The psychology of culture | Fernando Lanzer | TEDxAUBG

hi so let's start this is actually all about standing in someone else's shoes I believe that if we can understand the values behind culture we can understand people better we can accept them for who they are for what they stand for where they're coming from and then we'll have more productivity we'll have less violence and we can leave in peace now when I say culture I mean the set of unwritten norms that guide people's behavior and gives them a sense of what is right and what is wrong what is appropriate and what is not today we can measure culture we use tools developed by Professor hurt Hofstadter that allow us to measure culture based on statistics and how people react to different situations what offs that I identified was that all communities basically have five dilemmas five the limits that they have to cope with one way or another these are hierarchy versus equality individualism versus collectivism performance orientation versus caring for others or quality of life uncertainty avoidance or not worrying about uncertainty and flexibility versus discipline now the research of Hofstede is not new but these the lemons they are still valid they have been with us for centuries and they continue to be valid today let's look at some of these dilemmas the guy in white is the Prime Minister of Thailand so how come he's sitting on the floor because the guy behind the desk is the king of Thailand Thailand is a very hierarchical culture it has what we call a big power distance in high power distance societies like Thailand it's very important to show the power distance among the different runs in the hierarchy even among the two most powerful people in that society now this guy over here is the prime minister of Sweden but he's standing in line to use the ATM like everyone else Sweden is a low power distance culture in a low power distance culture there is also hierarchy there is also power distance but it's much more subtle it's not so evident now this is the princess of Denmark and Denmark is also an egalitarian culture low power distance so how come she's getting the red-carpet treatment and people are throwing petals at her feet because she's not in Denmark she is visiting Thailand this is how people this is how people in Thailand treat royalty even if it's not their own royalty if it's somebody coming from abroad and maybe this is why the princess of Denmark enjoys visiting Thailand so much because she would never get this treatment in Denmark now this is very important because it is the people at the bottom of the social pyramid that determine whether the society is high power distance hierarchical or not it's not the dictator who determines the dictatorship it's the people at the bottom who accept a dictator or do not accept a dictator they are the ones who determine if a society is hierarchical or egalitarian and it all begins in childhood when we are less than ten years old that's when we all learn what is right and what is wrong what is appropriate and what is not appropriate in our community that's when we learn in which way of those dilemmas is our community going let me give you a couple of examples when I was a young kid in Brazil Brazil is a very hierarchical Society and I would come into the living room with my sister playing and my parents were entertaining guests and they would tell us go play outside we're having an adult conversation and of course we would go outside and we learned that in this world there are some people who have more power the adults and some people have less power the children but now I live in Holland when I go to my next-door neighbor and his kids come playing running into the living room he stops talking to me he includes the children in the conversation he treats the children as adults so his children learn that in this world people have more or less the same amount of power when we moved to the Netherlands years ago it was a knock on my door a guy identified himself as being from the mayor's office and he said we're going to refurbish the playground there's a playground down the street and we're going to refurbish it we're going to put in new toys but we want to make sure that the toys that we're going to put in are the toys that people prefer that the children prefer in this neighborhood so do you have children at home and I said yeah cool I do have I have two daughters they're very young they're four and five and they like the slide they like the seesaw and said no sir are they home I want to speak to them my jaw dropped to the floor rolled on the sidewalk this would never happen in Brazil he didn't want to speak to me he wanted to speak directly to my kids now that's a difference can you imagine how the Dutch children grow up learning that they are treated like people so individualism is the other dilemma between individualism and collectivism in individualism it is more important the individual is more important than the group and it's important to be independent and to express your own opinion even if you don't please other people while in collectivism the most important thing is to belong to a group remain loyal to that group as long as you are loyal to that group the group will take care of you and it's most important to maintain harmony in the group so you don't express dissenting opinions mind you in collectivistic societies there are many groups and these groups sometimes fight with each other but within the same group you try to maintain harmony the third dilemma is about performance versus caring in a performance-oriented culture it's important to achieve to perform and people who do that are rewarded by society in financial terms or in status terms this is where pay for performance comes from performance is more important while in caring cultures quality of life is more important it doesn't mean that people in caring cultures do not perform they also perform they also have to work but in these cultures work is a necessary evil you work so that you may enjoy life in performance oriented cultures work is your life work is the meaning of life the fourth dilemma is uncertainty avoidance or just letting it be there are some societies that have all kinds of mechanisms to avoid uncertainty some of these mechanisms are for instance planning organizing structuring things yeah checking if everything is okay if a society scores high on uncertainty avoidance another mechanism is also religion superstition because if you pray you will pass the exam it avoids uncertainty while in other societies there is less religion or less planning they don't worry so much about uncertainty avoidance they think okay let's worry about crossing the river when we get to the river it's no use worrying about that before we get there last but not least the fifth dilemma is between flexibility and discipline flexibility means that if you have a objective far away in the distance there are many different paths that you can take to reach your exam your objective so it's important to be flexible but one way or go the other according to the situation it all depends but when as society scores high sorry low on this the most important thing is discipline and the idea is you have one true path that you must follow all other paths are wrong so discipline is much more important and the law is applied in all situations exactly the same way there's no room for exceptions no room for exceptions while in high flexibility cultures there's a lot of exceptions because everything depends on each situation now let's look at Bulgaria the USA and Holland this is a study carried out in Bulgaria so you can see that Bulgaria scores high on power distance it's hierarchical it's more collectivistic than individualistic it scores somewhere in the middle in terms of performance orientation but uncertainty avoidance is very high we don't have a score for flexibility in Bulgaria it hasn't been it hasn't been researched maybe we can talk about it later yeah now let's compare with the states you can see that it's much more egalitarian less hierarchical than Bulgaria it's much more individualistic it's the most individualistic society on earth the highest score it scores higher also in performance orientation and it's lower in uncertainty avoidance and if you compare it to Holland just to have a different frame of reference you see that Holland is very similar to the states in terms of hierarchy individualism but it's much lower in terms of performance orientation and it's similar again in terms of uncertainty avoidance now if you look at the gaps between Bulgaria you can see that there's a big difference in terms of hierarchy big difference in terms of individualism and an interesting situation in terms of performance orientation because Bulgaria scores higher than Holland but less than the u.s. but what does this mean in real life things are not bar charts so there are combinations these these different dimensions they're always combined in a situation and we have some names for these different combinations for instance the Americans are part of what we call a contest culture the Dutch are part of what we call a Network culture and Bulgaria is what we call a pyramid culture what does this mean in practice what are the implications at work for instance suppose that you are applying for a job you've finished college you're applying for a job if you're doing that in a contest culture what is a good candidate in a contest culture good candidate is somebody who has a glowing CV it's somebody who in the interview is confident assertive and shows a can-do attitude but it's different in other cultures for instance in pyramid cultures it's important to have a more detailed resume you should show loyalty you need to ask or light questions to avoid confrontation and you interview you should indicate who you know because you might make some relationship links with people who are already in the company in contest cultures the task comes first what needs to be done and when this is what you need to do but in pyramid cultures relationship comes first how can you do business with people that you don't know first build a relationship then you can get down to business now which culture is best actually there is no best culture there is no right culture no wrong culture we always think that our culture is the right one and everybody else is wrong we always think that the culture that fits our own personal values that's good the culture that doesn't fit our own personal values that's bad but in practice nobody is right and nobody is wrong the problem that we have is that 65% of managing books in the whole world are published in the US the UK and Canada and these principles of management are taught by universities all over the world as being the way to manage which is fine when you do it in America because it's consistent with American values or in the UK or Canada but when you use it in other cultures you need to have some kind of adaptation or else it might not work it might backfire if it clashes with the values for instance in contests cultures you have direct communication people tell it like it is they speak it to your face but in pyramid cultures you have more indirect communication if you want to talk to somebody who is over here you don't go direct what you usually do is you talk to someone who can talk to someone else will talk to the person that you want the message to get to to avoid embarrassment to avoid confrontation meetings meetings are very different from one culture to another in a contest culture meetings are short and they're action-oriented you make decisions in meetings and you decide who is going to do what in pyramid cultures meetings are a platform for the boss the boss decides before the meeting consulting with one or two trusted advisors and at the meeting the boss announces the decision and then checks if everybody is still loyal so if you want to influence a decision in a pyramid culture talk to the boss before the meeting don't wait for the meeting feedback feedback is a very American concept you tell somebody how you feel about what that person has done you can give feedback to your boss your boss can give feedback to you it works very fine in a contest culture but in a pyramid culture it could be very different if your boss gives you feedback it's probably because he didn't like something you did you better watch out and you never give feedback to your boss because if he doesn't like the feedback you might get fired feedback is often interpreted as personal criticism so it's avoided why is all this important because it affects the way we look at problems we might be looking in the wrong direction unless unless we consider the values and culture so if we want to address for instance the matter of corruption it's a big problem in Brazil where I come from you have to realize that corruption is linked to power distance and flexibility the higher the power distance the more favorable the atmosphere for corruption the higher the flexibility the more tolerance for so if you want to reduce corruption you have to do something about the power distance and the flexibility otherwise you won't get very far or for instance nepotism if you want to change a culture where there is too much nepotism where people are always favoring their relatives or their friends you need to understand that this is typical of collectivism so you need to do something about the culture otherwise you won't be able to change nepotism what can you do then first you need to understand the culture then you can choose what do you want to change what do you want to keep but you need to understand the culture as a starting point and in the meantime realize that changing a culture is very difficult change requires re-educating adults about the values that they learned as children not easy to change it also requires that you change the way children are being educated if you want to reduce hierarchy you cannot continue to educate children in an authoritarian way because they will grow up to form a hierarchical society if you want to change that you need to change the way children are being educated what you can do personally in the meantime is realize your own bias what are your values how do your values affect the way you judge other people how can you learn about other people's values and judge them according to their values instead of your own and last but not least never lose your curiosity never lose your interest in learning about other cultures when you find something in another culture that is puzzling or annoying don't be furious be curious thank you very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 226,171

Keywords: TEDx

Id: rgdRzyCO5Zo

Length: 22min 23sec (1343 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2015