Cultural Differences

Cultural Difference is an elusive term. Everyone talks about it and yet no one knows exactly what it means. If you have lived in international cities like London or New York where a hotpot of people from all over the world gather, cultural differences are obvious. But if you live in a small village surrounded by family and neighbours whom you see every day, cultural differences mean very little to you. When you are submerged in a certain culture all your life, it is difficult to see how differently people from other parts of the world act. Unless you travel and experience new cultures, you believe your own culture to be normal and even morally superior to others.

To understand cultural differences, I want you to imagine this. Imagine there are infinite behaviours, beliefs, interactions and rules. Imagine there are infinite ways of respecting each other, infinite ways of loving each other, infinite ways of trading with each other, infinite ways of extracting resources from the environment, infinite ways of expressing one’s emotions, handling conflict, balancing selfish desires with group desires etc. What the culture does is restrict these infinities to broad frameworks of acceptable boundaries and behaviours that have served well in the current time and space. These acceptable behaviours are a result of the people’s mode of existence, whether they are hunter gatherers, farmers, nomads or city dwellers. What habitats they happen to occupy, people who live in the desert act very differently to the people who live near the sea. Even people from the same country have different cultural values depending on where they live. The people from the North of England act differently to the Southerners. The Midwest of the United States have vastly different values to the Coastal States. North Korea vs South Korea. The historical accidents and challenges that people have forgotten but the solutions to these challenges stuck around even though they have become irrelevant in the modern age. The economic status of the culture also tend to behave similarly. The GDP per capita is a good predictor of what cultural values are similar and which ones are not acceptable. Some cultural values were born from superstitious beliefs because the people were observing a pattern in the environment or in the human interactions but they couldn’t understand the underlying causes of these patterns. So a superstitious belief was adopted to make sense of it and cultural values were adopted to avoid the dangers. Some cultures allow a wider variety of behaviours while other cultures are more restrictive. The restrictive cultures have clear rules of rewards and punishments associated with certain behaviours. The less restrictive cultures allow unique personality traits and talents to emerge at the cost of the collective values.

Of course how the culture is transmitted is not top down but bottom up. There were cases in history where a few powerful individuals want to enforce the culture they believe to be true and moral, then they spread these rules on a top down approach. Most of these attempts have failed because they have failed to understand that culture always comes from the people. The Roman Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity and spread its cultural values across the empire even though the old Roman values were vastly different. Alexander the Great on his conquest to take over Asia, spread the Greek culture across Egpyt, Persia, Central Asia and all the way to Afghanistan. After his death, the areas he conquered quickly changed back to the cultural values they have always had. The Soviet state enforced one language program across the entire region in the 20th century which caused the children to be disconnected from their local tribal values and were forced to separate from their families in order to learn the Russian language in a state-sponsored school. A similar thing happened to the Native Americans. In recent memory, the US invaded Afghanistan and enforced democracy and freedom in a region where these values were too foreign and made no sense to them. Afghanistan is a heavily mountainous region with small pockets of tribes and settlements scattered across the country. Top down enforcement like that will never work in such a region where local warlords have huge influence due to their understanding of the environment and the local values. When a culture is enforced by top down authority in a short time window, people will always resist them. Some people are willing to die for their beliefs and values. Some fusion of cultures have been successful like when the Vikings came to conquer the North of England and successfully assimilated into the local culture. We see this when the Odin mythology from the Vikings mixed with the Christian mythology of the Cross. The new myth states that Odin tried to hang himself on a magical tree while doing the cross like Jesus. This myth didn’t exist before the Vikings invaded England. Many languages also have roots from other cultures which explains the cultural influences the language has experienced. The English language has roots from the French, Latin, Greek etc. Many Spanish words come from Arabic. There is another thing. Some cultures are too extreme and brush against primal human instincts and desires. They are also rejected eventually because it is not sustainable. Imagine a culture which foolishly forbids all preganancies and childbirth, it will die out in one generation.

It’s because cultural values are transmitted from mother to child. Mothers are the true custodians of culture. The way a mother sings a lullaby to her baby, the way she moves her baby, the way she hugs her baby, the way she teaches the rules of politeness, the way she rewards or punishes are all indirectly transmitting her cultural values to the child. When the child is older, the father impose additional boundaries and behaviours that are acceptable in the wider society. When to sleep, when to play fair, when to control one’s emotions and aggression etc. A mother transmits the culture while a father enforces its boundaries. If a child is growing up in bigger family structures, they will also imitate their uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. Let’s say a child receives contradictory teachings from the father and the uncle. The child resolves this contradiction by adopting the value that benefits them in the current moment. A child’s brain goes through a process of neural pruning during its development, creation through negation. Think of a marble sculpture. The artist removes (negate) marble pieces from a block until a shape that he has intended reveals (create) itself. The brain does a similar thing. It actively removes the neural connections that serve little purpose or will be punished in a culture while reinforcing the neural connections that are rewarded by the adult figures. An highly expressive child is encouraged in a culture where emotional expressiveness is celebrated while the same child would be punished in a culture where emotional self-control is emphasized. A shy child in one extraverted society will not fit in while the other society treats shyness as a virtue of purity. In other words, the family structure is a microcosm of society. By the time a child is old enough to enter society, they have successfully learned all of the cultural values from the family system. If a child lacks a family structure and grew up without one in single mother households for example, they are dangerously unprepared for the challenges imposed by the culture.

Once a child reaches puberty, they go through a new stage of development and experimentation. It is not enough that the cultural values taught by the family will serve current environmental challenges. So the teenagers chaotically experiment with new behaviours in order to see which ones are successful and which ones fail because they are going through a second stage of neural pruning. They are also the most likely to cause disruption, the most likely to commit a crime. They heavily enforce certain rules towards each other. A child who can adapt easily and is liked by others tends to do well. While an awkward child is an easy target for bullying. The desire to fit in and the fear of embarrassment are learned during this stage. After all the developments in puberty are established, a new culture emerges. If the environment is stable, the new culture will look just slightly different to the old one. However if the environment is unstable and changing quickly like how we see with incredible technological advancements in the 21st century, the new culture will be very different to the one where the grandparents grew up in. The only way a cultural change happens is when the old people who had old traditions die off and the new generation with new values becomes adults. When they become parents, they then transmit their values to the next generation. The cycle continues.

At this point, you might be thinking. Alright, alright, this is all nice and philosophical. How can I use this information? I impore you to be patient, I will give you practical information as well. Ok so after a cultural system has imprinted on the mind of a person, it is hard to budge. This is where we see cultural misunderstandings, frustrations and conflicts when we have to interact with people from other cultures whom share little resemblance to our values. Especially when we live in cities. The biggest misunderstanding happens when you happen to love someone from a different culture and find their behaviours to be both amusing and frustrating. Other misunderstandings happen when you are forced to work with people from other cultures and some of them struggle to communicate effectively. Language barrier is an additional challenge. From the cultural research in the last two decades, a clear pattern of differences exist between cultures. This information is highly useful if you have to regularly deal with international workers or markets. There are around eleven categories of differences that exist on a spectrum. I recommend you check out a book called The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. What matters is not absolute cultural difference but relative differences are more important. While we are going through them, I encourage you to have an open mind and not judge other cultural values in a moral way. It’s better to listen to people’s inclinations and values before jumping to a moral conclusion. The goal is to adapt to their values and not to change them. We have already established that changing cultural values is a bottom up process which takes decades to manifest.

The ten categories of cultural differences are:

Authority and Power
Decision-Making
Communication Style
Delivering Negative Feedback
The Art of Persuasion
Building Trust
Disagreements and Conflicts
Emotional Expressiveness
Time Importance
Individualistic vs Collectivist
Feminine vs Masculine

I have recreated the cultural map research into this easy to understand document: https://my.visme.co/view/n0q7e8r3-cultural-map-for-business-expansion Please use this for reference as I explain each category below.

Authority and power

The first big difference between cultures is how they view authority and power dynamics. Some cultures are highly egalitarian while others are hierarchical. Hierarchies exist across different domains of endeavours. How strong someone is, how creative someone is, how famous someone is, how influential someone is, how rich someone is, how intelligent someone is. Hierarchies emerge when certain traits of individuals allow them to win the game in a specific domain. The people at the top of a hierarchy are highly respected and sometimes even feared. While the people at the bottom of a hierarchy do not have the luxury or access to resources. In egalitarian cultures like Sweden, Netherlands and Canada, the authority figures tend to blend in easily with people from lower in the hierarchy. In the business environment, they tend to communicate equally with everyone in the team. However in more hierarchical cultures like in Japan, Russia and Saudi Arabia, there is a big divide between authority figures at the top and the people below. The big guys tend not to socialize with those at the lower rung of the ladder. Interestingly, criminal organizations like the mafia and the yakuza follow a more hierarchical system compared to most western corporate culture. Whatever the mafia patriarch says is truth. If he says red wine is white wine, the members of his family must accept that the wine is white even if it looks or taste like red. You have to outsource even your own perceptions to the perception of the authority figure.

Decision-making

How a group of people make a decision is also a reflection of its culture. Some cultures use consensual decision making process while others use more of a top down approach. Or a combination of both. The Nordic countries are famous for having consensual decision making model in business and in personal life. The decision will not move forward until everyone in the team has agreed to the same outcome. Of course this ensures that every person’s perspective is heard but it also takes a lot of time to come up with a decision. In other cultures like France, Brazil, China, the person in charge usually make the decision with some input from the team or sometimes without informing the team. Many decisions are made quickly when one person is making them but there is a caveat. They are also accountable for any bad outcomes that come with their decision. They are in the position of power because of their expertise, competence and experience. If they screw up, they alone have to take the responsibility.

Communication style

Communication is where things get tricky. It is the most common issue when people from different cultures interact. In some cultures and languages like the US, Australia and Germany, there is precision and no room for ambiguity in the communication. What you say is what you mean. But in other cultures like Korea, Japan, India, there are contextual clues within the communication that are not explicitly stated in the words themselves. They could be the things unsaid, they could be the tone of voice, how you moved your head or eyebrows, how you moved your hands or posture. If you are not aware of these high contextual clues, you will very likely be confused by their messages. There is cultural relativity here as well. For example, the people from the US and the UK will think the Japanese communication is too confusing while at the same time the Americans think the British communication is just as mysterious. Even though the US and the UK both speak English, the way they use the language is different. The British tend to be more implicit, make indirect backhanded comments as well as deliver sarcastic statements with a deadpan face. The Americans become confused or frustrated by mysterious British signals.

Delivering negative feedback

One of the most uncomfortable things to do in life is to give criticism to someone who has done something wrong or who have failed your expectation. Negative feedback is always charged with emotion because it is a form of rejection as well as exposing shame in someone. So some cultures are very careful with how they deliver negative feedback. For example, the Japanese culture value group harmony so much that they will avoid saying any negative feedback at all to each other but they will leave subtle unspoken hints about their displeasure. It is also considered very rude to give criticism to an authority figure. On the other hand, the British people have made it a national pastime to constantly berate and criticize their politicians that they themselves have voted into government. It is quite a comical scene. People from the Netherlands and Germany tend to give negative feedback directly to your face in front of the group. There is no hard feelings because what matters is how you grow from the feedback.

The Art of Persuasion

In the theory-first cultures like France and Italy, the theories and principles of a concept is more important to them. If you want to persuade them, change their theory and perspective first. Only after you convince them of the principles, you should present facts and results. They are cautious to apply a new technology or product if they don't understand the theory behind it. In application-first cultures like the US and Denmark, facts, economic numbers and statements are presented first. If it works on the application level, it is accepted. Theories will bore them and feels pointless if it is not tested yet even if the theories are accurate. Executive summaries and bullet points are preferred and most discussions are practical based on how to apply the product or an idea.

Building trust

How people view their professional relationships and friendships are also deeply cultural. Some cultures divide the work and life into strict boundaries while other cultures treat them as the same. In task-based cultures like the US, Finland, Germany, there is a big divide between work and personal life. If you prove yourself competent and easy to work with, trust is gained. What you do in your personal life is of little concern to the people of these cultures as long as you do your job well. This also means you can easily lose trust if you screw up even if you have proven yourself time and time again. The topic of discussion when work colleagues meet is to strictly talk about work. When asked about their personal life, they often give vague answers and never share the details. In the relationship based cultures like India, Mexico, the Gulf states, friendship and work relationships are one and the same. Unless you befriend them and spend time with them by sharing activities, you will not gain their trust even if you are the best at your job. Once you have entered the inner circle, you will receive special treatment and some mistakes are tolerated. When people meet, they talk about all kinds of personal topics and share details of their lives with one another. Work discussion is just one of the topic that usually happens near the end of a meeting.

Disagreements and Conflicts

Similar to giving negative feedback, how people confront disagreements and resolve conflicts come from their cultural values. Conflict always happens in any human interaction because every person has different needs and desires as well as ideas of how things should work in the world. In avoidance cultures like Japan, Thailand, Sweden, they find conflicts highly stressful and tend to avoid them as much as possible. Sometimes protecting the relationship is more important than the desire to be right. Some cultures are also sensitive about where the conflict takes place. Is it one-to-one or is it happening in front of a group or strangers? Open confrontation to someone in front of a group of shared friends is not acceptable. While in other cultures, open confrontation is how things get resolved. People from Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe tend to argue passionately with a loud voice. It seems like they are shouting past one another but a little while later they are completely fine and eating together like nothing happened. There is little risk to a relationship after a conflict in these cultures.

emotional expressiveness

Similarly, the Spanish, the Italians, the Indians and the South Americans are very expressive with their emotions. They have stronger reactions to joy, anger and sadness. They use big expressive words as well as big gestures to express their emotions. If you don’t mirror their emotions with a similar intensity, they will not feel connected to you. They will think you are a boring person. This probably means that you are from a culture where emotional expressiveness tend to be subtle and controlled. Countries like Japan, Sweden and China discourage people from expressing too much. They will think of it as a sign of weakness and disgust. A little smile in China is interpreted as a big approval while a smile in Italy is just a neutral expression.

Time Importance

A country like Germany is famous for keeping to their time. If you are late to a meeting by even five minutes, the Germans will feel insulted by your tardiness. While the British people are more flexible like if you are late by 10 min to 15 min, they won’t make a fuss. However they will feel insulted if you make spontaneous plans with them. Family meetings, date nights, vacations are all planned weeks or months in advance. There is little room for spontaneity. While in Kenya, Burma and India, the meeting time is just a suggestion. If they say the meeting is at 1 p.m expect them to show up at 3 p.m or 6 p.m. However they are masters at making spontaneous plans. It is not abnormal for people to make a vacation plan on the day to go somewhere like a beach for a week. All previous plans are cancelled to accomodate for this new plan.

Individualistic vs Collectivist

Individualistic cultures like most western cultures tend to value independence, freedom and pursuing one's own happiness. The choices regarding career or relationships are made by the individual himself/herself. These cultures also value privacy and personal space. It is not expected in these cultures to make sacrifices for one's family or group. There is a historical significance of the arrival of central heating coinciding with individualist cultural shift in the west. In the past during winter times, the people who live in the same house have to sleep close to a fireplace and huddle together for warmth. However after the central heating was developed, it allowed individuals in the family to have their own rooms. After one generation, personal choice and responsibility became the dominant value. Belonging cultures on the other hand tend to value family, loyalty and sacrifice. Selfish desires are looked down upon and it is important for people to make their family proud of them. The bloodline and family reputation is highly important for people from Bengladesh, Qatar, Korea and Argentina. When people interact, they tend to be physically close and touch each other often. Everyone in the country is perceived as part of one big family. Strangers in Korea for example can be called as aunties, uncles, brothers or sisters. Collectivist cultures tend to thrive in hostile environments like the deserts or disaster prone regions.

Feminine vs masculine

Feminine cultures like in the Nordic countries or the coastal states in the US value traits of empathy, equality, caring for others and cooperation. Men and women are expected to be treated equally and there are no strict rules on how to socialize with the opposite gender. Women are encouraged to build their careers and there are no strict gender roles when having a family. Also women are encouraged to pursue multiple sexual partners in her lifetime. It is not uncommon for a woman to have multiple children with each child having a different father. Resources are distributed more equally across social classes in feminine cultures with high taxes and a welfare state. Masculine cultures like the Midwest US states, Hungary, Pakistan, Japan value traits of loyalty, honour, toughness (both physical and mental) and competition. Winner takes all approach is common in these countries. There are strict rules on how to socialize between men and women especially if they are married. There are also traditional gender roles when it comes to family. In Masculine cultures, successful men tend to have multiple wives or sexual partners while he has responsibility over all of his women and children.

After exploring these cultural differences, I hope they have given you practical strategies on how to interact, influence and win over people from other cultures. If you are in a relationship with someone whose culture is different to yours, I hope you will be more empathetic to their behaviours and perhaps this could be a good topic to discuss with them. It is important to divide behaviours that come from their personality traits and behaviours that come from their culture. Some behaviours can be improved while others are hard-wired in the brain. Even though we have been talking about differences between people, is it possible for an individual to have multiple cultural differences within his or her own identity? For example first generation immigrants. Since I am a first generation immigrant, I can only give my own experience. A bit of my background, I was born in Myanmar and grew up there until I was 13 years old when I permanently moved to Sweden. My teenage years were spent mostly in Sweden and now I am living in the UK as an adult. I have observed within myself a unique mix of cultural values in the way I interact with people or how I see the world. For example, my family values, relationship values and love values are deeply linked to my Burmese heritage. While my scientific practical worldview is something I inherited from the Swedish culture. I am also not afraid to interact with authority figures like how it is encouraged in Sweden. I also tend to be more egalitarian in my leadership style. However my emotional expressiveness is higher because people from Myanmar tend to have big expressions. Honestly I had a lot of trouble adapting to the new culture when I was young but after a decade or so, it became second nature. I am also able to spot cultural differences very quickly in others which is a skill I am proud of. Because of differences that exist within me, I am able to adapt quickly to new people and become friends with them easily. I am grateful for the life I have had since.