Theres some D.N.A. How does the U.S. do on this dimension? Theres not going to be violent crime. These were surveys of I.B.M.s own employees around the world. Mobility also produces looseness, because its harder to agree upon any norm. What was in these surveys? We do lab experiments, field experiments, computational modeling. The legendary bestseller that made millions look at the world in a radically different way returns in a new edition, now including an exclusive discussion between the authors and bestselling professor of psychology Angela Duckworth. He came to consider a company "honest" if its payment rate was above 90 percent. 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. FREAKONOMICS is the highly anticipated film version of the phenomenally bestselling book about incentives-based thinking by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.. Caning as in a spanking, basically, on the bare buttocks, with a half-inch-thick rattan cane. And he said the reason was that he was a young postdoc, and he had holes in his jeans. People tend to be super-creative and theres a lot of negotiation of rules. You might think that these relatively minor differences dont add up to much. To that end, the digital revolution is further shrinking the distance to power. This does not mean that no one in a loose culture, like the U.S., is stigmatized or mistreated. He started working as an engineer during turbulent years of rebuilding, and soon became a personnel manager. But we tried to address that. What is culture? This is where he combines all his academic interests: not just economics and psychology, but also anthropology and evolutionary biology. And yes, well talk about what makes America, America at least as seen through the eyes of Kumail Nanjiani, who was born in Pakistan. A loose country, like the U.S., tends to do well in creativity and innovation; in tolerance and openness; in free speech and a free press. In other words, Americans dont just see other people as individuals. Or if it will change at all. Steven D. Levitt, the self-described "Rogue Economist" of the title, uses this tool to analyze a random assortment of . Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Part of the Freakonomics Series) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J . Chronic threat meaning a country is prone to natural disasters, or disease, or hostile invaders. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism av Freakonomics Radio direkt i din mobil, surfplatta eller webblsare - utan app. Educated. 470. GELFAND: I was planning to become a cross-cultural trainer to work at the State Department and train people to understand culture. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. Individualism once . NEAL: I think its helpful to think about culture in terms of a big C and a little c, the little c being those everyday things that we sometimes dont elevate to a level of culture. Subscribe for more videos like this: http://youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=92YplusThe Best of Freakonomics with Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, m. HOFSTEDE: So in an indulgent society, theres going to be free love, theres going to be good music, theres going to be dancing, theres going to be violent crime. HENRICH: And the case I make is its been highly unsuccessful to just pick up institutions that evolved in Western societies and transport them to drop them in Africa or the Middle East or places like that, because there needs to be a fit between how people think about the world, their values, worldviews, motivations, and the affordances of the institution. There, its really important to maintain that humility, to be focused on your privacy, but not trying to one-up other people. "Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent--all depending on who wields it and how.". Stripped of our culturally acquired mental skills, he writes, we are not so impressive when we go head-to-head in problem-solving tests against other apes, and we certainly are not impressive enough to account for the vast success of our species. Henrich recently followed that book with another one called The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous. The converse, which is what Anglo societies are high on, means you dont care about ambiguity. We presume male public voice. You know what it is, you know how it works, you dont necessarily have access to the people who really hold on to it. Theyre not supposed to be the boss. Henrich has written about the notion of time psychology.. And I think thats always going to be an ongoing tension this idea of America thats rooted in individualism, thats rooted in transactional practices. SFU users should ignore all messages requesting Computing ID and/or password information, no matter how authentic they may appear. He has written several books about what music and other pop culture has to say about the broader culture. employees in more than 50 countries. The book takes the form of six chapters. And in a restrained society, theres going to be suicide. Were trying to buy time, save time. John OLIVER: When was that moment that America became the most American America it could possibly be? GELFAND: Places in the South have tended to have more natural disasters. Dubner speaks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, and various other underachievers. But Im Dutch, of course. thats always there. OLIVER: Baseballs were hit from the deck of a warship from a needlessly inflatable batting cage. You want to know where you stand which is, for instance, what diplomats know very well. Is that the case? OLIVER: When was that moment when America became the most American America it could possibly be? And then theres the big C, the stuff that we have these big conversations about, that we do these incredible studies about, which is really about the worldview of groups of people coming together, in a community, in a nation, in a family, right? And in one condition, I had them wearing these fake facial warts. playlist_add. When you have teenagers, youre tight, at least for me. Spoiler alert: This dimension is one of the six in which the U.S. is the biggest outlier in the world. Is that a yes? Each and every person has individual reasons for pursuing a career, or goal. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. But its important to acknowledge that no culture is a monolith. HOFSTEDE: In the U.S.A., individualism coupled with masculinity creates a society where if youre not a winner, youre a loser. 1424 Words. Levitt's research on teacher cheating using Chicago Public Schools data.Clip from the 2010 documentary "Freakonomics: The Movie". DUBNER: But that the research subjects, they gave him a lot back and they thought it was going to him. But then the experimenters confederates come in. GELFAND: I really had a lot of culture shock. Gelfand says the countries that were most aggressive in trying to contain Covid tended to be tighter countries. And it should stay there. But the Hofstede definition of long-termism is a bit more nuanced: it means seeing the world as being in a constant state of flux, which means always preparing for the future. Heres how he describes himself these days. Apparently over 50 percent of cats and dogs in the U.S. are obese. But, lets look at the pandemic from a different angle: which country produced the most effective Covid-19 vaccines? 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. Where would you think the U.S. ranks among all the countries measured on this dimension? Did you know there is an entire academic field called cross-cultural psychology? GELFAND: So, that has a lot of other effects on debt, on alcoholism, on recreational drug use. Whereas in other contexts, like in the Middle East, when you think about honor, you think about your family, you think about your purity, your dutifulness, and so forth much less so about accomplishments. Categories like age, gender, job type, job seniority, and so on. So Hofstede the Elder began to amass a huge data set about the workplace experiences and preferences of tens of thousands of I.B.M. Neal sees a strong connection between U.S. masculinity and our appetite for work. GELFAND: All cultures have social norms, these unwritten rules that guide our behavior on a daily basis. I dont like to itch, Bert. You could argue that treating your own children as if theyre special may make it harder to care as much about other peoples children. You may decide to go another way, but that doesnt make the river change. In 1990, when Gelfand was a graduate student, she followed the news as Iraq invaded Kuwait. Dubner speaks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, and various other underachievers. Which is probably why we dont hear all that much about the science of culture. DUBNER: So I have to say, Gert Jan, youve made me feel kind of terrible about being American today. HENRICH: We have a kind of religiosity equivalent to somewhere like Kuwait. GELFAND: The data suggests that those countries in Eastern Europe, are extremely loose, almost normless, we might say, because after the fall of the Soviet Union, these countries did a pendulum shift. So why did someone succeed? DUBNER: You sound very grateful that you were not born an American. This episode was produced byBrent Katz. That, again, is the cross-cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand. This failure leads to confusion at the very least, but quite possibly deeper misunderstandings, perhaps all the way up to hatred and violent conflict. 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. In a multitude of ways, large and small. So, Japan has been hit by Mother Nature for centuries. In a more masculine society, men and women adhere to the gender roles you might think of as patriarchal: fathers, for instance, take care of the facts, while mothers handle the emotions. And we manipulated whether their names were like Jamal or Latisha versus Brad and Lorna. And I think, Holy cow, Ukraine is surrounded by threat, including its next-door neighbor, Russia. That relationship has not been a constant, but that makes me a little suspicious. HENRICH: And this can include motivations, heuristics, biases, beliefs. More feminine societies tend to have less poverty and higher literacy rates. He considered a rate between 80 and 90 percent . Happiness is going to be lower, but crime, too. The final dimension on the Hofstede model is called indulgence versus restraint. HENRICH: This probably wouldnt be in a psych textbook, but something like the Ultimatum game. Compared to other countries including places like Japan, Singapore, Germany we can afford to be more permissive. How do racial and ethnic minorities fit into the American looseness? Henrich says yes. This paper focuses on the construction of racial identity online through the mediating influences of popular culture, old media, weblogs, and Internet users. And I think this community-spiritedness has been built in us since we were very young. Documentary. 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. Fundamentally, individualism is a belief that the individual is an end in themself. And there are other inconsistencies, especially in a country as large and diverse as the U.S. For instance, where you live. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism (Replay) 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). BROADCASTER: The subject denies the evidence of his own eyes and yields to group influence. The U.S. is just different from other places in a variety of ways that we often dont stop to think about. By this time, Hofstede the Elder had already gotten a Ph.D. in social science. His late father was a social psychologist who devised a system to rank countries on several dimensions including their level of individualism versus collectivism. Cross-Cultural trainer to work at the State Department and train people to understand culture if its payment rate above. And so on was a young postdoc, and soon became a personnel manager he started working an! 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