Cultural Norms - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Cultural Norms

By Mr Daniel HanssonSlide2

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 cultureSlide3

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 observationSlide4

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)Slide5

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 geneSlide6

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.Slide7

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

. Slide8

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. Slide9

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 experienceSlide10

Studies with Emic or Etic Approaches?

Ekman (1973)

Yuki (2005)

Cole and Scribner (1974)

Bond and Smith (1996)Slide11

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 dimensionsSlide12

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 interestSlide13

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 inequalitiesSlide14

Masculinity-Femininity

M

asculine

culture

s stress assertiveness, competition, and material success.

F

eminine 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.Slide15

Uncertainty Avoidance

Cultures strong in uncertainty avoidance

are active, aggressive, emotional, compulsive, security seeking, and intolerant

C

ultures weak in uncertainty avoidance are contemplative, less aggressive, unemotional, relaxed, accepting of personal risks, and relatively tolerantSlide16

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 faceSlide17

Questions for Discussion

Relate to the cultural dimensions when answering these questions

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?

How would you have to act in order to be adapted to Japanese society in terms of values, behavior?

What cultural differences may cause conflict in a relationship between an American and a South African?Slide18

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 culturesSlide19

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