I had been led to believe, by you, that you are as dumb as bricks. So you can see that in an individualistic society, after becoming a world champion in a sport or certainly after winning a major war, people do not fight one another, but they admire one another. playlist_add. As we heard, the first four dimensions originated with the I.B.M. DUBNER: What are some of the consequences of being relatively tolerant of uncertainty, as the U.S. is? This leads to less obesity, less addiction, and theres less crime in tighter cultures. Okay, you get the gist, right? Our theme song is Mr. The comedians John Oliver, Hannah Gadsby, and Kumail Nanjiani all grew up outside the U.S. So after we ran that first project, we redid the entire project, and we took concerns like the one Francisco had. Between 1967 and 1973, he collected data on I.B.M. Gelfand says the countries that were most aggressive in trying to contain Covid tended to be tighter countries. The final dimension on the Hofstede model is called indulgence versus restraint. GELFAND: Groups that are of lower status tend to live in tighter worlds. 1 in individualism. 470. HOFSTEDE: In an individualistic society, a person is like an atom in a gas. Again, its worth repeating that no culture is a monolith. But can a smart policy be simply transplanted into a country as culturally unusual (and as supremely WEIRD) as America? you ask. The Ultimatum game is famous among social scientists. 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 veers tighter. Freakonomics Quotes. And that happens a lot. Were trying to buy time, save time. ERNIE: Oh, gee. 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. Youre going to be shut down. Categories like age, gender, job type, job seniority, and so on. Consider the prominent Muppets Bert and Ernie. On a certain level, this is obvious: These are cultures that have norms and traditions that have endured for centuries. President Bush had framed these negotiations as going an extra mile for peace.. HENRICH: So, Francisco is a good pal of mine and hes also a very charming fellow. That is not just the most American thing thats ever happened. But oh, the places you'll go! You always have to win. HOFSTEDE: Well, if you want an honest answer, I think mainly our own curiosity. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is . GELFAND: I grew up on Long Island. More feminine societies tend to have less poverty and higher literacy rates. Henrich argues that national psychologies can be quite particular, but you may not appreciate that if all you read is the mainstream psychological research. All contents Freakonomics. So, today on Freakonomics Radio: can we really build a model that explains why the American psyche is so unusual? He grew up in England. Some researchers looked at these results and came up with a new label for humans in this context: Homo reciprocans. Which is probably why we dont hear all that much about the science of culture. But then the experimenters confederates come in. Its also important to recognize that even though were really connected, still people are largely in their echo chambers, interacting with people who they know. HOFSTEDE: So collectivistic cultures are those of the Amerindian empires. HENRICH: And the case I make is its been highly unsuccessful to just pick up institutions that evolved in Western societies and transport them to drop them in Africa or the Middle East or places like that, because there needs to be a fit between how people think about the world, their values, worldviews, motivations, and the affordances of the institution. Im a professor of artificial sociality at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands. HENRICH: It chafes us when we get ordered around. HENRICH: You want to be the same self, regardless of who youre talking to or what context youre in. Gert Jan Hofstede - Freakonomics. . Feb 15, 2023. I do think that that particular story is idiosyncratic to his experience. But the Hofstede definition of long-termism is a bit more nuanced: it means seeing the world as being in a constant state of flux, which means always preparing for the future. So the Singapore government says, Look, this is our culture The rest of that sentence didnt have to be said. The answer to that is usually: no, you cant. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Read the excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics. When Americans did this experiment, a third of them conformed and gave an obviously wrong answer. DUBNER: So I have to say, Gert Jan, youve made me feel kind of terrible about being American today. The first one measures the level of individualism in a given culture, versus collectivism. Michele Gelfand wasnt interested in that. And I think this community-spiritedness has been built in us since we were very young. In the U.S., it was freedom to do whatever the hell that you wanted to. Culture is not genetics or biology or individual characteristics. Thats the cross-cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand. John OLIVER: When was that moment that America became the most American America it could possibly be? You may have noticed that Hofstede neglected to mention a certain country that we Americans tend to care about quite a bit. (This is part of theFreakonomics RadioAmerican Culture series). And things worked out well for them for a bit. He takes on questions like: Why do kids with summer birthdays get the flu more often? What we saw in Egypt was very similar. And what does he have to say about American culture? You can never admit weakness or failure. DUBNER: But that the research subjects, they gave him a lot back and they thought it was going to him. 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. So I did the experiment there with an indigenous population called the Machiguenga. And it produces this illusion. They can freely float about. 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. 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. Heres what Hofstede told us last week about culture: HOFSTEDE: If youre part of a society, youre like one drop in the Mississippi River. Its very, very hard to do. In the meantime, take care of yourself and, if you can, someone else too. 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). The individual agents/brokers only take a $150 hit after their costs/fees. Open Document. NEWSCASTER: Wearing masks is a way of life now in Singapore. As of today, it covers six dimensions or, as the Hofstedes put it, six basic issues that society needs to organize itself. Its called the 6-D, or 6-Dimension, Model of National Culture, and it is one of the most intriguing explanations Ive ever seen for why American society is such an outlier in the world for better and worse. Its more about how individuals are acted upon by the people and institutions around them. GELFAND: Were fiercely interdisciplinary. Baker was Bushs secretary of state; Aziz was Husseins deputy prime minister. You look at parents and how they treat their kids art. It was: And your culture, your American culture, is very different. At this point, we should probably define terms. So uncertainty avoidance is the intolerance of ambiguity. You're stuck in a metal tube with hundreds of strangers (and strange smells), defying gravity and racing through the sky. The future could be bright. Once he saw that differences were driven by nationality, Hofstede sensed he was on to something big. It turns out that Americans were among the least likely to conform. Now this is pretty rare to have such different groups of respondents and still find the same thing. Do you know what you are? (Ep. Most white Americans have an entirely different ancestral history. The first one measures the level of individualism in a given culture, versus collectivism. Because when youre living inside a culture well, thats the culture you know; it is what it is. So they might offer, say, 10 out of the 100. GELFAND: Well, we can look back to Herodotus. 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. Whether proud or not, whether happy or not, it has a position. They tend to veer tighter on our measures than places on the coast. Some of the measurable differences were a bit odd. GELFAND: Were trained from a very early age not just to be independent, but to be better. Were realizing that part of that push forward theres a toxicity to that in terms of how you treat other people, how you think about institutions. HOFSTEDE: Yes. There is some overlap between these six dimensions and some of the ideas we talked about in last weeks episode particularly the notion that some national cultures tend to be tight and others loose. Yes, other phenomena like how things smell to us. So, culture is about values, beliefs, absorbed ideas and behaviors. One of the defining features of Americanism is our so-called rugged individualism. You might even call it wild individualism. 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. So the picture that emerges from these findings is that Americans are less likely to conform in the name of social harmony; and we also treasure being consistent, expressing our true selves, regardless of the context. Latin countries tend to be more collectivistic, especially Spain and Portugal not so much Italy and France. Let me give a little background. HOFSTEDE: In the U.S.A., the boss needs to be a team player. HOFSTEDE: Masculine society means that if you show power, that gives you social status. . Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn't) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything. Did you know there is an entire academic field called cross-cultural psychology? 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. 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. Those are the things you cant necessarily plan and account for in building models of how you expect people to react in different situations. DUBNER: You sound very grateful that you were not born an American. This interest goes back to those negotiations between Jim Baker and Tariq Aziz. 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). Fascinated by the human in the system, he did a PhD in organizational behaviour. In a large power-distant society, you have autocracy. International, and they were just starting international opinion surveys. The strongest parts of the original Freakonomics book revolved around Levitt's own peer-reviewed research. It was there, and later on in travels in the Middle East, and working on a kibbutz, and elsewhere, that I started recognizing this really powerful force of culture that was incredibly important but really invisible. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. We developed these linguistic dictionaries to analyze language reflective of tight and loose, in newspapers and books, tight words like restrain, comply, adhere, enforce, as compared to words like allow and leeway, flexibility, empower. 6 Pages. The best thing you can become is yourself. You can followFreakonomics RadioonApple Podcasts,Spotify,Stitcher, orwherever you get your podcasts. And you speak fast because I dont want to waste a lot of time talking. Public school quality B. And life is an adventure. Individualistic countries tend to be richer, but as Hofstede the Elder once put it, The order of logic is not that individualism comes first. It means you really want to know and youre not satisfied until you know. 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. Freakonomics is a collaboration of authors Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, journalists and winners of numerous awards. 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. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, show that increasing socioeconomic development is an especially strong predictor of increasing individualistic practices and values . You can followFreakonomics RadioonApple Podcasts,Spotify,Stitcher, orwherever you get your podcasts. Henrich is saying that the export of American ideas isnt necessarily easier. HOFSTEDE: It means that you only need rules when youre going to use them. SFU users should ignore all messages requesting Computing ID and/or password information, no matter how authentic they may appear. So how much would you offer? It was freedom from all these debilitating things because the state would be able to provide for you. Were always losing time. Life is going to be hard. Scholars in this realm have a general agreement on what culture is and what its not. This individualism has produced tremendous forward progress and entrepreneurial energy. And also, of course, people listening to this: Make it happen, come on. All contents Freakonomics. Every action or every fact or every move has a system around it. GELFAND: So, that has a lot of other effects on debt, on alcoholism, on recreational drug use. In our . I do this for you and you do this for me. Folks who come from a collective standpoint where, I do this for you, but youre doing this for us thats a very, very different way of seeing the world. Why the business school? You could argue that Peppers owner is the one who isnt very disciplined. Freaknomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is the book for readers who run screaming at the thought of cracking open a book with the word "economics" in the title. NANJIANI: I was so excited to be in America I couldnt sleep. GELFAND: If youre in contexts where theres a lot of rules, you develop from a very early age that impulse control. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. We even walk faster. Like, the military should be tighter than tech. So he read about factor analysis, which had become a little bit fashionable at the time. 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. Individualism, Modern Capitalism, and Dystopian Visions Introduction to Heritage and Multicultural American Identities: Contemporary Voices (1970-2000) Introduction to Contemporary Literature of the Twenty-First Century The Poetry of Physics RL.CCR.3 Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text. Upon by the people and institutions around them aggressive in trying to contain Covid tended to be than! 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