geopolitical negotiations. The U.S. patent database goes back into the 18th century and what a number of studies in economics as well as work in my lab has shown is that openness to other people so, trust in strangers, an inclination towards individualism, a desire to stand out, to be the smartest guy in the room fosters more rapid innovation because people are more likely to exchange ideas, theyre more interested in distinguishing themselves. NEAL: As someone who specialized in the African-American experience, and is African-American myself, I often fall back on the way the late Amiri Baraka described Black culture as a changing same.. His ideas, along with others, are credited with . GELFAND: The U.S. is one of the most creative places on the planet. Henrich argues that national psychologies can be quite particular, but you may not appreciate that if all you read is the mainstream psychological research. Its very, very hard to do. playlist_add. HOFSTEDE: Yes. HOFSTEDE: This is a very American question, Stephen. Michele Gelfand is one of the premier practitioners of cross-cultural psychology. Relatedly: Americans place a high value on being consistent across different situations. But heres the thing about culture: it can be really hard to measure. Still Sore, Clinton Decries Planned Singapore Flogging of American, The Differences Between Tight and Loose Societies. Life is going to be hard. Whether this means something brings you financial, emotional, or even community benefit. The New Yorker's Malcolm . But even a loose country will tighten up when a threat arises. So Hofstede the Elder began to amass a huge data set about the workplace experiences and preferences of tens of thousands of I.B.M. And as long as you dont kill somebody behind the wheel of a car, your right to do whatever you want to do to yourself is protected. Like, you can buy them on the internet. Now, keep in mind this was London, English-speaking London not Uzbekistan or Botswana, even Mexico. GELFAND: And there was discussion in the cross-cultural psychology community about how James Bakers unemotionalcommunication style was received as This is not so serious, in terms of Tariq Azizs understanding of Americans intentions. But first, Hofstede had to make sure that the differences he was seeing in the data werent specific to I.B.M. HENRICH: Im a researcher who tries to apply evolutionary theory to understand human behavior and human psychology and particularly culture. Were trying to buy time, save time. Words: 777. Thats my idea. But somehow, that diversity and that early celebration of permissiveness has overridden that. HENRICH: So the usual result that economists found in lots of university populations in Europe and the U.S., is many people offer 50/50, so you end up with mean offers of around 45 percent of the total. . Youre going to be shut down. Okay, it took half of this episode to go through just the first of the six dimensions of national culture individualism versus collectivism. We look at how these traits affect our daily lives and why we couldn . Culture is about, if you are a part of a society, youre like one drop in the Mississippi River. Where would you think the U.S. ranks among all the countries measured on this dimension? The downsides of looseness are less coordination, less self-control; more crime and quality-of-life problems. Because if you try something new, you show to the people around you that you are an individual and you can make your own decisions. It was freedom from hunger. On a certain level, this is obvious: These are cultures that have norms and traditions that have endured for centuries. Theyre not supposed to be the boss. Or if it will change at all. HENRICH: We dont like people telling us what to do. In our previous episode, we made what may sound like a bold claim. In 2016, Henrich published a book called The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. He was a professor in both the economics and psychology departments, which was weird in its own way lower-case weird since Henrich had never taken a course in either subject. 470 Replay) Freakonomics Radio Documentary According to a decades-long research project, the U.S. is not only the most individualistic country on earth; we're also high on indulgence, short-term thinking, and masculinity (but low on "uncertainty avoidance," if that makes . His father was Geert Hofstede. Now, lets pull back and make an important point: labeling a given country tight or loose is an overall, aggregate measurement. Im like, Were going to go to Singapore if you people dont behave.. HOFSTEDE: And his special methodological trick was not to do what is now called a pan-cultural analysis across all the respondents, but first to lump them into groups. Thanks to Gert Jan Hofstede for his insights today, as well as Michele Gelfand, Mark Anthony Neal, and Joe Henrich. Its also the cleaning lady. We need to have different types of leadership. The Coronavirus Shutdown Is Revealing Americas Troubling Obsession With Work, Those Who Stayed: Individualism, Self-Selection and Cultural Change During the Age of Mass Migration, A Rising Share of the U.S. Black Population Is Foreign Born, 10 Minutes with Geert Hofstede on Indulgence versus Restraint, 10 Minutes withGeert Hofstede on Masculinity versus Femininity, 10 Minutes with Geert Hofstede on Individualisme versus Collectivisme, Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context, A Re-Inquiry of Hofstedes Cultural Dimensions: A Call for 21st Century Cross-Cultural Research, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Achievement Values: A Multimethod Examination of Denmark and the United States, Hofstedes Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences: A Triumph of Faith A Failure of Analysis. These are stereotypical names. You can see this on many dimensions: how we work and travel; how we mate and marry; how we care for our children and our elderly; how we police; how we conceive the relationship between the individual and the state; even how we manage death! This realization is what led us to todays episode of Freakonomics Radio. Next on the list: what Hofstedes late father, the originator of this culture model, called power distance. Thats the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations or institutions be it society at large or just a family accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.. We see them as individuals with whom we are in competition. Oh say, can you see, the home run I just hit. But the big C in my mind is very different than the little c.. People who went out to California, I would say if we gave them the tight-loose mindset quiz, they were probably on the looser mindset. Allen Lane 20, pp304. Freakonomics the film, like the book, is entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking. GELFAND: This has always been the big question, that with the internet and globalization were going to become more similar. We need to change our practices. Controlling for a variety of other factors, they found that looser countries the U.S., Brazil, Italy, and Spain have had roughly five times the number of Covid cases and nearly nine times as many deaths as tighter countries. But yes, its all workplace. And you speak fast because I dont want to waste a lot of time talking. Individualism has had a tremendous impact, not only on culture, but on social theory as well, and political philosophy in particular. Steven D. Levitt, the self-described "Rogue Economist" of the title, uses this tool to analyze a random assortment of . So yeah, the U.S. has that assignment ahead of it. But there must be, I would think, evolution across time, yes? That is one of the main guests in todays episode. In other places they dont think its a smart idea to be consistent. (Ep. Neal is making a couple of compelling points here. If you dont feel that, then you will be an unhappy person. Is that the case? And that really can help explain some variation not all, but some variation in norms and values. So how it is that we acquire ideas, beliefs, and values from other people, and how this has shaped human genetic evolution. And thats going to cultivate certain tonal abilities, which could feed into certain kinds of music, and things like that. And we made sure that the subjects knew that the money was coming from an organization, that the giver did not get any of the money, we ratcheted up our levels of anonymity. 702 Episodes. The negotiations didnt work out. 470. HOFSTEDE: So in an indulgent society, theres going to be free love, theres going to be good music, theres going to be dancing, theres going to be violent crime. This paper examines the production of race on the Internet by examining the elements that make up the weblog Freakonomics: the topic, the environment, the medium, and the users. On the more feminine end of the spectrum are the Scandinavian countries and some of Western Europe. But one of the things thats happened, particularly in the context of social media in the last 10 years, is that people now can speak back to power and close the gaps in terms of where individual people see themselves in relationship to power. DUBNER: Name some of the highest and lowest countries on this dimension. But some cultures strictly abide by their norms. It always was unsustainable, but was made even more acute to us during the pandemic. Culturally maybe more than anything! Thats what we call tight-loose ambidexterity. By late 2009, the book had sold over 4 million copies worldwide. So you see these eye movements that are very different. GELFAND: We have a lot of work to do, theres no question. This is the flip side of the idea we started out with in this episode that is, why its hard for the U.S. to simply import successful policies from elsewhere. Henrich says yes. Gelfand wanted to learn where theyd get the most help. Public school quality B. We had a lot of struggles with tightening during Covid, clearly. HOFSTEDE: If you are, lets say, a toddler, what do you get to decide for yourself? According to a decades-long research project, the U.S. is not only the most individualistic country on earth; we're also high on indulgence, short-term thinking, and masculinity (but low on "uncertain. GELFAND: Groups that are of lower status tend to live in tighter worlds. Sinopsis. HOFSTEDE: So collectivistic cultures are those of the Amerindian empires. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. According to a decades-long research project, the U.S. is not only the most individualistic country on earth; were also high on indulgence, short-term thinking, and masculinity (but low on uncertainty avoidance, if that makes you feel better). DUBNER: And what would you say is maybe a political ramification of low power distance? Which is more dangerous, a gun or a . And that is a status-worthy thing. Its like, Oh, my gosh, that is so amazing. I was feeling like I have to tell that to my kids as a good parent, training my kids to be vertical and individualistic. Joe HENRICH: Americans and Westerners more generally are psychologically unusual from a global perspective. DUBNER: Where is the loosest place in America? You can never admit weakness or failure. But Bush also wanted to avoid going to war with Iraq. Hofstede argues that American short-termism has a deep influence on how we engage with other countries. Those should be the new words to your national anthem. We are acronymically WEIRD. Is that a yes? 1-Page Summary 1-Page Book Summary of Freakonomics. 470. We look at how these traits affect our daily lives and why we couldnt change them even if we wanted to. It was a collaboration between Hofstede the Elder, his son Gert Jan, whod begun working with him by now, and a Bulgarian linguist named Michael Minkov, who had been analyzing data from the World Values Survey. Political philosophy in particular things need to be realigned when you really have a true culture change point: a! Be, I would think, evolution across time, yes in mind this was London, English-speaking not... Planned Singapore Flogging of American, the U.S. has that assignment ahead of it aggregate measurement a. Short-Termism has a deep influence on how we engage with other countries loose. 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