This is a pretty interesting result: one stranger giving away roughly half their money to another stranger when, theoretically, 10 or 20 percent would keep the second player from rejecting the offer. The sixth dimension is called indulgence vs. restraint.. Dubner speaks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, and various other underachievers. Singapore, for instance. . He has written several books about what music and other pop culture has to say about the broader culture. President Bush had framed these negotiations as going an extra mile for peace.. The answer to that is usually: no, you cant. The same experiment was done in other, non-WEIRD countries, like Ghana and Zimbabwe. And democratic. Im a professor of artificial sociality at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. When Americans did this experiment, a third of them conformed and gave an obviously wrong answer. Hofstede analyzed these data at what he called the ecological level. He explained this approach in a paper called Flowers, Bouquets, and Gardens the idea being that an individual flower is a subset of a mixed bouquet, which in turn is a subset of an entire garden, which has even more variation. Freakonomics is a registered service mark of Renbud Radio, LLC. Freakonomics has since grown up into a media company, complete with documentary, radio show, and blog. HOFSTEDE: Yes, especially by people from Anglo countries. For some Americans, at least, working hard is a badge of honor. Listen to this episode from Freakonomics Radio on Spotify. Theyre threatened by that interdependence, and they want to assert their cultural identities. 47 min. Like, you can buy them on the internet. Everything in economics can be viewed from the point of incentives. But everybody, of course, instinctively feels and should feel that their country, or whatever their tribe is, is the best in the world. 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). As an Amazon Associate, Freakonomics may earn commissions from qualifying purchases made through links on this site. Again, its worth repeating that no culture is a monolith. I do think that humanity as a whole is sort of evolving to being more reflective. playlist_add. I must be American. Whereas we usually describe a scent by saying something that it smells like.. People who went out to California, I would say if we gave them the tight-loose mindset quiz, they were probably on the looser mindset. 1, the most individualistic country in the world, 91 out of 100 on the Hofstede scale of individualism. If youre a constrained sort of person, you wont go far in the U.S. Stephen DUBNER: Im curious whether youve ever been accused of political incorrectness in your study of national cultures. HOFSTEDE: That could be the case, and it is also the case that you have a sort of non-overt multiculturalism in the society. Our staff also includesAlison Craiglow,Greg Rippin,Joel Meyer,Tricia Bobeda,Mary Diduch, Zack Lapinski,Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger,andJacob Clemente. You look at parents and how they treat their kids art. GELFAND: In the U.S., various newspapers covered the story. It is what we got fed with our mothers milk and the porridge that our dad gave us. "Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work, wheareas economics represents how it actually does work.". NEAL: We think about improvisation in the context, obviously, of creative and musical terms, but its also a way of always having to adapt to the changing political, social, and cultural realities. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is the debut non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner.Published on April 12, 2005, by William Morrow, the book has been described as melding pop culture with economics. Its all the levels in the organization. Henrich is saying that the export of American ideas isnt necessarily easier. Freakonomics (2005) aplica el anlisis econmico racional a situaciones cotidianas, desde las citas en lnea hasta la compra de una casa. Its waiting to happen because people in this individualistic, indulgent society, they want to be merry. The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, show that increasing socioeconomic development is an especially strong predictor of increasing individualistic practices and values . IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. But that makes sense. Theres some D.N.A. GELFAND: In societies that are tighter, people are willing to call out rule violators. This is part of the history that made the U.S. a hotbed for individualism and it also changed the character of the places these people left. GADSBY: Have you ever noticed how Americans are not stupid? Yes, other phenomena like how things smell to us. Theres a good side of every dimension, including uncertainty avoidance. At the core of Freakonomics is the concept of incentives. The term individualism itself, and its equivalents in other languages, dateslike socialism and other ismsfrom the 19th century. Because $1 is more than zero, so the second player would still be better off. Always check that your browser shows a closed lock icon and . After all, they were the data set. You know, the thing that rap artists were talking about 25 years ago, Im on my grind. Its rooted in this ethos of always working, always pushing forward, always being on the top of your game. Joe Henrich points out that even our religions are competitive. HENRICH: Theres something called the Asch conformity test, where you have confederates of the experimenter give the same wrong answer to an objective problem. Its like, Oh, my gosh, that is so amazing. I was feeling like I have to tell that to my kids as a good parent, training my kids to be vertical and individualistic. It was a collaboration between Hofstede the Elder, his son Gert Jan, whod begun working with him by now, and a Bulgarian linguist named Michael Minkov, who had been analyzing data from the World Values Survey. In the latest issue of American Scientist, statisticians Kaiser Fung and Andrew Gelman wrote a strong critique of Levitt and Dubner's work. NEAL: You have no real other example of a country that has brought together so many different national and ethnic and racial backgrounds. Very soon, there will be an Institute of Gladwell Studies. Mark Anthony NEAL: We hear these terms, like Americas melting pot or folks who talked about salad bowls, to describe what America is. Public school quality B. GELFAND: Exactly. To become American and to be American is to be individual. Well call it The U.S. Is Very Different from Other Countries So Lets Stop Pretending Its Not. Its the first in a series of episodes where well look at different pieces of that difference. In case you missed it, thats Western. GELFAND: The next day, I booked a trip to Egypt. Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn't) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything. He started out as an anthropologist; but he started mixing and matching disciplines to suit his curiosity. Its the tiny differences in sociality. GELFAND: The U.S. tends to not just be individualistic, like Hofstede or others have shown, but very vertical, very competitive in its individualism. She grew up in Tasmania. HOFSTEDE: In the U.S.A., there is little constraining. Educated. Stay up-to-date on all our shows. Okay, you get the gist, right? But if you look 100 years ago and you look at the cultural map of the world, you can read writers from different countries, you will see that there is astonishing continuity. the Machiguenga were much closer to the predictions of Homo economicus, The Relationship Between Cultural TightnessLooseness and COVID-19 Cases and Deaths: A Global Analysis, States of Emergency: The Most Disaster-Prone States in the US, A Global Analysis of Cultural Tightness in Non-Industrial Societies, Have You Tried to Help Your Pet Lose Weight? If someone acts in an inappropriate way, will others strongly disapprove in this country? Heres another: Are there very clear expectations for how people should act in most situations? In 2018, Gelfand published a book of these findings called Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World. The best thing you can become is yourself. We look at how these traits affect our daily lives and why we couldnt change them even if we wanted to. And that happens a lot. We had a very tight social order. I think Joe Biden, for instance, hes trying to play the card of, Were all Americans. But the Chinese, even rich, will be a lot more collectivistic and a lot more long-term-oriented than the Americans. According to Chapter 5 of Freakonomics, there is a black-white test score gap and that gap is larger when you compare black and white students from the same school. I mean, youve got your quota, as have we all, but youre not. And theres large differences around the world, for example, on how much cultures are exposed to chronic threat. The New Yorker's Malcolm . Fundamentally, individualism is a belief that the individual is an end in themself. So looking decisive, muscular, active or if youre a woman, sexy that makes you more status-worthy. GELFAND: I also teach negotiation. Meaning, if you grew up in someplace like the U.S., when you look at an image youre more likely to pay attention to whats in the foreground, in the center. I get these words out so I can get on to the next thing. So then he really knew this is not an artifact of this particular company this is real. NEAL: Thereve been a lot of conversations about what it means to be on a grind. HOFSTEDE: And his special methodological trick was not to do what is now called a pan-cultural analysis across all the respondents, but first to lump them into groups. 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. According to a decades-long research project, the U.S. is not only the most individualistic country on earth; were also high on indulgence, short-term thinking, and masculinity (but low on uncertainty avoidance, if that makes you feel better). He wrote a paper about it. You can even see the evidence in the clocks that appear on city streets. There, its really important to maintain that humility, to be focused on your privacy, but not trying to one-up other people. HENRICH: But if you want to talk about humans, then you have a problem. Gert Jan Hofstede - Freakonomics. Good on you, I say. I had been led to believe, by you, that you are as dumb as bricks. The first one measures the level of individualism in a given culture, versus collectivism. GELFAND: Well, we can look back to Herodotus. So, again, if you want to talk about Americans, youre okay. You might think that these relatively minor differences dont add up to much. Thats John Oliver. The notion of the American Dream has long been that prosperity is just sitting out there, waiting for anyone to grab itas long as youre willing to work hard enough. Long Island, New York, is thebirthplace of the American suburb. Groups that tend to have threat tend to develop stricter rules to coordinate. The second one measures what's called "power distance." (Don't worry, we'll explain the name . Everybody gets tickled until they laugh. DUBNER: Im curious for advice on how we should balance weve become an economic powerhouse, and we recognize that there is a lot of benefit to that. He interviewed people at I.B.M. But it can make life harder for the millions of Americans who arent so entrepreneurial, or rugged, or individualistic. I asked Michele Gelfand to talk about why a given country is loose or tight. According to the individualist, all values are human-centred, the individual is of supreme importance, and all individuals are morally equal. NEWSCASTER: Wearing masks is a way of life now in Singapore. Today, an overview of the cultural differences. As we heard, the first four dimensions originated with the I.B.M. Well find out what it means to be WEIRD although not weird in the way youre thinking. NEAL: So its always evolving, its always developing, but theres some core principles. . The U.S. is just different from other places in a variety of ways that we often dont stop to think about. HENRICH: So places like New York and London, people are blazing down the sidewalks. There is some overlap between these six dimensions and some of the ideas we talked about in last weeks episode particularly the notion that some national cultures tend to be tight and others loose. 6 Pages. It was: And your culture, your American culture, is very different. At this point, we should probably define terms. DUBNER: You sound very grateful that you were not born an American. Henrich has also observed this about Americans. Freakonomics Radiois produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. FREAKONOMICS is the highly anticipated film version of the phenomenally bestselling book about incentives-based thinking by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.. How much should we attribute that success to these very same factors that create chaos on other dimensions? Joe HENRICH: Culture is information stored in peoples heads that got there via some kind of learning process, usually social learning. HOFSTEDE: My name is Gert Jan Hofstede. So its not necessarily the case that my country is better. Individualism is thought to be on the rise in Western countries, but new research suggests that increasing individualism may actually be a global phenomenon. Based on the given excerpt above from Freakonomics, the claim that is supported by the evidence in this excerpt is that, The close relationship between sumo wrestlers could be an incentive for an elite wrestler to throw a match he doesn't need to win. This is really a conversation that pleases me a lot. And if there are crumbs in the sheets, theyll get in your pajamas. DUBNER: When youre inclined to look at the U.S. in a positive light, do you find uncertainty avoidance to be largely a force for the good in terms of creating and building a strong society, or do you think its more ? Individualism once . When something is not easily measured, it often gets talked about in mushy or ideological terms. Our theme song is Mr. Michele Gelfand is one of the premier practitioners of cross-cultural psychology. And thats different than in Scandinavia and in New Zealand and Australia, which has much more horizontal individualism. Which is probably why we dont hear all that much about the science of culture. But if youre not an economist, if youre a regular human being, you can see why the second player might reject a $1 offer. HOFSTEDE: He decided to take a job there. I do think that that particular story is idiosyncratic to his experience. Loose cultures tend to be found in English-speaking countries as well as Latin-American, Latin-European, and formerly Communist cultures. John OLIVER: When was that moment that America became the most American America it could possibly be? And we found the full spectrum of variation. Needless to say, it's had a lot of success. The book takes the form of six chapters. The best thing you can become is yourself. This paper examines the production of race on the Internet by examining the elements that make up the weblog Freakonomics: the topic, the environment, the medium, and the users. Let's now consider the following statistic, which represents the hundreds of matches in which a 7-7 wrestler faced an 8-6 wrestler on a tournament's final day: 7-7 WRESTLER'S PREDICTED WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8-6 OPPONENT: 48.77-7 WRESTLER'S ACTUAL WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8-6 OPPONENT: 79.6So the 7-7 wrestler, based on . A third of them conformed and gave an obviously wrong answer other example of a country that has brought so., at least, working hard is a way of life now in Singapore first in variety. Wrong answer he decided to take a job there Latin-American, Latin-European and. It & # x27 ; s Malcolm means to be individual, will be a lot an... Im a professor of artificial sociality at Wageningen University in the way youre thinking think joe,! 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