消費者行為在生活滿意度上的文化差異

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學管理學院管理研究所碩士論文. Graduate Institute of Management College of Management National Taiwan Normal University Master Thesis. Cultural Differences in Life Satisfaction as a function of Spending Patterns. 柯俊生 Jhonatan Mauricio Cáceres Padilla. 指導教授：沈永正博士 Adviser：Yung-Cheng Shen Ph.D. 中華民國 104 年 1 月 January, 2015.

(2) Cultural Differences in Life Satisfaction as a function of Spending Patterns. Comparison on the happiness, feelings and ways of buying between 2 different cultures.. ii.

(3) Abstract. This study focuses on the relation between some spending patterns from individuals and their feelings towards the things that they spend on. Also, an analysis of the consumer’s feelings and what influences their feelings will be made, by estimating how their spending patterns are. By doing this analysis will make a comparison of the feelings between Asian and Latin American cultures and their behavior on spending money and ways of buying and what influences them to have the impulse to buy certain items. The parameter that is taken more into consideration is an individual’s life satisfaction, and after that, the reliability and validity reflects to the changes and the circumstances in the consumer’s lives. Several types of data will indicate the quality of the respondents’ lives. Life satisfaction can be influenced by factors such as: current mood and their way of interpretation, but in most cases these can be controlled. In this model of life satisfaction the judgment points that had an importance of attention were, happiness, their spending pattern, and how they feel after spending. Comparing with SWB that includes diverse concepts ranging from momentary moods to global judgments of life satisfaction, and from depression to euphoria. Although there are more scales that are useful in research on individual’s well-being because it is the field in the behavioral sciences in which people’s evaluation of their lives are studied, (Diener 2003) and includes some questions that need more analysis and research, some of them are, which types of subjective well-being measures are most relevant to which types of policies, and how standards influence the scores, (Diener, 2012). As it is mentioned above, is focusing only in the association between the scores of each culture, their life satisfaction and their way of buying. Key words: well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, culture. iii.

(4) Acknowledgement I’m not religious, but all my life I was raised in a Catholic family environment first of all, I want to thank God, because from all what I wanted to do in my life, His blessings and wisdom that He gave me by coming to this country to fulfill my education, because He gave me strength and the knowledge that I needed every single day. To my adviser and professor, Shen Yung-Cheng, without him I think it won’t be possible to fulfill my dream to have a master degree. Thank you professor for believing in me, for me you are not only my adviser, but also a mentor and a friend, trying every time to tell me important things and also giving me advice and suggesting many ideas for me to accomplish and encouraging me to keep going, I’m very thankful for that and I really appreciate it with all my heart. I hope I can compensate one day. To my sister: Gabriela, for being my shelter, for giving me all the love that I always needed, because you were always supporting me, all throughout my studies and my life here in Taiwan, always giving me the will to carry on, to never look back and always try to feel happy about the things in life, always learn good things from my mistakes and always try to laugh about them too. Te amo con todo mi corazón. To my brother: Jorge, thanks for being my second support, without your love, comprehension, words of wisdom and encouragement wouldn’t be possible to be here, I love you and admire you very much mi hermano! To my grandma: Marinita, Thank you grandma, for teaching how to be a good person, and for teaching me to always keep my faith all these years living abroad and away from all my family, thanks for your support and for being there for me as an amazing mom that you are for us. iv.

(5) To my family, my aunt Julieta, thank you for being like a second mom to me, and my cousin Marcella, for being like my little sister for having you by my side, and both of you I thank you very much for giving the strength and the courage that I needed. Also to all the members of our big and numerous family, thank you all, because I know that you got my back. To my classmates, Katie, 蘇柏諺, 劉昭慧, 劉建貞, 吳雅婷, 高佳薇, 陳伯特 and Josh for all your help and support in all the classes, you guys are amazing, and you all ROCK! Also for the best time that we had together throughout our master studies, each class that we had and each time we spent together is valuable to me and for the wonderful memories that you gave me I’ll keep them in my heart. To my friends, my dearest and closest friends: Marjorie, Yuliana, Carlos, Natalia, 雷雅安, and Olvin for being there for me every time that I needed it, words can’t really express how great I feel that I have you guys with me, for every good time that we share, for every problem that I had, all of your words are gold to me, also for your advices in the hardest times, encouraging me to finish up my work on time, for me is very valuable and it means that world to me.. And last but not least, to my Dad, Jorge Cáceres, my rock, I dedicate this work, all my effort that is here, all the grades that I had throughout my master degree with all my pride and joy, I thank God to give me a Dad like him, without him by my side my life here would have not been possible, and it helped me so much to become the person that I am today. Te AMO mi Viejo!. Jhonatan Mauricio Cáceres February 1st, 2015 v.

(6) Table of Content ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. III ACKNOWLEDGEMENT………………………………………………………………………………………. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………………………………………. VI. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background………………………………………………………………………………………… 2 1.2. Purpose of Study………………………………………………………………………………… 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. The Multifaceted Nature of Happiness………………………………………...……. 9 2.2. Integrating the Diverse Definitions of Happiness: A Time-Sequential Framework of Subjective Well-Being……………………………………………….… 14 2.3. Wealth and Happiness across the World………………………………………….. 20 2.4. Money and Happiness: Rank of income, not income, affects Life Satisfaction………………………………………………………………………………………… 24 2.5. How Money can work in different Cultures……………………………………… 25 2.6. Differences between Chinese and the Latino Cultures on handling Money……………………………………………………………………………………………..... 27 2.7. Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context……………. 32 2.8. Cultural Models and Cultural Dimensions……………………………………….. 45. vi.

(7) CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1. Overview and Data Sources………………………………………………………….….. 55 3.2. Measure….……………………………………………………………………………………….. 56 3.3. Main Design……………………………………………………………………………………… 58 3.3.1. Participants and Design……………………………………………………….. 58 3.3.2. Administration…………………………………………………………………….. 58 3.3.3. Independent Variable………………………………………………………….. 59 3.3.4. Dependent Variable…………………………………………………………….. 60 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS 4.1. Demographics………………………………………………………………………………….. 61 4.1.1. Honduran Demographics.……………………………………………………. 61 4.1.2. Taiwanese Demographics……………………………………………………. 63 4.2. Life Satisfaction………………………………………………………………………………… 65 4.3. Spending Items………………………………………………………………………………… 69 4.3.1. First Category “Personal Entertainment”..…………………………… 69 4.3.2. Second Category “Physiological Needs”………………………………. 72 4.3.3. Third Category “Safety Needs”……………………………………………. 74 4.3.4. Fourth Category “Recreational Needs”.………………………………. 76 vii.

(8) 4.3.5. Fifth Category “Personal Accessories”…………………………………. 78 4.3.6. Sixth Category “Spiritual Needs”…………………………………………. 79 4.4. Dependent Measures………………………………………………………………………. 80. CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS 5.1. Consumer’s Spending Cultural System.………………………………………….…. 86 5.1.1. Consumer’s spending differences and similarities…………….…. 86 5.2. Buying behavior that influence an individual’s life satisfaction……..…. 88 5.3. Academic Implication………………………………..…………………………………….. 92 5.4. Limitations and Future directions………………..…………………………………… 94. viii.

(9) FIGURES Figure 1. Diener’s Hierarchical Model of Happiness…………..……………………. 13 Figure 2. A sequential Framework for the Study of Subjective Well-being. 19 Figure 3. The Satisfaction Scale..……………………………………………………………… 68 Figure 4. Hofstede’s Cultural Models for Taiwan.……………………………………. 46 Figure 5. Hofstede’s Cultural Model for Honduras………………………………….. 50 Figure 6. Hofstede’s Cultural Model comparison for both countries……….. 54. LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Life Satisfaction between Latino Culture and Asian Culture………... 66 Table 2. Regression Outcome for Personal Entertainment.…………………….. 80 Table 3. Regression Outcome for Physiological Needs..………………………….. 81 Table 4. Regression Outcome for Safety Needs…………………………………….... 82 Table 5. Regression Outcome for Recreational Needs…………………………….. 83 Table 6. Regression Outcome for Personal Accessories………………………….. 84 Table 7. Regression Outcome for Spiritual Needs……………………….………….. 85. ix.

(10) APPENDIXES Appendix 1. Chinese Survey……………………………………………………………………. 95. REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………………….………..… 106. x.

(11) Chapter 1: Introduction The art of buying, as we have studied throughout all our business major, it is known as a purchase decision making pattern that is a complex combination of needs and desires, and is influenced by factors such as the consumer’s societal role, social and cultural environment and norms and aspirations and inhibitions. Nowadays, due to the globalized world that we live in, everyone is consuming a lot. It really has changed our minds and makes us buy continuously even without noticing, and then suddenly we end up buying just for the mechanism of buying a product, thus becoming an addiction to us, resulting in more consumption these days. Using the definition of “Consumerism” which has been used to refer to something quite different called consumerists movement, or consumer activism which inform consumers as advertising, product guarantees and safety standards, but generally refers to economic policies placing emphasis on consuming it brings us to buy, and consume more things, and it also brings some feelings from our buying actions that we don’t pay attention to. This raises the question, why do we do it? In this century where technology has flourished due to advertising mass media, the need of buying and spending more has emerged, and when we tend to spend it brings feelings out of which the most important and most prominent of those is happiness, therefore absolute consumerism can make a person achieve complete happiness by buying something, allowing that feeling to make us feel so good that we pursue it more, because we want to feel and enjoy it more. All of this produces different effects or feelings on us, such as a psychological satisfaction which provokes that feeling of happiness, and we refuse that feeling to go away or end allowing to become an addictive cycle. (Jahoda, 1958) 1.

(12) 1.1 Background Does money buy happiness? Or does happiness come directly from the society that we live in? Comparing money and happiness can help understand a person’s life satisfaction, but is there a true relation between money and happiness? To some economists there is, because money can buy food, and clothing, so it will increase a person’s utility, so they are assumed to be linked, and also having a higher income should lead to a greater happiness. We ask, what is happiness? As we have learned, and by definition, is a state of well-being characterized by emotions raging from contentment to intense joy; also, a pleasurable or satisfying experience. And what determines an individual’s happiness? Happiness has a set point and by adding something good, a good event or circumstances in your life, and also adding some intentional or involuntary events to your life. How do we measure happiness? As a psychologist, Diener has researched happiness around the world, and once your basic needs are met, additional income does little raise your sense of satisfaction with life, so he created his life satisfaction scale. By the 19th century, economists calculated happiness as good feelings minus bad, they believed pursuit of pleasure or avoidance of pain drove human beings, that is why they gave up to continue with the studies behavior because there was no good way of measuring feelings. But today, the measurements have improved and they are taken by asking questions and utilizing new technologies such as MRI. (The economist, 2006). SWB includes diverse concepts ranging from momentary moods to global judgments of life satisfaction, and from depression to euphoria. The field has grown rapidly in the last decade, so that there are now thousands of studies on topics such as life satisfaction and happiness. 2.

(13) Scientists who study aging have shown particular interest in SWB, perhaps because of concern that declines in old age could be accompanied by deteriorating happiness.. A widely presumed component of the good life is happiness. Unfortunately, the nature of happiness has not been defined in a uniform way. Happiness can mean pleasure, life satisfaction, positive emotions, a meaningful life, or a feeling of contentment, among other concepts. In fact, for as long as philosophers have been discussing happiness, its definition has been debated. One of the earliest thinkers on the subject of happiness, the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus, maintained that the happy life was enjoyable, not because of what the happy person possessed, but because of the way the happy person reacted to his/her life circumstances (Tatarkiewicz, 1976).. However, the term happiness has such currency in public discourse that it is often difficult to dodge. Some researchers prefer to use the term ‘‘subjective well-being’’ (SWB), although happiness is sometimes used synonymously with SWB as well. Echoing the beliefs of Democritus, the term subjective well-being emphasizes an individual’s own assessment of his or her own life, not the judgment of ‘‘experts’’ and includes satisfaction (both in general and satisfaction with specific domains), pleasant affect, and low negative affect. The changes of happiness throughout these years is really noticeable, but a few years from now, studies have proven that it has changed, they say that the rich are happier that the poor, but the rich countries do not get happier as they get richer and richer, and sometimes even comparing to others might be good for them, like doing well is not enough, so they want to do better than others, and always wanting to have more and better things, such as: a faster car, new brand cellphone, brand new clothes, and 3.

(14) a new and big house. So, how does income relate to different types of well-being? Is the relationship between well-being and income consistent across various groups? Are those citizens of wealthy nations happier than those of poor countries? This is why the association of well-being was measured by the fact that wealthy people are more likely to have their needs met, because they are capable of getting the materials that they want and when they want them. (Diener 2010).. 4.

(15) 1.2 Purpose of Study When we think about spending money, we really don’t focus on our feelings, and maybe living in another country we don’t think about what other cultures feel when they spend money. Also, how different cultures interact and deal with the use of money? What is their personal feelings when they spend it? Some cultures can be selfish, caring, giving, and have some personal feelings towards this matter. At the end of the day, every culture handles their money very differently, that is why, in every area there are different perceptions on how money is handled because of religion, education, or the way that people have been raised, or something else that is different from each cultures. Every culture seems reasonable, understanding and caring when it comes to money. Some cultures can be caring, and can become more giving, as others can be more selfish, and some people can determine from which culture you come from by how you use your money. When it comes to food, customs or life styles, there are variations from one culture to another, and is this study purpose that will bring 2 different cultures, such as Latino and Chinese culture that are really different and analyze their consumer behavior and their feeling of happiness while purchasing. The Chinese are really into saving a lot of money, for many reasons, because that´s what they are used to, and what they have been taught, and personally I think that many Latin Americans will need to learn to save, because the economy around these countries is not doing as well as it did in the past. The behavior that Latin American culture has compared to Asian culture is very different. A study that was made, said that Latin American saving pattern has a low 5.

(16) rate, compared to Asian culture saving pattern which is really high and is due to the high and less volatile rate in economic growth. As we see this big difference we can try to identify that we have different customs, traditions, food, (and way of eating), some regional products, which are some elements that we can identify as part of the national identity from every country, but why do we never focus on what we buy, if we have different ways of buying? Why do we also spend on different things to make us happy? And what motivates us to spend, and on what things? We know that Asian countries like Taiwan are most successful in economic areas, while in Latin culture countries like Honduras, are relatively high in social psychological well-being, but are citizens happier if they tend to spend more? Or, Taiwanese are not as happy as Hondurans, allowing them to become reluctant to spend that much money? Every culture seems very reasonable and caring when it comes to money. They can be caring in every culture at least if you have it to be giving. Maybe people can determine on how you use money and see what culture you are from just by doing that. For example, from what I’ve researched, Taiwanese are very polite and sometimes kind of shy and sometimes can be cool in some ways but all they plan to do is save a whole lot of money, and that's what most of the Latin Americans don’t do, and prefer to spend in other things that might not be important, and the economy in these countries hasn’t been that well since 1990’s, and personally, I think that we need to learn as Americans, to save because the economy now a days are harder than it has been in the past. Some of this important differences from each culture, it is because due to different causes, and we can say that maybe it's the different religions that different cultures have that can have a influence on how each culture spends money. Also, the way they treat money and what it's worth, for example if you're a Christian, you might give a lot and help your church and so forth. They might have a lot of fundraisers as 6.

(17) well to help the community around the city or some charities. As for the Chinese they like to save as much as possible. The saving rates are higher than it is in the United States, I learned from my studies. And they mostly pay for things in cash. So these are just some things I learned from my own studies, and by personal experience by living here for many years and had economic topics with local people and this tells me a little bit more about the difference in money handling from different cultures. These are just two though. Different cultures and societies, like different individuals, they are very simple, in fact have very different moral values. Because of very different morals meaning like maybe they believe in things that other cultures don’t believe in. So that's when they use their money differently. Religion has a powerful effect on a cultures moral reasoning, and most of the time they really stick to it. Like Muslims, they don’t allow their women to show their face and some American people would be furious about that, but they can’t do anything about it because that's not their religion. (Dionne Alexander, 2012). Now, it takes a lot more than knowing such terms. We must become familiar with the cultural influences that affect how people and institutions aggregate, deploy, and discuss money. The notion of wealth itself can be a cultural construct. For example, some Native American or indigenous peoples operate in a “gift economy” in which people give valuable goods and services to others without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Wealth in this case is derived as much from distribution, be it money, time, or knowledge, as it is from accumulation. Even a seemingly simple offer of financial support may have cultural significance. As we might know, the person making the offer needs to know who has the power to call the community to action or response. In some Asian cultures a “clan,” or a 7.

(18) group of families or households, makes decisions about the welfare of the community, determining resource requirements and allocations, and for many Hispanic, Latino, or Chicano communities (how some people identify themselves is really important), the church often takes leadership in acquiring and dispensing financial support. (Dionne Alexander, 2011).. 8.

(19) Chapter 2: Literature Review. 2.1 The Multifaceted Nature of Happiness Ed Diener, Christie Napa Scollon, and Richard Lucas, 2003. As it has been mentioned before, and this study says, Subjective well-being (SWB) is the field in the behavioral sciences in which people’s evaluation of their lives are studied. SWB includes diverse concepts ranging from momentary moods to global judgments of life satisfaction, and from depression to euphoria. Unfortunately, the nature of happiness has not being defined in a uniform way. Happiness can mean pleasure, life satisfaction, positive emotions, a meaningful life, or a feeling of contentment, among other concepts. In fact, for as long as philosophers have being discussing happiness, its definition has been debated. It comes from ancient Greek times that they gave various definitions about it, and Happiness for hedonists, was simply the sum of many pleasurable moments, and later widened the meaning of pleasure to include “benefits, advantages, profits, good or happiness, and the absence of failure, suffering, misfortune, or unhappiness” (Tatarkiewicz, 1976, p. 322). However the term happiness has such currency public discourse that it is often difficult to dodge. Some researchers prefer to use the term ‘‘subjective well-being’’ (SWB), although happiness is sometimes used synonymously with SWB as well. Echoing the beliefs of Democritus, the term subjective well-being emphasizes an individual’s own assessment of his or her own life, not the judgment of ‘‘experts’’, and includes satisfaction (both in general and satisfaction with specific domains), pleasant affect, and low negative affect.. 9.

(20) In the 20th century, psychologists and other scientists became interested in studying happiness, answering the questions, what is happiness? Can it be measured? And what causes happiness? However, the scientific studies of happiness still generated a bit of doubt. When they were writing about “avowed happiness”, his discussion hedged on whether it was real happiness that scientists were measuring, although they did not fully define the state. (Wilson, 1967). A watershed finding in SWB research came, when they discovered that Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) are independent, by demonstrating that positive and negative emotions form separate factors that are influenced by different variables, these findings lent empirical support to Jahoda’s notion of mental health. (Bradburn, 1969), and coming with the results that happiness is not unidimensional, but instead is at least two-dimensional, in other words, PA and NA are not simply polar ends of a single continuum, and thus need to be measured separately. And other researchers came up with a contribution to the science of SWB that was to include a cognitive component of life satisfaction.. In 1984, Diener reviewed the field of SWB, including the various theories and known characteristics of happy individuals at the time. Large national studies of SWB concluded that most Americans were indeed happy, regardless of age, race, sex, income, or education level. In a survey collected from students from 17 countries, they found that happiness and life satisfaction were both rated well above neutral of importance (and more important than money) in every country, although there was also variation among cultures. Furthermore, respondents from all samples indicated that they thought about happiness from time to time. Even those from relatively unhappy societies value happiness to some extent. SWB represents a major way to assess quality of life in addition to economic and social indicators such as 10.

(21) GNP and levels of health or crime In fact, SWB captures aspects of national conditions that the other measures cannot. (Diener, 2000). Formerly researchers were searching for the core of SWB, but it is clear that there are multiple components that combine in complex ways, and that no single one of them reflects ‘‘true happiness.’’ Instead, SWB must be studied as a multi-faceted phenomenon, described as follows:. 1. Structure: What are the major components under the umbrella of SWB, and how do they relate to one another?. 2. Frequency vs. intensity: Is it the frequency, duration, or intensity of good feelings and cognitions that compose SWB?. 3. Temporal sequence and stages: The picture of SWB changes depending on whether one examines moments or longer time frames, such as lifetimes. 4. Stability and consistency: Is there enough temporal stability in people’s feelings, and consistency across situations, to consider SWB a personality characteristic? Or is SWB entirely situational? 5. Affect vs. cognition: SWB includes both affective evaluations of one’s life (e.g. pleasant feelings, enjoyment, etc.), but also a cognitive evaluation (e.g. satisfaction, meaning, etc.). Which is more important?. 6. The functioning mood system: Even happy people experience unpleasant emotions, and the picture of SWB we are advocating does not equate happiness with 11.

(22) uninterrupted joy. Adaptive emotions involve being able to react to events, and not being stuck in happy or sad moods.. 7. Tradeoffs: Although happiness is desirable, people want to feel happy for the right reasons. Additionally, there are times when people are willing to sacrifice fun and enjoyment for other values.. 8. Implications for measurement and research with the elderly: Given the multifaceted nature of SWB, various measures cannot be assumed to be substitutes for one another.. Refer to Fig. 1, Diener’s hierarchical Model of Happiness.. 12.

(23) Fig. 1, Diener’s hierarchical Model of Happiness.. This figure, refers to the basic experiences of a person to become a Subjective Well-being, focusing on the pleasant and unpleasant affect that reflect on the basic experiences of the ongoing events in people’s lives. Thus, it is no surprise that many argue that these affective evaluations should form the basis for SWB judgments (Frijda, 1999; Kahneman, 1999). This affective evaluations take the form of pleasant and unpleasant emotions and moods, that can help in a person’s lives and also show their current mood or emotion, and we can see that being “Happy” has a nature and a relation and are tied to specific events of a person’s feelings. By studying the types of affective reactions that individuals experience, researchers can gain an understanding of the ways that people evaluate the conditions and events in their lives.. 13.

(24) 2.2 Integrating the Diverse Definitions of Happiness: A Time-Sequential Framework of Subjective Well-Being. Kim Prieto, Ed Diener, M. Tamir, 2005. Subjective well-being (SWB) encompasses a wide range of components, such as happiness, life satisfaction, hedonic balance, fulfillment, and stress, and holds at its core affective and cognitive evaluation of one’s life. It also extends from the specific and concrete to the global and abstract: momentary experiences versus people’s global judgments about their entire lives. Research on SWB has grown in prominence in the scientific literature in recent years. Over 4,000 studies are listed in PsychInfo under ‘‘life satisfaction,’’ and almost 4,000 studies are listed for ‘‘happiness.’’ SWB has been extensively studied in relation to demographic factors such as marriage (Lucas et al., 2003; Reis and Gable, 2003) and income (Diener and Biswas-Diener, 2002), personality factors (Diener and Lucas, 1999), coping (e.g.,King et al., 2000), and goal pursuit (Emmons, 1986). Research on its heritability (e.g., Tellegen et al., 1988), and cross-cultural generalizability (Diener et al., 2003) has been growing, and scientists have examined the benefits of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998) and SWB (e.g., Diener et al., 2002). The effect in scientific inquiry is also reflected in the importance of happiness to the lay mind: In a recent survey of over 9,000 college students in 47 nations, happiness was rated at 8.1 on a nine-point scale of importance, making it the highest regarded of the 20 given values (e.g., love, wealth, health, and getting into heaven). Over half of the respondents rated the importance of happiness as a ‘‘9’’, while only 3 percent indicated that they did not value happiness at all. People gauge their SWB in a number of different ways. For example, one can appraise large segments of one’s life, such as work, social relationships, or marriage. 14.

(25) Or, one can gauge happiness by recalling emotions felt during a specific event, such as Christmas dinner. Or, one can rely on current mood or spontaneous emotional reactions. Some researchers have questioned the inherent validity of specific SWB measures. Veenhoven (1993), for example, argues that the concept that comes closest to reflecting SWB is global life satisfaction. Although momentary moods might be assessed accurately, they might not reflect true long-term subjective wellbeing.. For example, a person might experience enjoyable moments, but end up concluding that his or her life was meaningless (e.g., Seligman, 2002). Our framework makes several major points about SWB, and has implications for interventions, measurement, and life choices in the pursuit of well-being. The four major stages of SWB are related to one another and follow a temporal sequence: (A) life circumstances and events; (B) affective reactions to those events; (C) recall of one’s reactions; and (D) global evaluative judgment about one’s life.. What is the relation between life events and circumstances and SWB? Brickman and Campbell (1971) contended that we adapt to life circumstances, and therefore live on a ‘‘hedonic treadmill,’’ where neither good nor bad circumstances make a difference due to habituation. Most people in North America report positive levels of SWB (Diener and C. Diener, 1995), whereas people living in the slums of Calcutta more often have low SWB (Biswas-Diener and Diener, 2001). Compared to facets of the environment that remain stable, changing events can have special significance for a person’s SWB; however, people tend to habituate to their environments such that life circumstances often do not have an intense influence on the person’s affect (Brickman et al., 1978; Suh et al.,1996). 15.

(26) Adaptation also occurs to the aspects of the environment that have remained stable for a long time. Because recent events and changes in circumstances can have a large impact on SWB, and long-standing circumstances often have a very small influence, the correlation of circumstances and measures of SWB is often modest across people. Long-term stable life circumstances can have some influence on SWB (e.g., BiswasDiener and Diener, 2001), There is now clear evidence that although important life events such as losing one’s job or spouse have a strong immediate impact on measures of SWB, the impact diminishes over time, although the individual may never completely return to his or her original level of SWB (Lucas et al., 2003, 2004).. Personality appears to be one such key element. Personality traits, such as extraversion and neuroticism, have been related to reactivity to emotional stimuli (Canli et al., 2001; Larsen and Ketelaar, 1991; Rusting and Larsen, 1997; Tamir et al., 2002; Zelenski and Larsen, 1999). People differ in how intensely they respond to emotional events (Larsen and Diener, 1987; Larsen et al., 1986, 1987), and in the duration of their emotional reactions (Schimmack et al., 2000).. Considering the fact that researchers often aggregate multiple emotional reactions across time, it is important to identify the key factors that influence the selection of the emotional reactions that have long-term effects. One important factor that influences long-term effects of emotional reactions is goals and personal desires. This is because although people can respond emotionally to events at any given moment, only the reactions that are relevant to general goals and concerns are likely to influence SWB. For example, a person might encounter a snake in the woods and experience intense fear, but such a reaction does not necessarily have implications for that person’s sense of happiness and satisfaction with life because they hardly 16.

(27) ever go for a walk in the woods. Cultural beliefs also influence the transition from on-line to remembered emotion. For example, Oishi (2002) found that Asian Americans and European Americans differed in their retrospective ratings of emotion but not in their on-line reports of emotion. When asked to recall their online moods, European Americans remembered their week as very good and Asian Americans remembered their week as mildly good, although the two groups reported their mood as being equally mildly good on their on-line reports. It is possible that people are more likely to recall feeling emotions that are normative for their culture, or recall feeling the emotions that fit culturally with the events they have been experiencing (Markus and Kitayama, 1994, Diener et al. (1984) showed a similar effect with happy versus unhappy people: Happy people overestimated the amount of pleasant affect in recall, whereas unhappy people overestimated the amount of negative affect in recall. The above review indicates that recall does not provide a precise duplicate of on-line experience, and that other influences such as personality and culture can influence what is remembered.. Thus, measures of SWB that depend on recall are likely to be influenced by these other factors in addition to on-line past experiences. When people recall that they are more joyful than other individuals, it might be because of on-line emotional reactions, or it might be because of norms, interpretations of survey items, or implicit beliefs about emotions. Diener, found that some individuals most heavily weight the domains in which they have the biggest problems in judging their life satisfaction, whereas other individuals most heavily weight their best domains. (Diener et al. 2002) At the societal level, in some cultures, people focus more on positive or on negative information (e.g., Elliot et al., 2001; Lee et al., 2000), and this can change the emotional information they recall when making global life judgments. In a 17.

(28) similar vein, Diener found that a general positivity disposition predicts average life satisfaction judgments across nations. Thus, it is clear that both stable individual differences and situational factors influence global judgments of life satisfaction. (Diener et al. 2000).. A strength of a life satisfaction measure is its flexibility: People can consider or ignore information that they personally consider relevant or irrelevant when making judgments about life satisfaction. However, this flexibility leaves open the possibility that situational factors can influence the judgment by making certain information more salient to the respondent. This also explains why objective predictors are often only modestly related to global satisfaction judgments; some respondents might view the predictor as relevant to his or her global evaluation, whereas others may not. Finally, people’s current mood can influence their global judgments of life satisfaction, but they can also discount this information if they believe that it is due to irrelevant sources (Schwarz and Clore, 1983; see also Robinson, 2000). Schimmack et al. (2002) found that about one-half of respondents report that they use their current mood in evaluating their lives. Those individuals who say that they use their current mood show a much larger correlation between their moods and life satisfaction reports than do individuals who say that they do not use their current mood information.. Refer to Fig. 2, A Sequential Framework for the study of Subjective Well-being.. 18.

(29) Fig. 2, A Sequential Framework for the study of Subjective Well-being.. The framework presented in Figure 2 follows an event as it is gradually modified and integrated into the complex network that includes the various measurements of SWB. The sequences are not necessarily causal in nature, but rather reflect major components of life evaluations as they evolve in time. The model begins with objective events and circumstances that elicit emotional reactions from the individual. Quality of life can be measured by assessing objective life circumstances, and economists and sociologists have often assessed well-being at this level. It should be noted, however, that this first stage is not strictly subjective well-being because this stage does not include people’s reactions to their world. Nevertheless, because objective events are often the initial targets of subjective evaluations, they appear as the first step of our conceptual temporal sequence. The second stage involves the emotional responses to the events. Emotional reactions involve multiple components, such as cognitive appraisal, physiological reactions, and behavioral tendencies. On-line recording of reactions, both in the laboratory and in the natural world, have been used to assess SWB at this stage. The experience sampling method invented by (Csikszentmihalyi and Larsen, 1978) has been particularly popular for obtaining self-reports of on-line emotional reactions.. 19.

(30) 2.3 Wealth and Happiness across the World Ed Diener, Weiting Ng, James Harter and Rashka Arora, 2009. Types of well–being, they found that life satisfaction, pleasant emotions and unpleasant emotions form distinct factors, so they analyzed 3 types of subjective well–being that included: which assess global life evaluations; positive feelings (enjoyment, and smiling or laughing); and negative feelings (anger, sadness, worry, and depression). So, in the basis of (Scitovsky 1978) they predicted life satisfaction might be more strongly related to income, positive feelings to social psychological rewards, and negative emotions inversely to the fulfillment of basic needs. As they examined the fulfillment of physical and psychological needs as possible mediators, many people who wrote about money and well–being they assume that the relation exist because income allows people to fulfill their physical needs for food and shelter as well. Previous researchers suggested that the stronger association between money and well–being at lower income levels indicates the importance of basic needs to the income and well–being relation (Howell & Howell, 2008). In recent decades, a number of theories have fleshed out psychological needs beyond basic physical needs. Some argued that there are three universal psychological needs (Ryan & Deci, 2000) for autonomy, competence, and social relationships, and (Ryff, 1989) suggested six psychological needs for self–acceptance, positive relations with others autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. Another reason that income might be related to well–being is that people learn to desire material goods and the fulfillment of desires leads to feelings of well-being, regardless of whether needs are met. The researchers found that in a report of high life satisfaction even though they live in a dung house without running water electricity or any other type of modern conveniences, and some others similarly, are 20.

(31) reasonably happy even though they live without electricity and automobiles. In addition, (Biswass and Diener 2001) showed that even some extremely poor people in the slums of a part of India report subjective well-being above neutral. In this study, they had several proxy measures to assess fulfillment of material desires. There was a measure of whether people felt satisfied with their standard of living, so if the satisfaction with their standard of living predicts well-being beyond the effects of need fulfillment it will suggest it is an important mediator. Then, they had measures of whether people own luxury conveniences that are widely desired but not necessary for survival, such as televisions, computers, and internet, so if they find that possessing these type of items predicts well-being, it will suggest that desires can influence well-being beyond the fulfillment of basic needs. In addition to the effects of household income, we examined the impact of people’s income positions within their societies. A potential reason for the income and happiness association is that money might bestow status and respect on people. Earning more money than others could have value above and beyond the goods that money can buy because a person’s position regarding money might be a cause of status, and sometimes people might evaluate their material lives largely by judging how they compare with those around them. They presented that the rank order from selected nations of the world, whereas Northern European and Anglo societies are currently more successful in the economic area, Latin societies appear to be relatively high in social psychological well-being. Although certain nations such as Denmark achieve consistently high scores across measures, and no nation is the happiest in the sense of being first on all measures of prosperity and well-being. For instance, Russia and South Korea are substantially lower in social psychological prosperity and in positive feelings than they are in income. In contrast, Costa Rica ranks much higher in social psychological 21.

(32) prosperity and positive feelings than it does on income. In general, the former Soviet Union bloc nations have greater economic than social psychological prosperity, whereas Central America and certain African nations have greater social psychological than economic prosperities. The findings are consistent with the conclusions, they found that long-term income changes are more related to changes in life evaluations than to changes in positive and negative feelings. They found the strongest mediation between income and life evaluations by satisfaction with the standard of living. There were weaker income pathways for all of our mediating variables for feelings, in part because feelings were not highly associated with income in the first place. Instead, feelings were most strongly associated with psychological prosperity, and there are some circumstances related to income that might substantially influence people’s life satisfaction. They started the question of why money is associated with well-being. Money is an object that many or most people desire and pursue during the majority of their waking hours. So, their possibility is that people and societies with frequent positive feelings might develop stronger relationships, (Fredrickson and Joiner, 2002). Similarly, people who are enjoying themselves might feel that they are autonomous, learning new things, and doing their best. Indeed, they suggested that it is when people feel positive that they are most likely to develop resources for the future, for example, by learning new things and by strengthening social ties. And other example, from the social psychological point, people experience more positive feelings on average when they are with others than when alone. (Pavot and Diener, 1990). Contrary to both those who say money is not associated with happiness and those who say that it is extremely important, we found that money is much more related to some forms of well-being than it is to others. Income is most strongly associated 22.

(33) with the life evaluation form of well-being, which is a reflective judgment on people’s lives compared with what they want them to be. Although statistically significant, the association of income with, we also discovered that social psychological prosperity is very important to positive feelings. Some nations that do well in economic terms do only modestly well in social psychological prosperity, and some nations that rank in the middle in economic development are stars when it comes to social psychological prosperity.. 23.

(34) 2.4 Money and Happiness: Rank of Income, not income, affects Life Satisfaction Christopher Boyce, Gordon Brown, 2009. Is there a true causal relation between money and happiness? According to conventional economics, there is: Money can buy happiness because it can be exchanged for goods that will increase an individual’s utility. Thus money and happiness are assumed to be causally linked, and higher incomes should lead to greater happiness. In line with this absolute income hypothesis richer people are happier than those that have less within the same society (Diener, 1984). The correlation between money and happiness is often small, but effect sizes are larger in low-income developing economies (Howell & Howell, 2008) and even small correlations can reflect substantial real differences in happiness. And the presence of high earning individuals, either in the workplace or neighborhood, reduces satisfaction (Blanchflower & Oswald, 2004). Based on more than 80,000 observations the relative rank of an individual’s income predicts the individual’s general life satisfaction after controlling for other variables and completely removes the effect of absolute income. When it was assumed that individuals compare themselves to smaller reference groups, relative rank of income continues to dominate life satisfaction although an additional small reference group mean income effect was also found. Results suggest that individuals sample from a reference group and compare their own income with sample incomes ordinally, satisfaction is gained from each “better than another” comparison and lost for each “worse than another” comparison.. 24.

(35) 2.5 How Money can work in different Cultures Alexander, Dionne. Philanthropy.com (2012).. When we are in the business and talking about investing, lending, or giving in diverse communities, we must do better at increasing our understanding of how culture matters in the handling of money, because, many of the inequities that philanthropy seeks to eliminate are rooted in cultural bias, and many of the opportunities for change are rooted in cultural awareness. For example, those who work with African or Caribbean communities should know that some collectors are popular in these cultures, and they made the idea of giving small loans popular long before microfinance became trendy. And if we work with Muslim communities, we must understand that Islamic law, known as Sharia, prohibits the acceptance or payment of interest fees on loans. But it takes a lot more than knowing such terms. We must become familiar with the cultural influences that affect how people and institutions aggregate, deploy, and discuss money. The notion of wealth itself can be a cultural construct. For example, some Native American or indigenous peoples operate in a “gift economy” in which people give valuable goods and services to others without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Wealth in this case is derived as much from distribution, be it money, time, or knowledge. Even a seemingly simple offer of financial support may have cultural significance. First, the person making the offer needs to know who has the power to call the community to action or response. In some Asian cultures such called “clans,” or a group of families or households, makes decisions about the welfare of the community, determining resource requirements and allocations. For many Hispanic, 25.

(36) Latino, or Chicano communities (yes, how people identify themselves is important), the church often takes leadership in acquiring and dispensing financial support. A study made in 2010 from Brandeis University, reported that the typical white family is now five times richer than its African-American counterpart of the same class and that black wealth was largely stagnant from 1984 to 2007. But in spite of income disparities, African-Americans have a long and storied history of giving. They formed mutual-aid societies in the early 19th century to finance businesses, schools, and hospitals. As Kelley D. Gulley, president of the National Community Development Institute, says, “Giving can’t always be defined by just what you deposit in the bank. The knowledge and work of some community leaders is worth more than gold.”. 26.

(37) 2.6 Differences between Chinese and the Latino Cultures on handling Money Karina, Youth Voices, 2012. Every culture is different in many ways, and now that money has become an issue in societies we really don’t think about how they handle money, and why not think about the different cultures and how they spend their money? Let's look at two cultures for example, like the differences between the Chinese and the Latinos. The Latinos tends to spend and not really save that much while the Chinese save every penny they get. How do different cultures interact with money? This has to do with the use of money and the economy. I just wanted to elevate my topic and find out more things to it. How do different cultures deal with the use of money? Are the different cultures selfish, caring and other sorts of emotions towards that topic? Some of the studies say that in the African-American societies, they most likely like to give and help out. They love to give and share. The Hispanics are in the same areas as the African-Americans. They would do fundraisers to help the communities and build a better place for their people. A source that they looked into is called “What happens when different cultures interact?”, and basically what this talks about is that an economist did a couple of studies focused on which economic institutions work well. It came out saying that they all worked pretty well. But it said that the Chinese has more reliable and a better management in their area. They came out to be more successful in this field. (Hirokazu, T. (2003) what happens when different cultures interact?) To sum this all up, the research that came across is all accurate and I understand where it's all coming from. Because at the end of the day different cultures handle 27.

(38) their money differently. So I think that in every area is really different, and have different ways of understandings on how money is handled and its probably because our religion or something else in each of our cultures. In Dionne Alexander’s article, “Understanding How Money Works In Different Cultures,” when Alexander considers the issue of money, some might wonder how this author can compare different cultures and how they deal with money. Dionne Alexander addresses this question because we need to understand how different cultures feel about having a lot of money and what to do with it. How they would handle it and other sorts of questions like these, “But if we are in the business of investing, lending or giving in diverse communities, we must do better at increasing and understanding of how culture matters in the handling of money.” This is basically saying that we the people need to understand all the different cultures and what they think about money when they handle it. What do they do with their money when they have a lot? This might make us wonder who is really helping us out in our communities. Is it the Blacks or the Whites more? Another point that Dionne makes was: “We must become familiar with the cultural influences that affect how people and institutions aggregate, deploy and discuss money.” You can notice the different cultures and see the differences between the money handling and really point out who cares. Some of this comes to different religions. Maybe it's the different religions that different cultures have. And the way they treat money and what it's worth. If you're a Christian, you might give a lot and help your church and so forth. They might have a lot of fundraisers as well to help the community. As for the Chinese they like to save as much as possible. The saving rates are higher than it is in the United States, 28.

(39) I learned from my studies. And they mostly pay for things in cash. So these are just some things I learned from my own studies, and this tells me a little bit more about the difference in money handling from different cultures. These are just two though. Different cultures and societies, like different individuals, simply do, in fact have very different moral values. So very different morals meaning like, maybe they believe in things that other cultures don’t believe in. So that's when they use their money differently. Religion has a powerful effect on a cultures moral reasoning. And they really stick to it. Like Muslims doesn't allow their women to show their face and some American people would be furious about that, but they can’t do anything about it because that's not their religion. I'm learning more about if the Chinese cultures and the Hispanic culture handles money differently or the same. My opinion on this question is that I think they handle money differently if you ask me. When researching this question online and this article came up and caught my attention because it tells you what Chinese people use money for and what is important for them. (“Chinese Money Habits-How my culture Influences My Attitude towards Money” (Lu, 2008)) “The personal savings rate in China is incredibly high compared to the United States.” The quote she chose here is basically saying that the difference in savings are high because with the Chinese, that's all they do is save all the money they get. And that's a good thing that Latinos need to learn is to save so that later on in life, we don't have to worry about anything. This really indicates that the Chinese saves more than anyone because that's all they do. And Americans and Latinos have to learn how to save because if not we won't have any money to fall on or for rainy days. When we really going to need it, we 29.

(40) aren't going to have it because we haven't saved a dime. And being Hispanics, most of them they don't like saving and like to spend all the money they lay hands on. Another article that caught every one eyes, because this article gives some specific details on what this person saw in China and how is money being spent over there. Being that this person went all the way to china to observe, she knows what is going on over there. (“What do the Chinese spend money on?” (LU, 2012)) “Chinese public schools are not free through the 12th grade.” The quote is talking about when it comes to education in school, they have to pay. Even for public school until 12th grade, you have to pay. In the United States it's free. That's how you know the Chinese don't play any games when it comes to education because they can't afford to fail. And last but not least, another article, it tells us that Latino families help each other out and send money to their countries more often than other groups of people. (“Latinos and Remittances” (Suro)) “Over the past two years Wells Fargo, as well as many other financial institutions, have launched initiatives to capture a larger share of the Latino immigrant market.” Basically this quote tells that Latinos really help out their relatives even if they are left back in their countries. So the United States made a bank that specifically does that for the Latinos because they know that a lot of remittances occur in their culture. So the bank made it easier for them to send. In conclusion, this research really opened my eyes on the way money is handled differently in the hands of Chinese-Americans and Latinos. I learned many different things on the questions I asked. Money is really handled differently. My research told me that the Chinese saves more than the Latinos do, and that's a fact. There's a 30.

(41) lot of remittances taking place for the Latinos other than the Chinese. I hope to learn more on other cultures besides the Chinese and Latinos. Maybe there are other different facts we can know about.. 31.

(42) 2.7 Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Geert Hofstede, 2011. Culture has been defined in many ways; this author’s shorthand definition is: "Culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others". It is always a collective phenomenon, but it can be connected to different collectives. Within each collective there is a variety of individuals. If characteristics of individuals are imagined as varying according to some bell curve; the variation between cultures is the shift of the bell curve when one moves from one society to the other. Most commonly the term culture is used for tribes or ethnic groups (in anthropology), for nations (in political science, sociology and management), and for organizations (in sociology and management). A relatively unexplored field is the culture of occupations (for instance, of engineers versus accountants, or of academics from different disciplines). The term can also be applied to the genders, to generations, or to social classes. However, changing the level of aggregation studied changes the nature of the concept of ‘culture’. Societal, national and gender cultures, which children acquire from their earliest youth onwards, are much deeper rooted in the human mind than occupational cultures acquired at school, or than organizational cultures acquired on the job. The latter are exchangeable when people take a new job. Societal cultures reside in (often unconscious) values, in the sense of broad tendencies to prefer certain states of affairs over others (Hofstede, 2001, p. 5). Organizational cultures reside rather in (visible and conscious) practices: the way people perceive what goes on in their organizational environment. In the 1970s this author (Raymond Cattell) – more or less by accident – got access to a large survey database about values and related sentiments of people in 32.

(43) over 50 countries around the world (Hofstede, 1980). One of the weaknesses of much cross-cultural research is not recognizing the difference between analysis at the societal level and at the individual level; this amounts to confusing anthropology and psychology. From 180 studies using this work reviewed by Kirkman, Lowe, and Gibson (2006), more than half failed to distinguish between societal culture level and individual level differences, which led to numerous errors of interpretation and application. The four basic problem areas defined by Inkeles and Levinson (1969) and empirically supported in the IBM data represent dimensions of national cultures. A dimension is an aspect of a culture that can be measured relative to other cultures. The four dimensions formed the basis for this book Culture’s Consequences (Hofstede, 1980). The main message of the 1980 book was that scores on the dimensions correlated significantly with conceptually related external data. Thus Power Distance scores correlated with a dimension from Gregg and Banks’ (1965) analysis of political systems and also with a dimension from Adelman and Morris’ (1967) study of economic development; Uncertainty Avoidance correlated with a dimension from Lynn and Hampson’s (1975) study of mental health; Individualism correlated strongly with national wealth (Gross National Product per capita) and Femininity with the percentage of national income spent on development aid. The number of external validations kept expanding, and the second edition of Culture’s Consequences (Hofstede, 2001, Appendix 6, pp. 503-520) and it lists more than 400 significant correlations between the IBM-based scores and results of other studies. Recent validations show no loss of validity, indicating that the country differences these dimensions describe are, indeed, basic and enduring.. 33.

(44) In the 1980s, on the basis of research by Canadian psychologist Michael Harris Bond centered in the Far East, a fifth dimension ‘Long-Term versus Short-Term Orientation’ was added (Hofstede & Bond, 1988; see also Hofstede, 1991; Hofstede, 2001).. In the 2000s, research by Bulgarian scholar Michael Minkov using data from the World Values Survey (Minkov, 2007) allowed a new calculation of the fifth, and the addition of a sixth dimension (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010). The six dimensions are labelled: 1. Power Distance, related to the different solutions to the basic problem of human inequality;. 2. Uncertainty Avoidance, related to the level of stress in a society in the face of an unknown future;. 3. Individualism versus Collectivism, related to the integration of individuals into primary groups;. 4. Masculinity versus Femininity, related to the division of emotional roles between women and men;. 5. Long Term versus Short Term Orientation, related to the choice of focus for people's efforts: the future or the present and past.. 6. Indulgence versus Restraint, related to the gratification versus control of basic human desires related to enjoying life. 34.

(45) After the initial confirmation of the country differences in IBM in data from management trainees elsewhere, the Hofstede dimensions and country scores were validated through replications by others, using the same or similar questions with other cross-national populations. Between 1990 and 2002 six major replications (14 or more countries) used populations of country elites, employees and managers of other corporations and organizations, airline pilots, consumers and civil servants (see Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 35). In correlating the dimensions with other data, the influence of national wealth (Gross National Product per capita) should always be taken into account. Two of the dimensions, Individualism and small Power Distance, are significantly correlated with wealth. This means that all wealth-related phenomena tend to correlate with both these dimensions. Differences in national wealth can be considered a more parsimonious explanation of these other phenomena than differences in culture. In correlating with the culture dimensions, it is therefore advisable to always include the wealth variable. After controlling for national wealth correlations with culture usually disappear. Of particular interest is a link that was found between culture according to the Hofstede dimensions and personality dimensions according to the empirically based Big Five personality test (Costa & McCrae, 1992). After this test had been used in over 30 countries, significant correlations were found between country norms on the five personality dimensions (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) and national culture dimension scores. For example, 55% of country differences on Neuroticism can be explained by a combination of Uncertainty Avoidance and Masculinity, and 39% of country differences on Extraversion by Individualism alone (Hofstede & McCrae, 2004). So culture and personality are linked but the link is statistical; there is a wide. 35.

(46) variety of individual personalities within each national culture, and national culture scores should not be used for stereotyping individuals. The Hofstede Dimensions In this section, will summarize the content of each dimension opposing cultures with low and high scores. These oppositions are based on correlations with studies by others, and because the relationship is statistical, not every line applies equally strongly to every country.. Power Distance Power Distance has been defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society. All societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others.. Uncertainty Avoidance Uncertainty Avoidance is not the same as risk avoidance; it deals with a society's tolerance for ambiguity. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, and different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict behavioral codes, laws and rules, disapproval of deviant opinions, and a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'.. 36.

(47) Research has shown that people in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty accepting cultures, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they try to have fewer rules, and on the philosophical and religious level they are empiricist, relativist and allow different currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions. Individualism Individualism on the one side versus its opposite, Collectivism, as a societal, not an individual characteristic, is the degree to which people in a society are integrated into groups. On the individualist side we find cultures in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side we find cultures in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) that continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty, and oppose other in groups. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world. Table 3 lists a selection of differences between societies that validation research showed to be associated with this dimension. Masculinity – Femininity Masculinity versus its opposite, Femininity, again as a societal, not as an individual characteristic, refers to the distribution of values between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society, to which a range of solutions can be found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women's values differ less among societies than men's values; (b) men's values from one country to another contain a 37.