In the past decades there
have been several large-scale studies of culture that compared nations, or
regions, across the world. Here is how to access some of them.
- Geert
Hofstede's study. For serious research:
Culture's Consequences 2nd ed 2001, from Sage publications, with all
the references and all the statistics. Quite helpful to researchers and
worth searching for in libraries or buying. A site with some of the
key figures but not always
accurate text is maintained by ITIM
culture consultancy.
- Robert House's
GLOBE study of
leadership. Main book to date: House
et al (2004, eds) Culture, Leadership, and Organizations, the GLOBE
study of 62 Societies. GLOBE worked with a priori
postulated dimensions of culture that carry names similar to those found
by Hofstede but do not carry the same meaning. Interpretation is still
ongoing. See www.jibs.net for the latest
news in the debate.
- Ronald Inglehart's
World Values Study.
This study has the merit of being longitudinal
and data are easily obtained. 1990 and 2000 findings are collected in the
edited volume by Inglehart et al (2001?) Human Beliefs and Values
from Siglo XXI Editores, México (ISBN 968-23-2502-1). The best read about
these data, as far as I am concerned, is Michael Minkov's book What
makes us different and similar (2007; to buy outside of Bulgaria:
sales@klasikastil.com).
Minkov extracts three dimensions: Exclusionism vs Unversalism (similar
to individualism / collectivism), Indulgence vs Restraint (about
acceptance of our basic drives), and Monumentalism vs Flexumility (about
self-image). The two latter dimensions are particularly thrilling.
Perhaps they
reallocate the ground covered by Hofstede's dimensions, in particular uncertainty avoidance and
short-term / long term orientation. These new dimensions have a lot of
real-world phenomena that correlate with them. There will be more to
come from Minkov.
Some other sources are particularly valuable for
researchers who wish to acquire some scope in their thinking before plunging
into the deep:
-
David Sloan Wilson
(2007) Evolution for everyone. New York: Bantam Dell. Shows that
we are just as much part of the great scheme of things as any other
species, and that like bees, we are crossing what Sloan Wilson calls the
'cooperation divide'. Being morally good always means serving the group,
in any society, and being morally bad means being self-interested. This
is the general trend, but it is not without fallbacks. Conditions
determine how people will behave. Well, anyway, just read this book!
- Peter J. Richerson & Robert Boyd (2005) Not
by genes alone: how culture transformed human evolution. Chicago:
the University of Chicago Press. In the same vein as David Wilson but
these authors have specifically developed a theory about how in the last
million years, our capacity for learning from unrelated others has risen
dramatically and with it our capacity for acquiring culture. Since then,
culture has been co-evolving with genetic evolution, with very rapid
adaptation and with some dramatic maladaptations as a result.
- Robert McCrae and Paul Costa (2003)
Personality in Adulthood, A Five-Factor Theory Perspective. These
authors show how our personalities remain constant throughout our lives,
despite changes in experience and in self-image.
- Peter Smith, Michael Bond and Çiğdem
Kağitçıbaşı(2006, 1993)
Understanding Social Psychology across Cultures. 2nd ed Sage. Almost all psychological facts that we tend to take
for granted are in fact culture-bound.
Web resources with population data across countries
include:
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