freakonomics individualism

This episode was produced by Brent Katz. Very soon, there will be an Institute of Gladwell Studies. She argues that both styles have their upsides and their downsides. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. The fourth original dimension was called uncertainty avoidance. This has to do with how comfortable people are with ambiguity. HOFSTEDE: And it immediately yielded a four-dimensional model. So, Japan has been hit by Mother Nature for centuries. Freakonomics Radiois produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. Michele Gelfand wasnt interested in that. Self-centered so if you give them tasks and have them list traits about themselves, theyll tend to list their attributes and characteristics rather than their relationships. So, what is it? We also realize that were a culture in distress in many, many, many ways. And it was like, This stuff is really lousy. HENRICH: My favorite explanation for this I think this has been put out most clearly by a sociologist named Rodney Stark is that with freedom of religion, you get competition amongst religious organizations. Individualism has had a tremendous impact, not only on culture, but on social theory as well, and political philosophy in particular. So the general rules of a loose or tight culture may not be consistently applied to all populations. So, organizations you can think about them as the people, the practices, and the leaders. Models couldnt capture the civil rights movement the individual genius that could emerge in any particular historical moment, whether its Ella Baker or Martin Luther King, and the idea that you have these individual moments of brilliance that then come together to create this just historically unique moment. The downsides: less innovation, less openness to ideas that challenge the status quo, and less tolerance for differences in religion and race. He started out as an anthropologist; but he started mixing and matching disciplines to suit his curiosity. You can see this on many dimensions: how we work and travel; how we mate and marry; how we care for our children and our elderly; how we police; how we conceive the relationship between the individual and the state; even how we manage death! Latin countries tend to be more collectivistic, especially Spain and Portugal not so much Italy and France. So, yes, the same attributes that can be a big problem can also be a big boost. What was I.B.M. All rights reserved. The comedians John Oliver, Hannah Gadsby, and Kumail Nanjiani all grew up outside the U.S. Sometimes incentives will be obvious, but often they will be hidden - and . GELFAND: I was planning to become a cross-cultural trainer to work at the State Department and train people to understand culture. It may help if youre not originally from here. So its hard to simply transplant another countrys model for education or healthcare, no matter how well it might seem to fit. SFU users should ignore all messages requesting Computing ID and/or password information, no matter how authentic they may appear. The authors seek to find simple answers to complicated world problems. Let me give a little background. The focus of that episode was American culture. HOFSTEDE: In the U.S.A., there is little constraining. I get these words out so I can get on to the next thing. They can freely float about. 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. One thing that I think that Americans are more extreme than other Western countries and certainly elsewhere in the world is attributing individual success to the internal traits of the actor. Thanks to Gert Jan Hofstede for his insights today, as well as Michele Gelfand, Mark Anthony Neal, and Joe Henrich. Hofstede gives an example of how this plays out in a work setting, when employees are meeting with their bosses. And this led to this project where we did in lots of places hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, Africa, Papua New Guinea. Mark Anthony Neal of Duke is not surprised that the U.S. scores relatively high on the masculinity scale. In a society of small power distance, a lot. And not attending enough to contextual factorsopportunities that presented themselves, being in the right place at the right time. Is that a yes? DUBNER: What problem was he, and later you, trying to solve by doing this work? And he tried all kinds of categories and groups. So, they would offer a mean of about 25, 26 percent. HENRICH: So, Francisco is a good pal of mine and hes also a very charming fellow. Around this time, he started doing some teaching at the Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. GELFAND: The next day, I booked a trip to Egypt. We will leave you with a patriotic tribute from one last transplanted U.S. comedian. Its called long-term versus short-term orientation. "Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent--all depending on who wields it and how.". And how are we defining culture? Culture is about, if you are a part of a society, youre like one drop in the Mississippi River. NEWSCASTER: Wearing masks is a way of life now in Singapore. They determine the boundary conditions before which we become angry or flattered or whatever. Stay up-to-date on all our shows. Because if you try something new, you show to the people around you that you are an individual and you can make your own decisions. FREAKONOMICS is the highly anticipated film version of the phenomenally bestselling book about incentives-based thinking by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.. If you read the passage above and use a typical 6% agent/broker commission schedule, 3% seller and 3% buyer agent/broker, then the home owner/seller takes a $10K hit on the value of the total sale price where the agents/brokers only take a $600 hit. And I shifted from pre-med into what turned into a career of cross-cultural psychology. It shouldnt surprise anyone that individualism might contribute to inequality or at least, as Henrich puts it, the justification of inequality. GELFAND: Clinton went to negotiate to say, Hey, this is just totally inappropriate, this punishment. And the Singaporean governments reaction was, Look, this is our culture. GELFAND: The U.S. tends to not just be individualistic, like Hofstede or others have shown, but very vertical, very competitive in its individualism. It was freedom from all these debilitating things because the state would be able to provide for you. A dream team of directors e. Michael Fay wasnt a tourist; he was living in Singapore with his family, attending an American school. This episode was produced byBrent Katz. We may not be the very loosest culture; but we are No. That, again, is the American culture scholar Joe Henrich. This feeds back into what Michele Gelfand was talking about earlier, in the context of geopolitical negotiations. HOFSTEDE: Okay, no, I was just being naughty. Like, the military should be tighter than tech. 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. It was back in grad school that Michele Gelfand first asked herself this question. So the U.S. produces the sort of Wal-Mart equivalent of religions: big churches giving the people what they want, high pageantry. GELFAND: I was watching this negotiation between Tariq Aziz and James Baker. 469). Thats Joe Henrich, a professor of evolutionary biology. In our . Freakonomics Revised and Expanded Edition. The sixth dimension is called indulgence vs. restraint.. And so you walk faster because you cant get everything you need done in your day and youre always trying to get to the next event. And well see if the pandemic may have just maybe relaxed the American habit of work, work, work. So the scientific discipline of psychology is dominated by Americans. Theyll say, The Scandinavians have great childcare and family-leave policies. Or theyll say, China has built more high-speed rail in the past few years than the U.S. has even thought about. So, naturally, the next question is: cant the U.S. just borrow these Scandinavian and Chinese and German ideas and slap them on top of the American way of doing things? Youre going to be shut down. Thats Joe Henrich, a professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard; hes also a scholar of psychology, economics, and anthropology. (but low on "uncertainty avoidance," if that makes you feel better) And this paper was basically sitting in the shelves of libraries for many years. We look at how these traits affect . We presume male public voice. As a result, the needs of individuals dictate social behaviors, rather than the needs of larger groups. But if you want to talk about humans, Homo sapiens, then you have a generalization problem. Loose cultures tend to be found in English-speaking countries as well as Latin-American, Latin-European, and formerly Communist cultures. These are stereotypical names. He considered a rate between 80 and 90 percent . Gelfand wanted to learn where theyd get the most help. Im a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. Bush made clear to Iraqs Saddam Hussein that this wouldnt stand. HENRICH: Bigger cities are associated with faster walking, but individualism over and above that predicts faster walking. She likes to eat human food. During the Cold War. He grew up in England. This suggests that every time a social scientist runs an experiment whose research subjects are WEIRD thats capital-letter WEIRD the results of that experiment may be meaningful in the U.S. and some other places, but quite likely not in others. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is . Now, keep in mind this was London, English-speaking London not Uzbekistan or Botswana, even Mexico. GELFAND: Were fiercely interdisciplinary. The U.S. also has a small power distance 40 on a scale of 100, which puts it among the lowest in the world. I had been led to believe, by you, that you are as dumb as bricks. Fascinated by the human in the system, he did a PhD in organizational behaviour. 1, the most individualistic country in the world, 91 out of 100 on the Hofstede scale of individualism. He veers tighter. For instance: According to the 6-D Model of National Culture that weve been talking about, the U.S. is the most individualistic nation on earth. Freakonomics Radiois produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. And yes, well talk about what makes America, America at least as seen through the eyes of Kumail Nanjiani, who was born in Pakistan. But maybe thats part of living in a loose culture too: We ascribe agency even to our pets. Nevertheless, you might be able to intentionally create pockets of looseness so you can have more balance. DUBNER: I find that people who dont load dishwashers carefully are usually pretty loose with the planning. Individualism places great value on self-reliance, on . This leads to less obesity, less addiction, and theres less crime in tighter cultures. Freakonomics Radio . In the U.S., it was freedom to do whatever the hell that you wanted to. This isn't to say we never make a mistake in Freakonomics Radio, but we do catch most of them before you hear the show. Heres how he puts it in his latest book: You cant separate culture from psychology or psychology from biology, because culture physically rewires our brains and thereby shapes how we think. One example he gives is literacy. We promise no spam. It also is related to obesity. They can freely float about. Later on, fast forward, Pertti Pelto, whos an anthropologist. And that really can help explain some variation not all, but some variation in norms and values. How much should we attribute that success to these very same factors that create chaos on other dimensions? DUBNER: So does all the data come from workplace interviews essentially of white-collar and pink-collar workers, or does it go broader than that? What is culture? Offers went up as high as 55 or 60 percent in some places and then down around 25 percent in other places. Henrich has written about the notion of time psychology.. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. Thats what the Ultimatum experiments set out to find. Neal is making a couple of compelling points here. But the big C in my mind is very different than the little c.. The next dimension is what the Hofstedes call uncertainty avoidance.. HENRICH: We have a kind of religiosity equivalent to somewhere like Kuwait. The lawyer and journalist Dahlia Lithwick once argued that every living human can be classified according to one simple metric: Every one of us is either a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet. Essentially: loose, or tight. The best thing you can become is yourself. Although it is more self-help than traditional economics it shares many of the weaknesses of more serious works in the discipline. DUBNER: And what would you say is maybe a political ramification of low power distance? Theres a huge variation in how much spontaneity people like versus how much structure they want. GELFAND: And there was discussion in the cross-cultural psychology community about how James Bakers unemotionalcommunication style was received as This is not so serious, in terms of Tariq Azizs understanding of Americans intentions. NEAL: Were a country that presumes male leadership. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. So the picture that emerges from these findings is that Americans are less likely to conform in the name of social harmony; and we also treasure being consistent, expressing our true selves, regardless of the context. GELFAND: If youre in contexts where theres a lot of rules, you develop from a very early age that impulse control. employees spread across the globe. Culture can be quite an offensive concept, particularly to people who project it onto an individual characteristic, as if it was about an individual. And life is an adventure. So how much would you offer? Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. I asked Hofstede what he would advise if a given country did want to change its culture? And by the way, in that sense, the U.S.A. is also a huge laboratory of society formation, hopefully, which is by no means finished. That is not just the most American thing thats ever happened. HOFSTEDE: High individualism is correlated with trying new stuff. So rules for the sake of having rules are not good. Investing, for instance: GELFAND: Theres some research coming from the University of Georgia that found that buying and selling of stocks was more synchronized in tighter cultures as compared to looser cultures. 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). Can that possibly be trueour culture shapes our genetics? In indulgent societies, more people play sports, while in restrained societies, sports are more something you watch. DUBNER: That implies to me that 100 years from now, all these countries will all have the same characteristics. Macroeconomics, on the other hand, works on a larger scale. The answer to that is usually: no, you cant. 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. If you just look at Americans, its 70 percent American. You're stuck in a metal tube with hundreds of strangers (and strange smells), defying gravity and racing through the sky. By late 2009, the book had sold over 4 million copies worldwide. For the last few months, the city-state has seen just a handful of Covid-19 cases. You have to behave like a family member if you want to be one. Freakonomics (2005) aplica el anlisis econmico racional a situaciones cotidianas, desde las citas en lnea hasta la compra de una casa. So then he really knew this is not an artifact of this particular company this is real. Insight, for the authors (economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner) is all about explaining behaviour in terms of the incentives and dis-incentives (rewards and penalties) that drive it. The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. HENRICH: You want to be the same self, regardless of who youre talking to or what context youre in. The term individualism itself, and its equivalents in other languages, dateslike socialism and other ismsfrom the 19th century. The reason we reached out to Michele Gelfand is that I want to understand this stuff better, too. Factor analysis being a way to distill a large number of variables into an index, essentially a ranking. 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New York Times bestselling freakonomics changed the way we see the world handful Covid-19.
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