Cultural Taxonomies and Key Scholars in Cross-Cultural Psychology

Overview of Cultural Taxonomies

• Focus on cultural comparisons among nations.
• Importance of values and beliefs over surface-level rituals.

Geert Hofstede's Contributions

• Background: Late 1970s – Dutch anthropologist Geert Hofstede established a method for comparing cultural dimensions.
• Study: Analyzed responses from over 100,000 IBM employees in 70+ countries.
• Findings: Despite similar employment background, values and beliefs greatly varied among employees.
• Cultural Dimensions: Reduced the differences to four key dimensions that represent cultural variance, akin to health measures for evaluating individual well-being:
• Power Distance Index (PDI): Degree to which less powerful members accept unequal power distribution.
• Individualism vs. Collectivism (IDV): Preference for a loosely-knit social framework versus a tightly-knit framework.
• Masculinity vs. Femininity (MAS): Preference in society for achievement and material rewards versus cooperation and caring.
• Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI): How societies cope with uncertainty and ambiguity.

Impact of Hofstede's Work

• Became a key figure in cross-cultural studies and management.
• His model remains highly cited but requires revision according to modern critiques.

Shalom Schwartz's Value Theory

• Focus: Values as fundamental guiding principles in individuals' lives.
• Definition of Values: What individuals deem important, e.g., education, family, religion.
• Cultural Differences: Investigated varying values across cultures, finding significant disparities between nations.

Schwartz’s Cultural Mapping

• Global Cultural Map: Highlights the division between western rich nations and Muslim/Southeast Asian cultures.
• West vs. East: Western Europe and English-speaking countries contrasted with Muslim-majority nations and East Asian cultures (e.g., Confucian societies like Japan, China).
• Location of Latin America and Central Europe: Positioned centrally on this cultural map, showing a blend of influences.