Culture: Six Cultural Dimensions

Differentiate monochronic and polychronic.

● High v. low power distance

○ Low-power distance: power is not highly concentrated in specific groups of people

■ All people are created equally

■ Marriage based on love

■ USA, Australia, New Zealand, Israel

○ High-power distance: power is distributed less evenly

■ Certain people or groups deserve to have more power than others ■ Marriage based on social class

■ Brazil, India, Singapore, Philippines

● Individualistic v. collectivist

○ Individualistic: emphasizes individuality and responsibility to oneself ○ Collectivist: places greater emphasis on loyalty to the family, workplace, or community than on the needs of the individual

● High v. low context

Define enculturation.

○ Low context: verbal communication is expected to be explicit and is often interpreted literally

■ Conflict is direct

■ USA, Canada, Israel, most northern European countries

○ High context: communication is often ambiguous and meaning is drawn from contextual cues, such as facial expressions and tone of voice

■ Value harmony and avoiding offending people

■ Korea and Native Americans

● Masculine v. feminine

○ Masculine: value traditionally masculine characteristics

■ Competition, achievement, acquisition of goods

■ Also value sex-specific roles for men and women

○ Feminine: value nurturance, quality of life, and services to others ■ Gender roles are not fixed, equality is valued

What are the countries that marriage is based on social class?

● Monochronic v. polychronic Don't forget about the age old question of Find the power that is absorbed or supplied by element 2?

○ Monochronic: see time as a commodity; something that can be spent, saved, wasted, etc.

■ Value punctuality

○ Polychronic: view time as more holistic, fluid, and less structured ■ Value quality of life and relationships

● Uncertainty avoidant v. accepting

○ Uncertainty avoidant cultures: people avoid situations that are unstructured, unclear, and unpredictable

■ Uncomfortable with difference and favor rules and laws that maximize security Don't forget about the age old question of What is the evidence used by alfred wegener to support the idea that present-day continents were once joined together into a single large continent?
We also discuss several other topics like What refers to the organism of a single species?
We also discuss several other topics like What refers to an object that orbits a planet?

■ Don’t take economic risks

○ Uncertainty accepting cultures: people are open to new situations and welcome people and ideas that are different

■ “Live and let live”

■ Take on a lot of debt

Culture​: the system of learned and shared symbols, language, values, traditions, and norms that distinguish one group of people from another

Enculturation​: the process of learning culture

● Culture is not always connected to our ethnicity or nationality

○ Ethnicity​: our perception of our ancestry or heritage

○ Nationality​: our status as a citizen of a particular country

● Co-culture​: groups of people who share values, customs, and norms related to mutual interests or characteristics besides their national citizenship We also discuss several other topics like What refers to the entire collection of genes in chromosomes in each cell?

○ Examples: LGBT community, political parties

● Cultural awareness and communication:

○ Similarity assumption: we presume that people think the same way that we think without asking ourselves if that’s true

○ Awareness is especially important in non-homogenous cultures (USA) ○ Standpoint theory: based on where we’re from, we are going to view things differently

● People distinguish between in-groups and out-groups

○ Purple Hand study: you could see a hand on a screen and a needle poking it 3 times, people felt more empathy toward the hand that was the same color as their own skin

● Ethnocentrism: the systematic preference for characteristics of one’s own culture ○ We tend to like people more if they are similar to us We also discuss several other topics like What were the basic ideas and who were the important people behind the early approaches known as gestalt, psychoanalysis, and behaviorism?

● Gender roles: set of behaviors expected of someone based on their sex ● Masculinity: the gender role expectations a society typically assigns to men ○ Ex. aggressive, competitive, leader, breadwinner, etc.

● Femininity: set of gender role expectations typically assigned to women ○ Ex. emotional, expressive, submissive, nurturing, etc.

● Androgyny: a combination of feminine and masculine traits

● Gender and nonverbal communication:

○ Emotional communication:

■ Women use more affiliative behaviors (behaviors that show affection) ■ Women express more positive emotions, sadness, and depression more than men do

■ Women have more affectionate behavior -> why?

● Girls receive more affection than boys as children

● It is a feminine behavior

● Different balances of hormones