So they might offer, say, 10 out of the 100. And the whole point about negotiation is you figure out what is your highest priority in the situation, what domain is so important for you in terms of your tightness or your looseness, and then negotiate accordingly. Freaknomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is the book for readers who run screaming at the thought of cracking open a book with the word "economics" in the title. HOFSTEDE: Thats my idea. Not necessarily better or worse but very different. That, again, is the American culture scholar Joe Henrich. You could ask people, What do you like to eat? The more collectivistic they are, the more likely they are to talk about their grandmother and what she made, and theyre less likely to start entirely on their own diet. 493 Update) Adam Smith famously argued that specialization is the key to prosperity. So, yeah, that is WEIRD. This episode was produced byBrent Katz. Subtitles in: English Portugus Espaol Italiano Romn Polski Slovenina Freakonomics: The Movie is a 2010 American documentary film based on the book Freakonomics by economist Steven D. Levitt and writer Stephen J. Dubner. It also is related to obesity. Its all the levels in the organization. Weve interviewed dozens of academic researchers about lowering healthcare costs or improving access to childcare or building smarter infrastructure or creating a more equitable economy. In our previous episode, we made what may sound like a bold claim. Factor analysis being a way to distill a large number of variables into an index, essentially a ranking. And yes, well talk about what makes America, America at least as seen through the eyes of Kumail Nanjiani, who was born in Pakistan. I mean, youve got your quota, as have we all, but youre not. This realization is what led us to todays episode of Freakonomics Radio. She decided that the key difference, the right place to start measuring, was whether the culture in a given country is tight or loose. Nevertheless, you might be able to intentionally create pockets of looseness so you can have more balance. The U.S. is just different from other places in a variety of ways that we often dont stop to think about. GELFAND: I do work with the U.S. Navy and other organizations that are trying to have that kind of balance. In each chapter, the authors analyze a different social issue from an economic perspective. Chronic threat meaning a country is prone to natural disasters, or disease, or hostile invaders. Theyre not supposed to be the boss. And if you get crumbs in your pajamas, theyll make you itch. Scholars in this realm have a general agreement on what culture is and what its not. making a claim about his individual experiences and looking for evidence. GELFAND: This has always been the big question, that with the internet and globalization were going to become more similar. If you wanted to reduce this to a slogan of Americanism, it might be something like: I am me, deal with it. This fits quite snugly with the fact that the U.S. has been found to be the most individualistic culture in the world. As advertised!. Our staff also includesAlison Craiglow,Greg Rippin,Joel Meyer,Tricia Bobeda,Mary Diduch, Zack Lapinski,Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger,andJacob Clemente. GELFAND: And there was discussion in the cross-cultural psychology community about how James Bakers unemotionalcommunication style was received as This is not so serious, in terms of Tariq Azizs understanding of Americans intentions. And life is an adventure. My uncles like, Hey, I have something to show you. My first day in America, he showed me the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade. But somehow, that diversity and that early celebration of permissiveness has overridden that. "Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent--all depending on who wields it and how.". The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism (Ep. Thats Joe Henrich, a professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard; hes also a scholar of psychology, economics, and anthropology. HOFSTEDE: In an individualistic society, a person is like an atom in a gas. And it got the attention of President Clinton: Bill CLINTON: Its the first Ive heard of it, Ill look into it. Im like, Were going to go to Singapore if you people dont behave.. Tightness and compliance would seem to go hand-in-hand. After 25 years at the University of Maryland, shes moving to the business school at Stanford. The Pros and Cons of America's (Extreme) Individualism. It's part of our founding D.N.A. SuperFreakonomics was the follow-up in 2009. In case you missed it, thats Western. And all those things need to be realigned when you really have a true culture change. Sinopsis. Where would you think the U.S. ranks among all the countries measured on this dimension? But then the experimenters confederates come in. Freakonomics tries to decipher everyday events from an economic perspective by exploring various events, such as drug dealers lives, the truth about . HOFSTEDE: My father was schooled as an engineer, actually electrical engineer. To that end, the digital revolution is further shrinking the distance to power. Part of it is that when you live in a world that has carpented environments like right angles, where we live in houses in the States makes us focus on those right angles. Each and every person has individual reasons for pursuing a career, or goal. Its also important to recognize that even though were really connected, still people are largely in their echo chambers, interacting with people who they know. He interviewed people at I.B.M. But theres something else to be said about American culture. You had Woodstock, and youre going to have this kind of stuff happening again. The authors argue that humans usually make decisions based on the incentives for their actions. Freakonomics is a collaboration of authors Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, journalists and winners of numerous awards. GADSBY: Have you ever noticed how Americans are not stupid? We will leave you with a patriotic tribute from one last transplanted U.S. comedian. And it produces this illusion. And democratic. And we manipulated whether their names were like Jamal or Latisha versus Brad and Lorna. Everybody gets tickled until they laugh. The most indulgent country in these rankings is Mexico, at 97 out of 100; the most restrained: Egypt, at four. Joe Henrichs research into national psychologies led him to an even more fascinating conclusion. The Ultimatum game is famous among social scientists. (This is part of theFreakonomics RadioAmerican Culture series). Just like good science, good . And thats because the vast majority of the research subjects are WEIRD. HOFSTEDE: This is actually a little bit of an unfortunate name. President Bush had framed these negotiations as going an extra mile for peace.. GELFAND: And that suggests that minorities, women, people of different sexual orientation, when they violate the same rule, might be held to higher accountability, to more strict punishment. GELFAND: I was watching this negotiation between Tariq Aziz and James Baker. Im a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. Is that the case? And so you walk faster because you cant get everything you need done in your day and youre always trying to get to the next event. In the real world, Feldman learned to settle for less than 95 percent. Read the following excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics. Let's now consider the following statistic, which represents the hundreds of matches in which a 7-7 wrestler faced an 8-6 wrestler on a tournament's final day: 7-7 WRESTLER'S PREDICTED WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8-6 OPPONENT: 48.77-7 WRESTLER'S ACTUAL WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8-6 OPPONENT: 79.6So the 7-7 wrestler, based on . And you dont need them for ritual reasons. GELFAND: In Germany and in Japan, the clocks are really synchronized. And that also means that fighting is a good way to get what you want. His late father was a social psychologist who devised a system to rank countries on several dimensions including their level of individualism versus collectivism. Theyre more permissive. DUBNER: So does all the data come from workplace interviews essentially of white-collar and pink-collar workers, or does it go broader than that? And they often dont even realize theyre being acted upon. He has written several books about what music and other pop culture has to say about the broader culture. As for the U.S., Gelfand says the U.S. is not only loose but getting progressively looser. Theres a huge variation in how much spontaneity people like versus how much structure they want. So, Japan has been hit by Mother Nature for centuries. So, yes, the same attributes that can be a big problem can also be a big boost. HOFSTEDE: Because its true: the very same dimensions under different circumstances, can work the other way. HOFSTEDE: You have a democracy. In restrained societies, people tend to suppress bodily gratification, and birth rates are often lower; theres also less interest in things like foreign films and music. We promise no spam. It has to do with conformity. Its trying to include all the stuff that we acquire as a consequence of growing up in different environments, and contrast that with things like our sex drive, which doesnt seem to be acquired by observing others. HOFSTEDE: I like this question a lot. And I think this community-spiritedness has been built in us since we were very young. Some researchers looked at these results and came up with a new label for humans in this context: Homo reciprocans. Heres another culture metaphor another watery one from the Dutch culture scholar Gert Jan Hofstede. Remember what he said earlier: HENRICH: So how it is that we acquire ideas, beliefs, and values from other people and how this has shaped human genetic evolution. How much time have you spent thinking about what makes America, America? People tend to be super-creative and theres a lot of negotiation of rules. HOFSTEDE: But it turned out that lumping them by nationality was the best thing to do. It always was unsustainable, but was made even more acute to us. Everyone knows there are differences between people in different countries, but his approach was a quantifiable approach. individualism, political and social philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Am I really going to tell my kid how special they are about everything?. Consider the prominent Muppets Bert and Ernie. Theyre what we call tight cultures. HOFSTEDE: This is a very American question, Stephen. We visit the world's busiest airport to see how it all comes together. Freakonomics Revised and Expanded Edition. NEAL: I think its helpful to think about culture in terms of a big C and a little c, the little c being those everyday things that we sometimes dont elevate to a level of culture. You're stuck in a metal tube with hundreds of strangers (and strange smells), defying gravity and racing through the sky. 470. But Im Dutch, of course. And in culture, uncertainty means not knowing the ritual, not knowing how status-worthy or blameworthy some action is. Innovation requires coming up with a lot of ideas. If they reject, both players get zero. Whereas if you have a state religion, it tends to get tired and old and boring. By this time, Hofstede the Elder had already gotten a Ph.D. in social science. HOFSTEDE: Okay, no, I was just being naughty. So I am actually optimistic. How do racial and ethnic minorities fit into the American looseness? HOFSTEDE: Which doesnt mean egoism, but it could go that way. No difference, that is, between tight and loose cultures. In the latest issue of American Scientist, statisticians Kaiser Fung and Andrew Gelman wrote a strong critique of Levitt and Dubner's work. In indulgent societies, more people play sports, while in restrained societies, sports are more something you watch. It was freedom from hunger. 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