Category Archives: cultural variables

Free Scandinavian Love

Posted on by

For many Scandinavians, love is a free relationship between independent individuals. Their national cultural ideas and policies of freedom, independence, and equality in interpersonal relations encourage their culture of love. The free Scandinavian love in the countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland is in accord with the egalitarian cultural values of their societies.

The High Value of Love in Scandinavian Cultures Having a wonderful, long-term relationship or becoming a parent is important. Many Scandinavians believe that love and relationships nowadays are stronger than ever in their countries. For example, Danish sociologist Birthe Linddal Hansen, a researcher at the Copenhagen Institute of Future Studies, said that

“True love is still very popular as an ideal, and people are getting married more now than they did years ago.”

Scandinavians do not shy away from the words “I love you.” The Danish “jeg elsker dig,” the Norwegian “jeg elsker deg,” and the Swedish “jag älskar dig,” pronounced something like “yah-g el-scar d-eh” are still widely used by people in those countries. In Finnish, it sounds like “minä rakastan sinua,” or in the shortened “mä rakastan sua,” in the spoken language. Yet, men and women used these love words sparingly due to their reserved Scandinavian character. When it comes to expressing their feelings, they do so in a reserved manner. In their interpersonal relationships, they are typically less emotionally expressive than people in some other, more expressive cultures, like those in Mediterranean and Latin American societies. The Nordic people of Scandinavia tend to be less lively in their facial and body expressions. They smile and laugh in moderation.

The Swedish Example of Free Love

The Swedish book “Är svensken människa” and its English publication, The Swedish Theory of Love (Berggren & Trägårdh, 2022), present some basic cultural ideas and prototypes of Scandinavian free love. Swedish cultural policies and legislation, on the one hand, emphasize individual autonomy and, on the other hand, trust in the state. Swedish philosophy, cultural studies, and sociology focus on some basic logic and rational principles that the welfare state follows. This is the social idea that people in interpersonal relationships should be independent. Cohesive dependency and subordination cause individual inauthenticity and predicaments for true love. Swedish modern cultural values promote equality and autonomy as preconditions for sincere and authentic affection and love.

To Love or to Marry?

It appears that contemporary Scandinavians are delaying their marriage. Men and women tend to marry later in their 30s, when their education, careers, and relationships are established. Many couples choose to live together without getting married. People in the Scandinavian countries feel free to certify or not certify their marriages. “Open unions” have long been an acceptable practice in Scandinavian societies. De facto unions between spouses are common and even mainstream in today’s society. When it comes to property and inheritance, both couples have rights and duties. Government policies in Scandinavian nations actively encourage equality between the sexes in all areas of relationships.

In Scandinavian countries, legal marriage is seen as a major life milestone. However, these formal events are secondary in importance to having a loving partner, a long-term relationship or becoming a happy parent.

For many men and women, official marriage is rather a symbolic expression of love and commitment to remain together forever or for a long time. These old ideals of stability, love, and commitment, however, haven’t gone out of style, even in progressive and liberal Scandinavian societies.

Scandinavian Weddings

Couples may officially certify their marriage later and even have a wedding. Eventually, some of these couples decide to wed, primarily to celebrate their union with a wedding ceremony and a great party. For instance, in Norwegian folklore and tradition we find wedding formulae that seem to be ancient, i.e.,

“He weds you to honor and to be the lady of the house, to half the bed and to locks and keys … under one blanket and one sheet.“

Perhaps these words go far back in time.

Wedding traditions in Scandinavia are always evolving, with the changes being influenced by customs from other regions of the world. Nowadays, Norwegian weddings, for instance, have many things in common with those of other European countries. A typical bride will wear a long white dress, and her groom will wear a black tuxedo. The same fashion is in Sweden today. Bridal couples wear what we would consider traditional wedding attire: a white dress and tuxedos. Some may return to past Swedish customs, such as wearing the bridal crown. Nevertheless, traditional wedding practices are gradually waning in the modern cultural evolution of Scandinavian societies.

How Does Cultural Power Distance Affect Societies?

Posted on by

People’s social relationships are hierarchically structured in many regards. Individuals’ power and status, for example, are distributed unequally in many societies. And the degree of this social inequality varies in different cultures. Power distance is a measure of how important a society considers social ranks and the hierarchies of power in relationships and interactions between people (Karandashev, 2021a).

A Dutch social psychologist, Geert Hofstede, proposed the cultural parameter of “power distance” to explain how societal cultural norms expect and accept that social status, power, and “vertical” interactions are dispensed unequally (Hofstede, 2001; 2011).

As a cultural variable, power distance assesses how much people recognize and accept that social distance and power are distributed unequally between people of low and high status. In other words, it is the rate of inequality versus equality that people of status and power have in a society.

What Are the Cultures with High Power Distances?

High power distance cultures are present in societies in which the differences in power of “superiors” and “subordinates” seem to be natural and reflect an “existential inequality” (Hofstede, 1980/1984).

In societies with high power-distance cultures, less powerful people accept inequality and expect that power within a society is dispersed between individuals disproportionately. The people of authority, such as rulers, elders, parents, and heads of families, are higher in a relational hierarchy. Subordinate people, such as commoners, youngsters, and children, are lower in a relational hierarchy. These authorities and subordinates are relationally and emotionally distant from each other.

Submissive attitudes and respect of lower-status people towards higher-status people are expected and suggested.

The instances of such high power-distance societies are the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, India, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil (Hofstede, 1980/1984).

What Are the Cultures with Low Power Distances?

Low power distance cultures are present in societies in which people are considered equal in their social status and power in social relations. Cultural norms in societies with a low power distance culture expect equality in relationships and power, and an egalitarian style of communication.

The instances of low power-distance countries are Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Israel, Ireland, and New Zealand (Hofstede, 2001; 2011; Würtz, 2005).

The culture of the United States of America is evaluated as lower than the median in power distance. Despite the official declarations of and inspirations for democracy and equality in the US, the social reality of relationships in American society is still far from these egalitarian ideals. Social inequality is widespread. The racial and cultural diversities of American society make it dependent on social context (Andersen, Hecht, Hoobler, & Smallwood, 2003).

Cultural and Individual in Cross-cultural Comparisons

Posted on by

Many countries around the world have a diverse population in terms of races, ethnicities, religions, languages, and historical and cultural backgrounds of the people living in their territories. So, researchers widely investigate cross-cultural comparisons.

Even though people in many countries speak a common language, many others are multilingual. Among those are Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Serbia, Moldova, Zimbabwe, India, and Singapore.

Even though people in many countries share a common history, cultural heritage, and ethnicity, many others are multiethnic. Throughout history, various cultural factors have compelled them to remain together on common lands. Among those are Bolivia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Canada, and the United States of America.

Do National Cultures Exist?

Cross-cultural comparisons show that despite the heterogeneity in languages, ethnicities, and other cultural characteristics, many nations share a common cultural background. Their sub-cultural variations, which compose their diversity, let them have some common national attributes and live peacefully together for centuries.

Cross-cultural comparisons have demonstrated that on such cultural parameters as Power Distance, Individualism-Collectivism, Masculinity vs. Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Long-Term Orientation versus Short-Term Orientation, various in-country regions of 28 countries in the Anglo world, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast and East Asia clustered homogeneously along the national lines of 28 countries. The cases when those regions intermixed between borders were relatively uncommon.

Even in Mexico and Guatemala, or Malaysia and Indonesia, in which each pair of countries has common ethnic groups, religions, and official languages, the cultural divisions were along their national borders. Even the parts of African countries that are close to each other, like Ghana, Mali, and Burkina Faso, do not mix in clusters of cultural parameters (Minkov & Hofstede, 2012).

Individual Variations Within Cultures and Cross-cultural Comparisons

While people living in countries have common national cultures and maintain the diversity of subcultures, they still substantially vary in terms of social classes and individual and typological personality traits (Karandashev, 2021). These differences can expand beyond their national and cultural resemblances.

So, what do cross-cultural comparisons of country-averages of various individual variables, such as perceptions, emotions, attitudes, traits, and beliefs, tell us about national cultural differences? I believe they tell us many things, yet we shall take them with reservations, counting on possible limitations. The average scores of individual variables at the country level can mask and even conceal the individual variety of people within a country.

Many cross-cultural studies tend to average the variables they collect from cultural samples in several countries and compare their statistical means. This way, they presumably compare cultural similarities and differences between countries. Do they? But what if a within-country variation is higher than a between-country variation?

Methodological Pitfalls of Cross-cultural Comparisons

According to some experts, individual variation in some attributes within a country can be significant, while certain categories of people between nations can be similar to each other (Minkov & Hofstede, 2012).

Research has demonstrated that within-country variations in studies often exceed between-country variations (Karandashev, 2021).

A meta-analysis of multiple cross-cultural studies comparing love emotions and love attitudes across countries, for example, revealed that cross-cultural differences are frequently minimal (if any), statistically significant in many cases, but practically too small to be meaningful and scientifically worthwhile (Karandashev, 2019).

So, a question arises: how informative for cross-cultural analysis is a comparison of the statistical means of individual variables between countries? Sometimes, these statistical measures can be mindless (Gigerenzer, 2004; 2018). The aggregation of individual variables for a country’s sample of participants should be done with care. It is important to avoid a methodological fallacy, which I call “the average body temperature of the patients in a hospital.” It appears that not all statistics in cross-cultural research are meaningful.

For example, such aggregation showed that participants from an American sample had a high average score on the personality trait of extraversion. Thus, the USA seems like an extraverted culture, despite the subcultural and individual variety of the American people. Many of them have introverted personalities.

Therefore, what is cultural and what is individual should not be confused in research. Extraversion and introversion are personality traits, not cultural ones. When we say things like “extraverted” Americans or “hot” Italians, we should keep in mind that these are metaphorical cultural stereotypes rather than literal implications.

Corrections for the statistical artefacts related to methods can be valuable for obtaining valid results in cross-cultural studies and avoiding cultural bias. A meta-analysis of 190 studies of emotions conducted from 1967 to 2000 showed that

“a correction for statistical artefacts and method-related factors reduced the observed cross-cultural effect sizes considerably.”

(Van Hemert, Poortinga, van de Vijver, 2007, p. 913)

Country-level and Individual-level Cross-cultural Comparisons

Some scholars advocate the use of multilevel analysis in cross-cultural studies. Such multilevel methodology requires researchers to examine cultural variables at both the individual and national levels as distinct but interacting variables (Fischer, & Poortinga, 2018; Smith, Fischer, Vignoles, & Bond, 2013; Van de Vijver, van Hemert, & Poortinga, 2008).

For example, it is inadequate to assume that all participants from the United States are individualistic because they live in an individualist country. Similarly, it is not adequate to think that all individuals from East Asian countries are “collectivistic” (Fischer & Poortinga, 2018). Their individualistic and collectivistic values and attitudes on an individual level can vary.

For example, such multilevel cross-cultural analysis can describe cultural factors with corresponding sets of variables (Karandashev, 2021):

  • at the country level, these can be power distance, individualism of society, relational mobility, or context differentiation.
  • at the individual level, these can be personality traits, intensity, prevalent emotional valence, expressivity, or idiocentrism (psychological variable of individualism).

Thus, it is important to differentiate between cultural and individual variables. We shall recognize what is cultural and what is individual in a culture and treat them separately in research, even though we shall acknowledge that culture affects individual differences among people. American culture can certainly determine the prevalence of extraverted or introverted personalities in a society by their selective promotion or another way.

What Are the National Cultures?

Posted on by

The article comprehensively reviews the concept of national cultures and its validity for cross-cultural research.

The concept of national culture is widespread in cultural and cross-cultural research. It is believed that the residents of certain countries or people of certain nationalities share certain values, beliefs, customs, norms, and patterns of behavior. In this respect, scholars are used to speaking about, for example, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Moroccan, German, Austrian, American, Canadian, Japanese, or Chinese cultures.

What are those similarities and shared characteristics? These are frequently the language, ethnicity, religion, historical, and cultural traditions of people residing in certain territories. Such an understanding of national cultures appears quite simple and straight out of common sense. However, …  

Do people in national cultures speak their common languages?

What about language? People in such countries as India, South Africa, Switzerland, Canada, and the Netherlands are multilingual and do not share their language as a cultural commonality. Can we then speak about Indian, South African, Swiss, Canadian, and Dutch national cultures?

Do people in national cultures share their common ethnicities?

What about ethnicity and cultural heritage? Many countries, such as the United States, India, Indonesia, Singapore, and Nigeria, are multiethnic and have emerged due to the conversion of various historical and cultural influences. Can they be considered American, Indian, Indonesian, Singaporean, or Nigerian national cultures?

People in national cultures can be diverse in many ways

Thus, one can see that national cultures can be less homogeneous in terms of languages, ethnicities, cultural history, and other cultural characteristics than researchers expect. Their (sub)cultural variations may expand beyond presumably common national characteristics.

Besides, when people live in countries and likely share national cultures, they can have substantial individual and typological differences that may stretch beyond national similarities.

Do national cultures exist?

In the social sciences, researchers tend to believe that people of such national cultures share certain cultural values, attitudes, personalities, identities, emotional experiences, expressions, and patterns of behavior. These are common assumptions of traditional cross-cultural studies that expect such within-country homogeneities. Extensive cross-cultural research has demonstrated the validity of this assumption. An abundance of findings showed that cultural samples of people from national states have many similar characteristics that are different from the characteristics of people in other cultural samples from other countries (Karandashev, 2019, 2021).

Validity of cross-national comparisons

National cultures exist, and people in those countries share many things. A comprehensive cross-cultural analysis of the data from the World Values Survey demonstrated that the global division of values across national cultures is valid. Researchers found that:

299 in-country regions from 28 countries in East and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Anglo world overwhelmingly cluster along national lines on basic cultural values, cross-border intermixtures being relatively rare. This is true even of countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, or Mexico and Guatemala, despite their shared official languages, religions, ethnic groups, historical experiences, and various traditions. Even the regions of neighboring African nations, such as Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Mali, do not intermix much when they are clustered on the basis of cultural values.

(Minkov & Hofstede, 2012, p.133)

Thus, we can see that the country-average data and results are worthwhile for cross-cultural research. Three other studies, which examined cultural differences between different states of Brazil, supported the notion that national cultures are meaningful units for cross-cultural research. The studies utilized the Hofstede cross-national dimensions and revealed that the Brazilian national culture is common on those parameters across Brazil’s states. It turns out that those cultural dimensions are the same in every state of Brazil, but they are very different from other countries in Latin America as well as other countries around the world.

Thus, one can see that the country-average data and results are worthwhile for cross-cultural research. Three other studies, which examined cultural differences between different states of Brazil, supported the notion that national cultures are meaningful units for cross-cultural research. The studies utilized the Hofstede cross-national dimensions and revealed that the Brazilian national culture is common on those parameters across Brazil’s states. It turns out that those cultural dimensions are the same in every state of Brazil, but they are very different from other countries in Latin America as well as other countries around the world (Hofstede et al., 2010).

Therefore, these findings show that the cultural borders between countries are valid in Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. These findings support the validity of cross-national comparisons.

Limitations of cross-national cultural comparisons

The validity of these findings, however, can have limitations, which social scientists should keep in mind to avoid the pitfalls of generalization. Averaging the data collected from selected samples of people of given nationalities can lead to somewhat misleading conclusions. The simple statistical means of variables collected in cultural samples can hide substantial individual and typological variations. variations within countries (Karandashev, 2021).

Scholars of culture and the general public can also be interested in a large collection of publications titled “What is National Culture,” presented by IGI Global Publishing House.

The Cultures Beyond the Global Western and Eastern Societies

Posted on by

For a very long time, scholars interested in cultures and their comparison have focused on Western and Eastern societies as distinctively different types of cultures. Such a cultural dichotomy was simple and easy to understand and explain in terms of philosophical, social, and psychological phenomena of culture.

The Categories of Western and Eastern Cultures

The concepts of West and East were quite vague and mainly exemplified with Western European and Northern American countries as typical instances of Western cultures and India, China, and Japan as typical examples of Eastern cultures.

The discovery of individualism and collectivism (Hofstede, 1980/1984), as the cultural characteristics that are different in those societies, became a widespread explanatory framework that overshadowed multiple other cultural differences between those countries.

Individualistic Western and Collectivistic Eastern Cultures

Individualistic Western societies are those located in North America and Western Europe, while collectivistic Eastern societies are those located in India, China, and Japan. All other countries in the world presumably fit into one of these global groups.

See more on Western versus Eastern cultures and on Western individualistic cultures and Eastern collectivistic cultures in other blog articles.

Further studies, however, indicate that several other cultural concepts can be useful in explaining social and psychological differences between countries. Several cross-cultural studies have also demonstrated the diversity of both Western and Eastern societies that extends far beyond the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, China, India, and Japan (Schwartz, 2014; Schwartz & Ros, 1995).

Researchers also found that many other countries and cultures don’t fit into either the Eastern or Western groups. They are more distinctive than the simple East-West dichotomy (Karandashev, 2021).

See more on the 5 differences between Western and Eastern cultures and on the Diversity of Western and Eastern cultures in other blog articles.

The time has come to look at the diverse societies of the world beyond the global West and East. Researchers revealed the complex, multifaceted, and multilayered natures of individualism and collectivism. They uncovered and identified the diversity of social and cultural factors beyond collectivism and individualism. Besides, societies and their cultural dimensions change, evolve, and transform over time (see review in Karandashev, 2021).

All these factors require an open-minded and flexible approach to modern cultural and cross-cultural studies.

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede identified and explored six cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2011). These are

  • Individualism-Collectivism,
  • Power Distance,
  • Masculinity vs. Femininity,
  • Uncertainty Avoidance,
  • Long-Term Orientation vs. Short-Term Orientation,
  • Indulgence vs. Restraint.

Extensive cross-cultural studies have demonstrated the explanatory power of these dimensions that extends beyond individualism-collectivism and the West-East divide (see Karandashev, 2021).

Trompenaars’ Cultural Values

Another Dutch cross-cultural researcher, Alfonsus Trompenaars, proposed two country-level groups of values:

(1) egalitarian commitment versus conservatism,

(2) utilitarian involvement versus loyal involvement.

The author and his colleagues extensively investigated these values across many societies (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1998; see for review, Karandashev, 2021).

Schwartz Cultural Value Orientations

Social psychologist Shalom Schwartz created the theories of personal and cultural value orientations and extensively explored them across many countries in the world. Cultural values that characterize societies are in focus here.

His theory included seven country-level types of values. The author organizes these cultural values into three dimensions:

  • embeddedness versus autonomy,
  • hierarchy versus egalitarianism,
  • mastery versus harmony

The author depicts these seven cultural value orientations in a quasi-circumplex structure (Schwartz, 2014; see for review, Karandashev, 2021).

The Diversity of World Cultures

In recent years, researchers have delved deeper into the global cultural variation of societies beyond the traditional East-West cross-cultural dichotomy. The extensive exploration of various cultural factors and dimensions, which I noted above, allowed researchers to construct a more diverse cultural classification of world societies.

For example, cross-cultural studies found significant variations within West and East societies in terms of six of Schwartz’s cultural value orientations (Schwartz, 2014; Schwartz & Ros, 1995).

The data collected across many countries revealed eight global transnational cultural regions of the world that are distinctively different in terms of their cultural value orientations. These are

(1) English-speaking,

(2) West European,

(3) East Central and Baltic European,

(4) Orthodox East European,

(5) Latin American,

(6) South Asia,

(7) Confucian influenced, and

(8) African and Middle Eastern.

Typical patterns of cultural values describe these eight transnational regions of the world. Researchers noted, however, that these eight types of cultures do not exactly fit into defined regions.

Many studies have shown that these cultural dimensions determine people’s experiences and expressions of emotions and cultural models of love. They bring cross-cultural research beyond widely accepted individualism and collectivism (Karandashev, 2021, 2022).

Low-context and High-context Communication Styles

Posted on by

Our interpersonal communication involves both

  • content—an informative message that we want to say to another person, and
  • context—why and how we say the message to another person.

The context in which we say something can be more important than the content that we want to deliver. People can be receptive to our message in one context but not in another. Sometimes, context can tell people more than the content of messages.

Here I’ll talk about low-context and high-context styles of communication.

What Is Low-context Versus High-context Communication?

One of the major differences that many cross-cultural studies have highlighted is the importance, sensitivity, and dependency of people in different societies on the context of verbal and nonverbal communication. A question of interest is whether the content or context of a message is more important for people in their communication.

What is More Important, the Content or the Context of the Message?

On the one hand, in the low-context-dependent style of communication, people believe that the content of a message is more important than its context. Therefore, they prefer to be clear, open, and explicit in their messages. They leave little room for implicit assumptions. They say everything that they want to say, leaving little in the way of hidden or unspoken contextual messages.

On the other hand, in the high-context-dependent style of communication, the content of a message is less important than its context. Therefore, they tend to be more implicit and less explicit in their messages and contextual expressions. They tell more than they say. The recipient just needs to be able to decode unspoken messages (Karandashev, 2021).

Individual Differences in Orientation toward the Content and Context of Communication

People have different orientations toward the content or context of messages in their communication, depending on their individual and cultural differences. All people pay attention to both content and context, yet to a different degree.

Some individuals are more content-oriented and less context-dependent. For them, analytical, rational thinking and logical, systematic reasoning based on arguments and evidence are the priorities in communication. They prefer to avoid or abandon any preconceptions and beliefs when they are speaking and listening. They believe in universal meaning, rational understanding, objective knowledge, and real truth.

Other individuals are less content-oriented and more context-dependent. For them, the context of the situation and the presence of others play an important role, sometimes overshadowing the content of the message itself. They strongly rely on the beliefs and opinions of others, especially those from their in-group. They are sensitive to the emotional tone and manner in which a communicator speaks. They believe in relative meaning, intuitive understanding, subjective knowledge, and the nonexistence of real truth.

Styles of Communication toward In-group and Out-group Members

People and cultures vary in the way they interact with members of their in-group compared to those from their out-group. The context of in-group relations versus out-group relations can influence their communication styles.

People in collectivistic Eastern cultures with a high value of in-group embeddedness tend to show different attitudes and behaviors toward others from their own in-group than towards others from their out-group (Smith & Bond, 1999). People in collectivistic cultures are less interested in establishing personal and specific friendships with others due to their natural embeddedness in pre-existing kin relations and reluctance to establish such relations with out-group individuals (Karandashev, 2021).

On the other hand, people in individualistic Western cultures have high values of autonomy and equality. So, they tend to demonstrate the same attitudes and behaviors directed toward others from their in-groups and out-groups. They are universalistic in their social views. And, therefore, tend to apply the same standards of communication to all (Smith & Bond, 1999). They are more interested in establishing personal and specific friendships.

Sensory Processes Involved in Low- and High-Context Communication Styles

Communication styles also differ in the ways people rely on visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, thermal, and olfactory perceptions in their interpersonal interactions (Karandashev et al., 2019). For instance, Germans and Americans, as low-context dependent communicators, rely on auditory screening, while high-context dependent communicators, such as Italians and Spanish, tend to reject auditory screening and thrive on being open to interruptions and in tune with what is going on around them.

Cultural Proxemics and the Immediacy of Interpersonal Communication

Posted on by

Humans are territorial species, even though their notions of territorial space and proxemics are different from many other animals and vary between hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies. Humans, as social animals, tend to form a sense of in-groups and out-groups, as well as in-group space. People identify certain territorial spaces as “ours” and “mine,” whereas they identify other spaces as “theirs.”

Furthermore, social evolution has been changing how people in different cultures understand basic territorial ideas (Hall & Hall, 1990; Karandashev, 2021).

In another post, I briefly explained the typical Western interpretations of proxemics and immediacy. However, the cultural norms of appropriate spatial distance in relationships and the ideas of personal, in-group, and out-group space vary across societies (Karandashev, 2021).

Proxemics, Personal and Public Space Across Cultures and Individual Differences

How close is too close? It depends on where people live. The cultural traditions of some societies make people sensitive to crowds and situations when others intrude on their personal bubble. They may consider the larger space their personal one. In other societies, people can be less sensitive to crowding and view their personal bubbles as smaller.

Cultural Sensitivity to Personal Space

The cultures of different countries also vary in their territorial concepts and sensitivity. People may feel uncomfortable, anxious, or even aggressive when others invade their personal space or in-group territory. Some can be tolerant of such an intrusion, but only for a short period of time. Others can be totally intolerant. Individual differences in personality, as well as cultural traditions, play a role in all these cases.

Such differences, for instance, are evident in rural and urban cultural settings. Across many societies, women value more personal space from strangers than do men. Older people tend to spatially distance themselves from others. On the other hand, young people prefer closer distances in communication (Sorokowska et al., 2017).

Researchers thought that variations in climate and the availability of air conditioning could cause cultural proxemics in spatial behavior. People in warmer climates tend to keep a shorter distance from others than those in colder climates (Andersen, 1988; Sorokowska et al., 2017; Sussman & Rosenfeld, 1982).

These preferences can differ in different types of relationships. Those living in colder climates often prefer to be quite near their friends, perhaps to stay warm. A warm room makes people socially closer. However, those living in warm climates often get closer to strangers.

Cultural Preferences for Interpersonal Distance

People’s preferences for interpersonal distance vary across societies around the world.

For instance, people in Peru, Argentina, and Bulgaria tend to stay spatially close to strangers, whereas those from Hungary, Romania, and Saudi Arabia want to keep the most space. Americans are different from both groups of those countries; they are somewhere in the middle of the range between these two opposite types of cultures (see Sorokowska et al., 2017).

Personal bubbles of people are relatively small in several South American and South European countries, such as Argentina, Peru, Spain, southern France, Greece, and Italy. They are able to communicate easily across a short distance. For example, in Argentina, many people tend to be “close-talkers” and stand about 1 meter, or a little less, away from strangers when chatting.

In general, people in many South American and South European countries expect less personal space in communication than people in Asia. Some exceptions may occur. For example, people in Romania prefer more personal space, standing a spacious 1.5 meters away from strangers. 

Personal bubbles are bigger in North America and many northern European countries, such as England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. People tend to preserve their personal distance at all times. People in northern Europe generally feel uneasy when someone touches them or brushes their overcoat sleeve, which is related to their cultural feature of interpersonal spatial communication. For people in the north, the conversational distance that is typical of southern European cultures can be viewed as overly close and intimate.

For example, in some cultures, people may crowd instead of standing in line in front of ATMs or waiting for other public services.

Cultural Proxemics Depend on the Types of Interpersonal Relationships

How close we are to our partners, friends, coworkers, and strangers differs greatly across societies.

It appears that we all understand that our relatives and friends may stay closer to us than strangers. Strangers are expected to keep a public distance, while friends naturally stay closer. For example, in Romania, strangers are expected to keep their distance, but friends can creep up on you.

Surprisingly, however, Saudi Arabians are more distant from their friends than Argentinians are from strangers. Hungarians like to keep strangers and loved ones at arm’s length, or at least 75 centimeters apart. Norwegians want their close friends to be close to them (expected to be about half a meter away), even though they prefer a farther distance with strangers.

Proxemics of High-Contact and Low-Contact Cultures

The American anthropologist Edward Hall (1966) proposed grouping societies into contact and noncontact cultures. Their cultural norms define the social distance that people should prefer in interpersonal communication. Accordingly, people from high-contact cultures favor immediate nonverbal behaviors compared to those from low-contact cultures. They may interpret the same distance differently. It depends on their typical cultural norms of spatial behavior. In non-contact cultures, people stand farther apart and don’t touch as much as in contact cultures. We saw some examples of these social norms above.

All societies across the world have been classified into “contact cultures” (South America, the Middle East, and Southern Europe) and “non-contact cultures” (Northern Europe, North America, and Asia). Generally, those in high-contact cultures communicate with a shorter interpersonal distance and greater touch, whereas people in low-contact cultures prefer to keep their distance and avoid touch. Those from high-contact cultures favor tactile and olfactory ways of communication over people from low-contact cultures (Andersen, 1988; Sussman & Rosenfeld, 1982).

Arabs, Latin Americans, and southern and eastern Europeans are the people of high-contact cultures. They tend to keep interpersonal immediacy in relationships. They do this by increasing sensory input, interacting at closer distances, maintaining more direct body orientations, and touching more frequently. Asians, North Americans, and northern Europeans tend to be relatively low in such spatial behavioral tendencies as people of low-contact cultures (Andersen, 1988; Sussman & Rosenfeld, 1982).

Certain patterns of interpersonal special behaviors of people from high-contact and low-contact cultures are visible in many other situations of everyday life and affective relationships (Karandashev, 2021; Patterson, 1983).

Western versus Eastern cultures

Posted on by

The division between societies of Western and Eastern cultures is widespread in world scholarship and is most typical in cultural and cross-cultural studies. Why is it that this division, though quite simplistic, has become so popular among researchers?

The Tendency Towards Dichotomous Cognition

One reason is just a gnoseological one, and it comes from the philosophy of cognition. This is a reflection of the scholars’ tendency toward simplicity. The use of dichotomous and binary thinking is very convenient and easy to understand. A dichotomous view of the world seems natural: black and white; good and bad; right and left; pleasant and unpleasant, etc.

It is especially convenient for scholars. Such a division is often a valid assumption. The dichotomous division of the world into the West and East, into Western and Eastern cultures, is reasonable and applicable for research.

Western Cultures versus Eastern Cultures

The first questions are: (1) what is Western culture and (2) what is Eastern culture.

Over the years, Western scholars have attributed Western culture to the United States of America, Canada, and some western European countries. On the other hand, they attributed Eastern culture to China and Japan. Why so?

Modern scholarship in history has traditionally been of western origin—the place where most well-known scholars have resided. According to this scientific tradition, Western cultures have their origins in the ancient Greek and Roman cultures.

All other societies would be called “non-western cultures.” Later in history, scholars discovered China and Japan and found that their cultures were substantially different in many regards. They were located to the east of the west, where explorers lived. So, they called them the Eastern cultures. Eastern cultures presumably have their origins in the ancient Confucian and Buddhist cultures.

Such a division was simple and easy. The West is “we” and “us”—relatively understandable for us, Westerners, while the East is “they” and “them”—unknown and not well understandable for us Westerners. The dichotomy of in-group (West) versus out-group (East) worked very well for comparison.

Moreover, this comparison has been valid in many respects. Scholars, in their research, have identified many cultural differences between Western and Eastern societies.

The Differences in Philosophical Views between Western and Eastern Cultures

Epistemology (the Philosophy of Cognition)

In Western societies, linear folk epistemology is prevalent and culturally dominant. Western culture is characterized by dichotomous thinking. Logical beliefs admit the opposition of binary things, such as human emotions, being either positive or negative.

In Eastern societies, dialectical folk epistemology is prevalent and culturally dominant. Eastern cultures tend to have a holistic worldview and naturally accept changes. Dialectical beliefs admit the complementarity of opposite emotions and contradictions as they are.

Dualistic Versus Monistic Views of the World and Mental Life

Western and Eastern societies differ in their views on the relationship between mind and body as well as on the relationship between the heart (emotional part) and the mind (the rational part) of mental life. Their cultural beliefs follow either dualistic (in Western cultures) or monistic (in Eastern cultures) models of mental life. Those models reflect the human experience of emotions.

Dualistic views are characteristic of Western culture. According to this view, the mind and body are in dualistic relationships, and the mind (rational) and the heart (emotional) are in a dichotomous relationship with each other. People can rely more on their reasoning (mind) or on their emotions (heart). People guided by their hearts are those guided by their emotions rather than their reasoning.

Eastern cultures are characterized by a monistic view. According to this view, the mind and body are in monistic and wholistic relations, and the mind (rational) and heart (emotional) are not dichotomous with each other. Eastern cultural beliefs integrate the rational and emotional parts of mental life.

(See Karandashev, 2021a for a more in-depth discussion of these distinctions.)