Dimensions Of Culture In Psychology

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Ms. Ramlall Psychology 3/31/2016 Culture in Psychology Culture in essence, has more than 100 definitions which reflect the meaning of the word and what it establishes. Since there are so many varied definitions for culture it’s very hard to define. However, culture as defined by Matsumoto is “a dynamic system of rules, explicit and implicit, established by groups in order to ensure survival, involving attitudes, values, norms, beliefs, and behaviors.” In other words according to Matsumoto culture is the way of life in which people behave in a certain way depending different cultural dimensions in order to survive. Furthermore Cultural norms are rules that specific groups use for rating what is seen as appropriate and inappropriate behaviors,…show more content…
The more formal way we communicate with strangers is the same way we communicate with superiors. In addition to cultural norms, another component of culture is dimensions - the perspectives of a culture based on values and cultural norms. There are five dimensions of culture: Power distance, collectivism/individualism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance and long term orientation. The two most prominent are power distance and individualism/collectivism with studies done by, Hofstede et al (1973), Graf (1991) and Wei (2001). Dr. Geert Hofstede researched into cultural dimensions in the early 1970s with a research that lasted over a decade and thousands of interviews. Throughout his research emerged a model of cultural dimensions that became and internationally recognized standard. These cultural dimensions were then distinguished and showed how the understanding of influence of cultural dimensions can facilitate international understand and communication. Meaning that countries would understand what and how they should approach and say or what not to…show more content…
Collectivism is a basic cultural element that exists as the reverse of individualism; it shows how people stress the priority of group goals over individual goals and the importance of cohesion within social groups. Social groups that are more collectivistic show that their priority lies within bonds with family members, and close friends, and show how they share success with the people around them. Because of this reason they are more likely to be modest basing and sharing their success with other people rather than just keeping it to themselves. While people who are more individualistic base all of their achievements as their own personal triumphs, usually giving credit to only themselves. During the Hofstede 1973 study he found that wester cultures were more individualistic. Continuing where Hofstede left off Wei et al (2001) conducted a cross-cultural survey to investigate how collectivism vs individualism influenced conflict resolution styles. Wei took a sample of 600 managers working in Singapore and then divided the participants into 4 groups- Americans, Japanese, Chinese, and Singaporeans working in multinational companies and Chinese Singaporeans working in local companies. Questionnaires and a correlation analysis were used in order to find a possible relationship between scores on cultural dimensions and conflict resolution styles. Findings show that American managers which are

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