The first (and longest) chapter focuses on the role of incentives in human behavior. But some cultures strictly abide by their norms. Baker was Bushs secretary of state; Aziz was Husseins deputy prime minister. Well, because theyre really smart. There is no evidence for convergence other than if countries become equally rich, they all go to more individualistic. HOFSTEDE: Because its true: the very same dimensions under different circumstances, can work the other way. Freakonomics Radiois produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. And life is an adventure. So I would be very interested in knowing whether theres any data on the ethnic component of homicide and suicide. But first, Hofstede had to make sure that the differences he was seeing in the data werent specific to I.B.M. Multilevel Research of Human Systems: Flowers, Bouquets and Gardens, The Interaction Between National and Organizational Value Systems, 11 A. M. Sunday Is Our Most Segregated Hour,, The U.S. Is Just Different So Lets Stop Pretending Were Not (Ep. DUBNER: Although the U.S. is relatively high on suicide and homicide, so are we an outlier in that regard as well? Whether proud or not, whether happy or not, it has a position. And in this moment, we realized that the grind is unsustainable, right? And you speak fast because I dont want to waste a lot of time talking. My uncles like, Hey, I have something to show you. My first day in America, he showed me the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade. That level of religiosity is very high for a wealthy country. China, Japan, and Turkey are also tight. The reason we reached out to Michele Gelfand is that I want to understand this stuff better, too. GELFAND: This has always been the big question, the myth that with the internet and globalization were going to become more similar. You could just do an across-the-board search of various Western religions and look at who the figureheads are. Level of inequality C. Family composition D . HOFSTEDE: You could say these six dimensions of culture, they are perimeters to our sociality. But it was serious. The final dimension on the Hofstede model is called indulgence versus restraint. This suggests that looseness and tightness can co-exist. Our staff also includesAlison Craiglow,Greg Rippin,Joel Meyer,Tricia Bobeda,Mary Diduch, Zack Lapinski,Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger,andJacob Clemente. You know what it is, you know how it works, you dont necessarily have access to the people who really hold on to it. The future could be bright. This is a pretty interesting result: one stranger giving away roughly half their money to another stranger when, theoretically, 10 or 20 percent would keep the second player from rejecting the offer. You may decide to go another way, but that doesnt make the river change. Thats to say that it emphasizes privacy and independence, like the U.S., but its much more egalitarian. BROADCASTER: The subject denies the evidence of his own eyes and yields to group influence. There, its really important to maintain that humility, to be focused on your privacy, but not trying to one-up other people. thats always there. 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. If youre a constrained sort of person, you wont go far in the U.S. Stephen DUBNER: Im curious whether youve ever been accused of political incorrectness in your study of national cultures. HOFSTEDE: My name is Gert Jan Hofstede. Michele Gelfand has another example of how culture shapes perception. And in a collectivistic society, a person is like an atom in a crystal. HENRICH: We have a kind of religiosity equivalent to somewhere like Kuwait. Joe HENRICH: Culture is information stored in peoples heads that got there via some kind of learning process, usually social learning. And the research subject explained to him that, Oh, I feel so bad for you that you cant afford pants without holes in them that I cant take the money from this poor American kid. And it struck me as a way in which this experiment could be perverted. In a large power-distant society, you have autocracy. It means I did it my way.. HENRICH: They are self-enhancing, which means they try to promote their attributes. But even a loose country will tighten up when a threat arises. He contrasts places like Egypt, that had strict rules for authority and gender and purity, with the Persians who, using my terminology, he would have said that they were quite loose. NEAL: I think thats always been a tension in Black culture, around this idea of Americas rugged individualism and the collectivity of Blackness that was born out of necessity because of segregation. Really? And I think that America has wonderful things happening to it. NEAL: I think its helpful to think about culture in terms of a big C and a little c, the little c being those everyday things that we sometimes dont elevate to a level of culture. Im a professor of artificial sociality at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. The Aztec, the Inca, and todays Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, are very collectivistic. Can that possibly be trueour culture shapes our genetics? DUBNER: What does an institution like the Navy see as the upsides of more looseness? Gelfand has spent a lot of time trying to understand how a given countrys looseness or tightness affects everyday life. We met him earlier, but just briefly; heres a proper introduction. We do lab experiments, field experiments, computational modeling. Still, Gelfands horizons were suddenly expanded; and her curiosity was triggered. Good on you. 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 you feel better). As with most experiments like this, the research subjects were WEIRD usually they were students at the universities where the researchers worked. And so individualism, trust in others, leads to more rapid innovation. Freakonomics Revised and Expanded Edition. This episode was produced by Brent Katz. As an Amazon Associate, Freakonomics may earn commissions from qualifying purchases made through links on this site. 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. For the last few months, the city-state has seen just a handful of Covid-19 cases. ERNIE: Oh, gee. Heres another example: HENRICH: People from more individualistic societies tend to focus on central objects. Always check that your browser shows a closed lock icon and . Fortune, by the Hitchhikers; the rest of the music this week was composed byLuis Guerra. DUBNER: When youre inclined to look at the U.S. in a positive light, do you find uncertainty avoidance to be largely a force for the good in terms of creating and building a strong society, or do you think its more ? In a society in which 95 percent of adults are highly literate, he writes, people have a thicker corpus callosum than a society in which only 5 percent of people are highly literate. The corpus callosum is the bunch of nerve fibers that unites the two brain hemispheres. The fifth dimension in the Hofstede universe came in the early 1980s, in collaboration with a Canadian social psychologist named Michael Bond, who was working in Hong Kong. Apparently over 50 percent of cats and dogs in the U.S. are obese. Historically, politically, and yes culturally. Based on the given excerpt above from Freakonomics, the claim that is supported by the evidence in this excerpt is that, The close relationship between sumo wrestlers could be an incentive for an elite wrestler to throw a match he doesn't need to win. Europe has very strong gradients between very individualistic Nordic and Anglo and Germanic countries; Germanic is a little bit more collectivistic. And it should stay there. It was back in grad school that Michele Gelfand first asked herself this question. Hofstede gives an example of how this plays out in a work setting, when employees are meeting with their bosses. Stripped of our culturally acquired mental skills, he writes, we are not so impressive when we go head-to-head in problem-solving tests against other apes, and we certainly are not impressive enough to account for the vast success of our species. Henrich recently followed that book with another one called The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous. She sees the lack of self-control in loose countries as particularly worrisome. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like The Freakonomics podcast "Is the American Dream really dead?", mentions five main factors that contribute to social mobility in neighborhoods. He did some work in the factory and it shaped him to a great extent because there, he could see that the world of the organization looks so differently from the floor than it does from above. You may decide to go another way, but that doesnt make the river change. Gert Jan HOFSTEDE: None of it is intentional. 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. DUBNER: Im curious for advice on how we should balance weve become an economic powerhouse, and we recognize that there is a lot of benefit to that. Heres the dean of the National University of Singapores school of public health: YIK-YING TEO: We have a tradition of having national campaigns to galvanize people to proceed in a common direction. Innovation requires coming up with a lot of ideas. We even walk faster. Freakonomics, which weighs in at just over 200 pages (plus a hefty section of bonus material for those interested in learning more), takes as its principal argument the idea that economics exist as a tool to study society. If youre violating the social order, youre going to be punished.. BUSH: Allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. It means you really want to know and youre not satisfied until you know. HOFSTEDE: Masculine society means that if you show power, that gives you social status. So yeah, the U.S. has that assignment ahead of it. In case you missed it, thats Western. Its called long-term versus short-term orientation. Episode 470 The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. 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. But Joe Henrich wanted to see how the Ultimatum experiments worked when it wasnt just a bunch of WEIRD college students. At the time, opinion surveys were relatively new; it was especially unusual for a company to survey its own employees. Its also the cleaning lady. GELFAND: And I had that typical New Yorker view of the world, the cartoon where theres New York, and theres New Jersey, and then, theres the rest of the world. Consider the prominent Muppets Bert and Ernie. This interest goes back to those negotiations between Jim Baker and Tariq Aziz. You may have noticed that Hofstede neglected to mention a certain country that we Americans tend to care about quite a bit. Chronic threat meaning a country is prone to natural disasters, or disease, or hostile invaders. Fundamentally, individualism is a belief that the individual is an end in themself. 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 . HENRICH: And this can include motivations, heuristics, biases, beliefs. A tight country like Germany tends to set strict limits on noise, with mandated quiet hours. New York City, meanwhile, has been called not just the city that never sleeps, but the city that never shuts up. Tight countries tend to have very little jaywalking, or littering or, God forbid, dog poop on the sidewalks. (Ep. We need to change our practices. I asked Hofstede what he would advise if a given country did want to change its culture? And for me, its hard to divorce the toxicity of the grind from the toxicity of masculinity, when you always have to dominate. We said that a lot of good ideas and policies that work elsewhere in the world cant work in the U.S. because our culture is just different. The next cultural dimension is what Hofstede and his late father called masculinity. That title is a bit misleading. In other places they dont think its a smart idea to be consistent. Latin countries tend to be more collectivistic, especially Spain and Portugal not so much Italy and France. So rules for the sake of having rules are not good. Scholars in this realm have a general agreement on what culture is and what its not. And it produces this illusion. Comprising four main documentary segments, each made by a different director -- including Super Size Me's Morgan Spurlock, Taxi to the Dark Side's Alex Gibney, Why We Fight's Eugene Jarecki, and Jesus Camp's Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady-- the film examines . But Gelfand saw an even bigger question: How can you understand culture if you dont know exactly what it is? And Im particularly interested in how its shaped our psychology. It has to do with conformity. Everybody gets tickled until they laugh. And its not because they themselves dont have collective experiences, particularly within ethnicity, but part of the price of becoming American is to give up the collectivity of your ethnic background. On the more feminine end of the spectrum are the Scandinavian countries and some of Western Europe. This does not mean that no one in a loose culture, like the U.S., is stigmatized or mistreated. 470. We see them as individuals with whom we are in competition. And you dont need them for ritual reasons. DUBNER: But that the research subjects, they gave him a lot back and they thought it was going to him. Theres far less stigmatization of people in terms of their race, their religion. I know that wasnt your intention. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is . 1, the most individualistic country in the world, 91 out of 100 on the Hofstede scale of individualism. Dubner speaks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, and various other underachievers. This man has proof of our individualism. Today, an overview of the cultural differences. Its part of our founding D.N.A. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. "The typical parenting expert, like experts in other fields, is prone to sound exceedingly sure of himself. GELFAND: The U.S. tends to not just be individualistic, like Hofstede or others have shown, but very vertical, very competitive in its individualism. I think thats a good litmus test of tight-loose. Greeks are very strong on that. Well go through the other five dimensions, much faster, I promise. But we tried to address that. They determine the boundary conditions before which we become angry or flattered or whatever. Europe has a strong influence from Germany, also from France. This is really a conversation that pleases me a lot. We had a very tight social order. Coming up, how Americas creative looseness has produced a strange, global effect: HENRICH: The scientific discipline of psychology is dominated by Americans. And we see that the combination of high individualism, high masculinity, and high short-termism can produce some chaos, at the very least. We also realize that were a culture in distress in many, many, many ways. Thats Joe Henrich, a professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard; hes also a scholar of psychology, economics, and anthropology. To that end, the digital revolution is further shrinking the distance to power. 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. If youre an economist, you might think that offering even $1 out of the 100 would be enough. Tightness may create compliance; but looseness can drive innovation and creativity. Not necessarily better or worse but very different. You can even see the evidence in the clocks that appear on city streets. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Think Belarus, Myanmar, Russia, China. How does the U.S. do on this dimension? And that is a status-worthy thing. You always have to win. And if you get crumbs in your pajamas, theyll make you itch. HOFSTEDE: So collectivistic cultures are those of the Amerindian empires. DUBNER: I remember once, years and years ago, when I was reading this research that you were doing, speaking with Francisco Gil-White, who was then at Penn, and he told me that when he was running this Ultimatum experiment, I dont remember where I want to say Mongolia. So the U.S. produces the sort of Wal-Mart equivalent of religions: big churches giving the people what they want, high pageantry. In restrained societies, people tend to suppress bodily gratification, and birth rates are often lower; theres also less interest in things like foreign films and music. GELFAND: Its like that story of two fish where theyre swimming along. Individualism encompasses a value system, a theory of human nature, and a belief in certain political, economic, social, and religious arrangements. The snob effect occurs when an individual's demand for a specific product increases when the number of units of that product other people purchase increases. Im a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. Hence the term, the changing same. I think there are historical moments that are transcendent. 534. 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 . It shouldnt surprise anyone that individualism might contribute to inequality or at least, as Henrich puts it, the justification of inequality. (8) My years of experience traveling in 100 . The American model is among the most successful and envied models in the history of the world. (This is part of the, competition amongst religious organizations. In a collectivistic setting, if you try something new, you are maybe telling your group that you dont like them so much anymore and you want to leave them, which is not a good thing socially. In another condition, they were wearing tattoos and nose rings and purple hair. The ancient Romans. individualism, political and social philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Fortune, by the Hitchhikers; the rest of the music this week was composed byLuis Guerra. 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. In the N.F.L., the long snapper is . I mean, youve got your quota, as have we all, but youre not. GELFAND: If youre in contexts where theres a lot of rules, you develop from a very early age that impulse control. GELFAND: Well, we can look back to Herodotus. The first one measures the level of individualism in a given culture, versus collectivism. So you see these eye movements that are very different. And in a collectivistic society, a person is like an atom in a crystal. I think those fundamental religious beliefs extend to the American view of what leadership should look like outside of the church in the corporation, in the legislatures, and what have you. One of the defining features of Americanism is our so-called "rugged individualism." You might even call it wild individualism. 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. Our staff also includesAlison Craiglow,Greg Rippin,Joel Meyer,Tricia Bobeda, Mary Diduch, Zack Lapinski, Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger,andJacob Clemente. Do you know what you are? Truth be told, I veer somewhat loose. Some researchers looked at these results and came up with a new label for humans in this context: Homo reciprocans. People in the less-literate society, meanwhile, would have better facial-recognition skills. If you just look at Americans, its 70 percent American. You have to behave like a family member if you want to be one. 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). When youre trying to understand the nature of something, an outside view can be extremely helpful. There were a number of low offers of 15 percent, which didnt get rejected. We look at how these traits affect our daily lives and why we couldnt change them even if we wanted to. And it got the attention of President Clinton: Bill CLINTON: Its the first Ive heard of it, Ill look into it. GELFAND: I would say it tends to be California. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Read the excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics. We will learn which countries are tight, which are loose, and why. So how much would you offer? Some of the measurable differences were a bit odd. Steven D. Levitt, the self-described "Rogue Economist" of the title, uses this tool to analyze a random assortment of . Capital W-E-I-R-D, which stands for: HENRICH: Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. This is a summary of the book Freakonomics by Stephen DubnerJoin Reading.FM now: https://fourminutebooks.com/go/readingfm/register/Read more summaries: http. The people that came to New York early on, in the early 1800s, they were from all sorts of different cultural backgrounds. Part of it is that when you live in a world that has carpented environments like right angles, where we live in houses in the States makes us focus on those right angles. And I was interested in this, and I thought maybe it would tell us something about an innate human psychology for reciprocity or something like that. Its all the levels in the organization. The U.S., according to this analysis, is comparatively a short-term country. Here are some things that tend to thrive in highly individual societies: human rights, a free press, divorce, and a faster pace of life. 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! By this time, Hofstede the Elder had already gotten a Ph.D. in social science. Employees were asked to rate how much they agreed with statements like Competition among employees usually does more harm than good. And, Having interesting work is just as important to most people as having high earnings., HOFSTEDE: Simple questions about daily things that people understand. Geert Hofstede ( 2 October 1928 - 12 February 2020) was born in a peaceful country, but his teenage years saw the second World War rage across Europe.