In addition to cultural norms, another component of culture is dimensions.  Dimensions are how the values of a society affect behavior. A dimension describes the trends of behaviour in a given culture. Hofstede’s classic research involved asking employees of the multinational company IBM to fill in surveys about morale in the workplace. He then carried out a factor analysis on the questionnaires, focusing on the key differences submitted by employees in different countries. His research is an example of an etic approach and it looked at the 40 most represented countries in the surveys.

Hofstede argues that understanding cultural dimensions will help facilitate communication between cultures. It is important in international diplomacy as well as international business. For example, imagine that you have just been given the position of a manager in a company in Korea.  Korean culture has a very high power distance index - that is, there is a clearly established hierarchy of power within the society and this hierarchy is expected. Coming from a culture with a lower power distance, you make it clear in the first meeting that you like to make decisions by consensus and that you think it is very important that you are not making decisions for the entire company.  You may find that your employees fail to respect your leadership.  After all, as the boss, it is your job to make decisions which they need to respect.  If, on the other hand, you come from a high power distance culture and try to make decisions for employees from a low power distance culture, you may find that morale suffers as they feel that they were "never consulted" about these decisions.

This is just one example of why it is critical to understand other cultures you may be doing business with, whether you are on a vacation in a foreign country, or negotiating a multimillion-dollar business deal.

In individualist societies, the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family. In collectivist societies, from birth onwards people are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts, and grandparents), which provides them with support and protection. However, if an individual does not live up to the norms of the family or the larger social group, the result can sometimes be severe. Markus and Kitayama (1991) characterized the difference between US and Japanese culture by citing two of their proverbs: “In America, the squeaky wheel gets the grease; in Japan, the nail that stands out gets pounded down.” Markus and Kitayama argue that perceiving a boundary between the individual and the social environment is distinctly western in its cultural orientation, and that non-western cultures tend towards connectedness.

 Teacher only box

1. Is the fear of “losing face” exclusively an eastern trait? Does it ever appear in western culture?

Students often talk about the need to not lose face in Western culture.  However, in generating examples it is usually clear that the idea of "face" is linked to not being "wrong" and that this is a very individualist perspective.  Whereas collectivistic cultures experience "shame."  This article may be interesting for your discussion.

2. How could the need not to lose face affect an individual’s behaviour?

Interestingly, there are two common behaviours.  One is a rather aggressive stance, attempting to justify one's behaviour.  The other behaviour is social withdrawal - pulling away from the group in order to avoid judgment.

How does this dimension influence our behavior?  In the last chapter, we looked at how social identity can play a role in one’s level of conformity.  What about the role of individualism and collectivism?  Berry (1967) carried out a study on conformity based on the Asch paradigm with Temne from Sierra Leone, a collectivistic society based on farming, and Inuits from Baffin Bay, an individualistic society based on hunting, to see if the dimension plays a role on the level of conformity.

As you continue through the course, you will find several more examples of research that demonstrate how this dimension influences behavior.

One does have to be careful, however, with applying the idea of dimensions too casually. Hofstede warns against the ecological fallacy—that is, when one looks at two different cultures, it should not be assumed that two members from two different cultures must be different from one another, or that a single member of a culture will always demonstrate the dimensions which are the norm of that culture. These concepts simply give psychologists a way to generalize about cultures in order to better discuss the role that culture plays in behaviour. However, we have to be careful of stereotyping, recognizing that these expectations of the behaviour of a member of a different culture opens up the possibility of stereotype threat.

Hofstede (2001) has carried out extensive research since his original study. With scores obtained over a span of 30 years, he claims that the results have stayed consistent.  However, there are some things to keep in mind when evaluating the theory of cultural dimensions.  First, remember that Hofstede was studying work environments.  The attitudes of people toward the work environment may not transfer to all areas of their daily lives.  In addition, his research was done by factor analysis.  After receiving the questionnaires, the researcher and his team went through the responses and looked for correlations between attitudes and national identity. Researcher bias can play a significant role in which trends are seen as significant. There is a danger that researchers see what confirms their own biases.  However, Hofstede worked as a team and was able to establish a good level of reliability - that is, there was no significant difference in the findings among the different members of his team. Finally, the research is correlational in nature.  It is not possible to argue that culture causes these behaviours.  That being said, using dimensions is a good way to discuss cultural differences and to challenge us in our own ethnocentrism.