Its focus on individual behaviour also lends itself to a preoccupation with manipulating individual choices. So rules for the sake of having rules are not good. Culture is not genetics or biology or individual characteristics. Culturally maybe more than anything! This is really a conversation that pleases me a lot. This leads to less obesity, less addiction, and theres less crime in tighter cultures. Why arent all national cultures converging by now? You had Woodstock, and youre going to have this kind of stuff happening again. Or if it will change at all. And its not because they themselves dont have collective experiences, particularly within ethnicity, but part of the price of becoming American is to give up the collectivity of your ethnic background. Latin countries tend to be more collectivistic, especially Spain and Portugal not so much Italy and France. The U.S. also has a small power distance 40 on a scale of 100, which puts it among the lowest in the world. The sixth dimension is called indulgence vs. restraint.. DUBNER: When I look at the loosest country in the data, I see Ukraine. DUBNER: Are you the creator of the looseness-tightness system for looking at culture? The ancient Romans. GELFAND: And I thought, If these kinds of cultural differences are happening at the highest levels, we better start understanding this stuff.. U.S. President George H.W. 470 Replay) Freakonomics Radio Documentary 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 . Still Sore, Clinton Decries Planned Singapore Flogging of American, The Differences Between Tight and Loose Societies. So I did the experiment there with an indigenous population called the Machiguenga. The examples include: school teachers and sumo wrestlers cheating, the Ku Klux . The U.S. comes in on the indulgent side, at 68. HOFSTEDE: Its rather futile to advise somebody what their national culture should be because theres no way you can change it. . The concept of incentives is a way of explaining why human beings do things. We look at how these traits affect . I dont like to itch, Bert. This carries over into many areas of society, including the labor market. The authors argue that humans usually make decisions based on the incentives for their actions. That is generated by looseness. I came back to Colgate. And not attending enough to contextual factorsopportunities that presented themselves, being in the right place at the right time. Whereas uncertainty avoidance means you have lots of etiquette and ritual. We put in a bunch of other checks and controls. 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: I was watching this negotiation between Tariq Aziz and James Baker. Good on you. Thats my idea. In a large power-distant society, you have autocracy. Theyre not supposed to be the boss. DUBNER: What does an institution like the Navy see as the upsides of more looseness? GELFAND: Places in the South have tended to have more natural disasters. The book takes the form of six chapters. 470. At the core of Freakonomics is the concept of incentives. GELFAND: Having more adaptability, more innovation. employees in more than 50 countries. In a society of small power distance, a lot. . NEAL: I often think about how the U.S. has historically thought about freedom and how, say, the Soviet bloc had talked about freedom. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism (Ep. This feeds back into what Michele Gelfand was talking about earlier, in the context of geopolitical negotiations. Follow. GELFAND: This has always been the big question, that with the internet and globalization were going to become more similar. Its part of our founding D.N.A. GELFAND: In Germany and in Japan, the clocks are really synchronized. Singapore, for instance. This really contrasts with lots of places where there are legitimate traditional authorities and people tend to defer to those authorities. And its another dimension on which the U.S. is a substantial outlier. 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. Weve interviewed dozens of academic researchers about lowering healthcare costs or improving access to childcare or building smarter infrastructure or creating a more equitable economy. Tightness may create compliance; but looseness can drive innovation and creativity. playlist_add. Tightness and compliance would seem to go hand-in-hand. 493 Update) Adam Smith famously argued that specialization is the key to prosperity. Although it is more self-help than traditional economics it shares many of the weaknesses of more serious works in the discipline. Ultimatum Game Bargaining Among the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon, U.S. Student Tells of Pain Of His Caning In Singapore, Singapores Relations With U.S. The Neglected 95%: Why American Psychology Needs to Become Less American, Measuring Inequity Aversion in a Heterogeneous Population Using Experimental Decisions and Subjective Probabilities, Westerners and Easterners See the World Differently, Economic Man in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies, Ultimatum Game with Ethnicity Manipulation: Problems Faced Doing Field Economic Experiments and Their Solutions, Does Culture Matter in Economic Behavior? Historically, politically, and yes culturally. 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. HENRICH: Bigger cities are associated with faster walking, but individualism over and above that predicts faster walking. We may not be the very loosest culture; but we are No. GELFAND: My own sweet Portuguese water dog, Pepper, I mean, that dog is just gigantic. Feb 15, 2023. If youre violating the social order, youre going to be punished.. We met him earlier, but just briefly; heres a proper introduction. DUBNER: So between not having been historically a terrible recipient of viruses and also by dint of having an ocean on either side of us, etc., and being a really big and really rich country, it sounds like the U.S. must have one of the lowest inherent threat levels. That was our hypothesis, at least. 1, the most individualistic country in the world, 91 out of 100 on the Hofstede scale of individualism. He takes on questions like: Why do kids with summer birthdays get the flu more often? HOFSTEDE: In an individualistic society, a person is like an atom in a gas. HOFSTEDE: There was a Quaker at the head of I.B.M. GELFAND: The next day, I booked a trip to Egypt. Those are the upsides. According to the Pew Research Center, 80 percent of Americans claim to believe in God, 55 percent pray at least daily, and 36 percent attend a religious service at least once a week. HOFSTEDE: For the U.S.A., the world is like a market. I mean, youve got your quota, as have we all, but youre not. You might think that these relatively minor differences dont add up to much. One of the defining features of Americanism is our so-called "rugged individualism." You might even call it wild individualism. And in this moment, we realized that the grind is unsustainable, right? We look at how these traits affect our daily lives and why we couldnt change them even if we wanted to. 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. Freakonomics Summary. But Joe Henrich wanted to see how the Ultimatum experiments worked when it wasnt just a bunch of WEIRD college students. Someone raised in an Eastern culture might focus more on the image as a whole and less on the central object. Individualism once . HOFSTEDE: Yes. The authors seek to find simple answers to complicated world problems. Were trying to buy time, save time. Each and every person has individual reasons for pursuing a career, or goal. Henrich is saying that the export of American ideas isnt necessarily easier. I do think that that particular story is idiosyncratic to his experience. Neal sees a strong connection between U.S. masculinity and our appetite for work. Those are the things you cant necessarily plan and account for in building models of how you expect people to react in different situations. A. We visit the world's busiest airport to see . So I have no doubt that his subjects really liked him. Around this time, he started doing some teaching at the Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. So, again, if you want to talk about Americans, youre okay. Very soon, there will be an Institute of Gladwell Studies. Essentially, theyre the opposite of the loose attributes: tight cultures have more coordination and more self-control. And you speak fast because I dont want to waste a lot of time talking. The two players dont know each other. Or more human-made threats, like how many times has your nation been invaded over the last 100 years? Freakonomics is a book about 'freaky' research and insight. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. But its important to acknowledge that no culture is a monolith. HENRICH: If you go to other societies, people are much more willing to give the same wrong answer to go along with others. The same experiment was done in other, non-WEIRD countries, like Ghana and Zimbabwe. As advertised!. This is where he combines all his academic interests: not just economics and psychology, but also anthropology and evolutionary biology. We just need to do it. The future could be bright. Most white Americans have an entirely different ancestral history. We should be nice to one another. But when push comes to shove, most of the time it doesnt go that way. NEAL: Were a country that presumes male leadership. But the Chinese, even rich, will be a lot more collectivistic and a lot more long-term-oriented than the Americans. We will leave you with a patriotic tribute from one last transplanted U.S. comedian. Do you know what you are? In the U.S., it was freedom to do whatever the hell that you wanted to. 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. IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. You can never admit weakness or failure. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. They make sure that there is no violation of any ritual. Freakonomics is a collaboration of authors Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, journalists and winners of numerous awards. 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). HOFSTEDE: And when he took the job in Lausanne, he found that the international group of pupils at his classes, if he asked them the same questions, came up with the same dimensions. It suggests that as in most things in life balance is desirable. All contents Freakonomics. So, organizations you can think about them as the people, the practices, and the leaders. Whether this means something brings you financial, emotional, or even community benefit. In Brazil and Greece, youre not entirely sure what time it is. All contents Freakonomics. Sometimes incentives will be obvious, but often they will be hidden - and . And we see that the combination of high individualism, high masculinity, and high short-termism can produce some chaos, at the very least. Controlling for a variety of other factors, they found that looser countries the U.S., Brazil, Italy, and Spain have had roughly five times the number of Covid cases and nearly nine times as many deaths as tighter countries. Individualism places great value on self-reliance, on . Well, because theyre really smart. More information on phishing. We presume male public voice. Every action or every fact or every move has a system around it. 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. 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. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism (Ep. So, what is it? Okay, you get the gist, right? So he left I.B.M. The term individualism itself, and its equivalents in other languages, dateslike socialism and other ismsfrom the 19th century. Later on, fast forward, Pertti Pelto, whos an anthropologist. You realize, you want a black or white value judgment. And yes, well talk about what makes America, America at least as seen through the eyes of Kumail Nanjiani, who was born in Pakistan. Some of the countries with high power distance: Russia, China, and Mexico. 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