Additional Random Thoughts

And more research...

Last week I shared with you my nagging concern related to income or wealth inequality. Today, given we are all human, I often wonder about the cultural differences I observe when traveling. And thus, I happened upon the Hofstede Insights.

Hofstede Insights

Hofstede Insights is a consulting firm dedicated to helping its clients work within different cultures and to market to different countries. While the CIA, at least as far as I can tell, is not a customer they do have an impressive list of U.S. and European quasi-governmental agencies (European Aviation Safety Authority, U.S. Marine Corp., etc). They also work with companies that are household brands like Nike, Proctor & Gamble, Siemens, and Volvo. So while I have no personal experience with the company, the research I have done suggests their techniques and academic rigor are well respected.

Country Comparisons

You can spend some time on their website, plugging in countries to compare on their six-dimensional model. I have compared Portugal and the U.S. as shown in the graphic above. You will want to spend some time reading the descriptions of each dimension, as I found some of the titles misleading. But for the purpose of today’s post, I want to look at two which show a significant difference between the U.S. and Portugal: Individualism and Uncertaintainty Avoidance.

Individualism

The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. It has to do with whether people´s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “We”. In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after themselves and their direct family only. In Collectivist societies people belong to ‘in groups’ that take care of them in exchange for loyalty.— Hofstede Insights

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the difference in score here. In fact, in my poking around I couldn’t find another country with as high a score on individualism as the U.S. Perhaps this explains why some believe that what the vast majority of Americans consider reasonable gun control laws somehow limits “their rights”. Or as Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Again from the Hofstede website: “The [American] society is loosely-knit in which the expectation is that people look after themselves and their immediate families only and should not rely (too much) on authorities for support.”

It is also no surprise, that most of the European countries are more “collectivist”. That loyalty and commitment to family and extended family are the norms. Thus we have socialism at its best.

Uncertainty Avoidance

The dimension Uncertainty Avoidance has to do with the way that a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: should we try to control the future or just let it happen? This ambiguity brings with it anxiety and different cultures have learnt to deal with this anxiety in different ways.  The extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these is reflected in the score on Uncertainty Avoidance. — Hofstede Insights

According to Hofstede, no other dimension defines Portugal as much as this one. It would suggest that the Portuguese people have a preference for avoiding uncertainty and maintain rigid beliefs and rules. When I spoke to Portuguese people about the adherence by 90%+ of the population to mask and curfew rules…they said that such behavior came naturally to them. I guess this is true. At the same time, the Portuguese Constitution is a very progressive document. So I don’t think we should equate rigid rules with intolerance.

Explore

If, like me, you find this topic thought-provoking spend some time on the website. It might give you insights into your home country or perhaps to the one you should next move to.