Sample 2

Cultural dimensions were ‘discovered’ by Hofstede in 1980. They are best described as the values and norms of a culture that guide behaviour.  Hofstede developed his theory by carrying out a content analysis of questionnaires given to employees from different nationalities of an international company. The questionnaires asked questions about relationships with others, attitudes toward authority, need for clarity and rules and attitudes about work and leisure time.  One cultural dimension he identified is “individualism vs collectivism” or I-C. It is debatable to what extent cultural dimensions may influence an individual's behaviour.

An individualistic culture focuses on individual achievement, independence and self-actualization.  Individualistic cultures emphasize one’s autonomy and right to express one’s personal opinion and feelings. These cultures also respect privacy. Collectivistic cultures focus on interdependence and social harmony.  In these cultures it is not appropriate to directly express one’s personal opinion or show emotion.  Privacy is less important that acceptance and conformity to one’s group.

One way that I-C influences behaviour is seen in Berry’s study of conformity. Berry tested Temne farmers, who were collectivistic, and Inuit hunters, who were individualistic.  Both groups were given a version of Asch’s line test. As in the original, they were shown a line and then asked to match it with one of the lines on a slide.  In this version, the participant was tested alone, but in some cases was told “Other Temne have said that line 4 is the best match.  What do you think?”  Is some cases, this was correct and in others it was not.  Berry found that the Temne (collectivistic) were more likely to conform to the wrong answer if they were told that other members of their group had also chosen that line.

This study is problematic in that the task is rather artificial. This could also be seen as a strength because the study is highly controlled and has high internal validity.  However, the task is also meaningless and choosing the wrong answer has no personal risk for the participant. This may not reflect what happens under natural conditions, so the study has low ecological validity. However, it could be argued that if they conform on such a meaningless task, this shows just how powerful the cultural dimension actually is.

Another way that I-C influences behaviour can be seen in Parker’s study of depression in white Australian and Chinese out-patients. Australians are a highly individualistic culture and Chinese are a collectivistic culture.  Both groups were asked to complete a survey to measure both their level of I-C and their symptoms of depression.  Each symptom was ranked for intensity.  The results showed that 60% of Chinese reported that their somatic symptoms were the reason for seeking help, where only 13% of Australians did.  Australians were more likely to have emotional symptoms. This makes sense as collectivistic cultures are less likely to express emotions to people outside their family than individualistic cultures.

Unlike Berry’s experiment, this study is naturalistic.  The patients are self-reporting on their symptoms and a correlation was drawn between the level of I-C and the symptoms.  Since Berry’s study is a quasi-experiment, both studies are not able to demonstrate a cause and effect relationship between the dimension and the behaviour, but trends can be identified.

It is important to remember that dimensions – in this case I-C - refer to a trend in behaviour within a culture or a group. An individual's behaviour may differ from the rest of the culture.  That is – a person from a collectivistic culture may be highly autonomous and someone from an individualistic culture may strive for social harmony.  Although dimensions have been used to help with international business and to explain acculturative stress, there is the danger of applying these cultural dimensions to all members of a culture, leading to stereotyping or the “ecological fallacy.”  Cultural dimensions leads to an “etic” approach to research in which we compare cultures, rather than an emic approach which simply tries to understand a single culture.  Dimensions are a good way to generalize about cultures, but not a good way to talk about individuals.

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