HOFSTEDE: Its rather futile to advise somebody what their national culture should be because theres no way you can change it. Well, because theyre really smart. The country that ranks highest in long-term orientation is Japan; also high on this scale are China and Russia. 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. So rules for the sake of having rules are not good. Let me give a little background. As for the U.S., Gelfand says the U.S. is not only loose but getting progressively looser. HOFSTEDE: This is not about a homogenous soup, but its about the power of the millions versus the individual and the power of ostracism. GELFAND: The U.S. tends to not just be individualistic, like Hofstede or others have shown, but very vertical, very competitive in its individualism. You could argue that treating your own children as if theyre special may make it harder to care as much about other peoples children. The book takes the form of six chapters. GELFAND: We analyzed shifts in tightness over 200 years. We owe much of our freedom to that influence. So then he really knew this is not an artifact of this particular company this is real. . By late 2009, the book had sold over 4 million copies worldwide. DUBNER: I find that people who dont load dishwashers carefully are usually pretty loose with the planning. I dont want to be a doom thinker. And I could see there, a little bit similarly to the U.S., how the various ethnicities are trying to live together. His late father was a social psychologist who devised a system to rank countries on several dimensions including their level of individualism versus collectivism. Theres a huge variation in how much spontaneity people like versus how much structure they want. GELFAND: They were trained to ask for help in city streets and in stores. And we can see a strong trend that looseness has increased over the last 200 years. The legendary bestseller that made millions look at the world in a radically different way returns in a new edition, now including an exclusive discussion between the authors and bestselling professor of psychology Angela Duckworth. And thats different than in Scandinavia and in New Zealand and Australia, which has much more horizontal individualism. 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. In the end, he resorted to making small plywood boxes with a slot cut into . Most sociologists agree that individualistic cultures value individual choice, personal freedom, and self-actualization (Kemmelmeier 2002). We often look to other countries for smart policies on education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc. Based on the bestselling book of the same name, FREAKONOMICS attempts to break down dense economic theories and data into digestible bits. A child is a child, and a parent is a parent, and a parent decides for the child. Those should be the new words to your national anthem. The term individualism itself, and its equivalents in other languages, dateslike socialism and other ismsfrom the 19th century. The U.S. patent database goes back into the 18th century and what a number of studies in economics as well as work in my lab has shown is that openness to other people so, trust in strangers, an inclination towards individualism, a desire to stand out, to be the smartest guy in the room fosters more rapid innovation because people are more likely to exchange ideas, theyre more interested in distinguishing themselves. And that really can help explain some variation not all, but some variation in norms and values. HENRICH: But if you want to talk about humans, then you have a problem. HOFSTEDE: In the U.S.A., the boss needs to be a team player. Individualistic countries tend to be richer, but as Hofstede the Elder once put it, The order of logic is not that individualism comes first. Joe Henrichs research into national psychologies led him to an even more fascinating conclusion. FREAKONOMICS is the highly anticipated film version of the phenomenally bestselling book about incentives-based thinking by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.. But if youre not an economist, if youre a regular human being, you can see why the second player might reject a $1 offer. HENRICH: Two players divide a sum of money. He takes on questions like: Why do kids with summer birthdays get the flu more often? HOFSTEDE: My name is Gert Jan Hofstede. Twenty states rewarded individual schools for good test scores or dramatic improvement; thirty-two states sanctioned the schools that didn't do well. And some advice from our new Dutch friend. Im like, Were going to go to Singapore if you people dont behave.. HOFSTEDE: He did social psychological work on what it is to be a manager. Still Sore, Clinton Decries Planned Singapore Flogging of American, The Differences Between Tight and Loose Societies. It's part of our founding D.N.A. Categories like age, gender, job type, job seniority, and so on. HOFSTEDE: Which doesnt mean egoism, but it could go that way. 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. In the latest issue of American Scientist, statisticians Kaiser Fung and Andrew Gelman wrote a strong critique of Levitt and Dubner's work. DUBNER: Are you the creator of the looseness-tightness system for looking at culture? OLIVER: When was that moment when America became the most American America it could possibly be? HENRICH: So Americans tend to be more work-obsessed than other people. The two players dont know each other. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more.. Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet.With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and . You might think that these relatively minor differences dont add up to much. The best thing you can become is yourself. It also is related to obesity. Henrichs next example is more behavioral than physiological. the benefits to an individual from study and engagement in a topic. As an Amazon Associate, Freakonomics may earn commissions from qualifying purchases made through links on this site. And then in a third condition they were wearing just their face. In each chapter, the authors analyze a different social issue from an economic perspective. Mobility also produces looseness, because its harder to agree upon any norm. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism (Ep. You have to pronounce it right. HOFSTEDE: I like this question a lot. GELFAND: Weve had our share of threat, but just not chronic threat. HENRICH: This cashes out in an ability to make better abstract or absolute judgment. She says these are merely visible indicators of a countrys tightness or looseness and its what you dont necessarily see that shapes a given countrys culture. He veers tighter. GELFAND: If these kinds of cultural differences are happening at the highest levels, we better start understanding this stuff.. He would spend the rest of his life building out the 6-Dimension Model of National Culture. At school in the Netherlands, Ive seen a mother ask her two-year-old, Shall I change your nappy? And then the child gets to decide whether its nappy gets changed. HENRICH: My favorite explanation for this I think this has been put out most clearly by a sociologist named Rodney Stark is that with freedom of religion, you get competition amongst religious organizations. Freakonomics is a collaboration of authors Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, journalists and winners of numerous awards. In the beginning, Feldman left behind an open basket for the cash, but too often the money vanished. Better Essays. The U.S. is a pretty successful country, maybe the most successful country on many dimensions in the history of the world. And in a restrained society, theres going to be suicide. But thats only the first study. 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. Feb 15, 2023. But it can make life harder for the millions of Americans who arent so entrepreneurial, or rugged, or individualistic. For some Americans, at least, working hard is a badge of honor. In a future episode, well look at why the U.S., for all its wealth, has such a high rate of child poverty, and whats being done to address that. So if you base your understanding of a given culture on a body of research that fails to include them, youll likely fail to understand how that culture thinks whether were talking about another country or a group within your own country. This is where he combines all his academic interests: not just economics and psychology, but also anthropology and evolutionary biology. Heres Mark Anthony Neal of Duke: NEAL: Historically, power has been obscure. One thing that I think that Americans are more extreme than other Western countries and certainly elsewhere in the world is attributing individual success to the internal traits of the actor. And other cultures are more loose. Between 1967 and 1973, he collected data on I.B.M. you ask. Henrich says yes. But its not only compliance. All contents Freakonomics. And what does he have to say about American culture? When youre trying to understand the nature of something, an outside view can be extremely helpful. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism (Replay) 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). Im a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. Educated. My uncles like, Hey, I have something to show you. My first day in America, he showed me the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade. So that can be very beneficial. It may help if youre not originally from here. So why did someone succeed? (That will also need some explaining.) DUBNER: And what would you say is maybe a political ramification of low power distance? GELFAND: Clinton went to negotiate to say, Hey, this is just totally inappropriate, this punishment. And the Singaporean governments reaction was, Look, this is our culture. And they were finding that people in Africa were not falling victim to this illusion. We should be nice to one another. But when push comes to shove, most of the time it doesnt go that way. Okay, it took half of this episode to go through just the first of the six dimensions of national culture individualism versus collectivism. 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. And I think that is a hallmark of African-American culture in this country. For instance: According to the 6-D Model of National Culture that weve been talking about, the U.S. is the most individualistic nation on earth. And thats going to cultivate certain tonal abilities, which could feed into certain kinds of music, and things like that. During the Cold War. If youre an economist, you might think that offering even $1 out of the 100 would be enough. HENRICH: We have a kind of religiosity equivalent to somewhere like Kuwait. HOFSTEDE: Oh, no, thats something for academia. And then he decided to go to academia. on one axis and religiosity on the other axis, the U.S. is a clear and distinct outlier with high G.D.P and high religion. For instance, the rhythm of vaccination in the U.S.A. is very fast. Steven D. Levitt, the self-described "Rogue Economist" of the title, uses this tool to analyze a random assortment of . Although the concept of an individual may seem straightforward, there are many ways of understanding it, both in theory and in practice. A. Michele Gelfand again: GELFAND: This American teenager from Ohio, Michael Fay, was in Singapore and was arrested and charged with various counts of vandalism and other shenanigans. GELFAND: All cultures have social norms, these unwritten rules that guide our behavior on a daily basis. Which is probably why we dont hear all that much about the science of culture. Then you can have something very good happening. In a multitude of ways, large and small. This would never happen in a society of large power distance. This leads to less obesity, less addiction, and theres less crime in tighter cultures. So I would be very interested in knowing whether theres any data on the ethnic component of homicide and suicide. You can followFreakonomics RadioonApple Podcasts,Spotify,Stitcher, orwherever you get your podcasts. And that happens a lot. to let him focus even more on this data. And heres one of the people who created the WEIRD designation. But the big C in my mind is very different than the little c.. They can freely float about. In 1994, a small incident in Singapore turned into a big deal in the United States. In the Germanic world, we have systems, which means that nothing stands alone. The second player is given a choice between accepting or rejecting. Relatedly: Americans place a high value on being consistent across different situations. 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. DUBNER: Can you give me a good example of an idea or a theory that I might come across in a Psych 101 textbook that would just be so American that it wouldnt really be useful if you actually care about humans? HOFSTEDE: If I had been born in America, I would have liked it, probably, because I would have been used to it. The first is that a model of anything even nearly as complex as a national culture is bound to miss a lot of nuance. Its also the cleaning lady. So he read about factor analysis, which had become a little bit fashionable at the time. 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. One of the areas of cultural study that first hooked her had to do with optical illusions. Level of inequality C. Family composition D . Insight, for the authors (economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen J. 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