15.5 Differences in Relationships

Part 1: Collectivism vs. Individualism

When you face a major life decision, such as making a commitment to a romantic partner or taking a job far from home, who should have a say in that decision? If your first instinct is to “follow your heart,” or to think primarily about your needs and goals, that’s an indication that you may be from an individualistic culture, one that places more value on the rights and needs of an individual. If your first thought is “How will this affect my family?” or “Does this help the group I belong to?,” that’s a clue that you hail from a collectivistic culture, one that values group interests over individual interests.

If you are a fan of love stories, think of the moral of your favorites. The first movie to earn a billion dollars, Titanic (1997), was popular not just because of the shipwreck aspect of the story, but because of the love story between Jack and Rose (which can be seen as an updated version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, another story about young lovers who didn’t care what the world thought; the love between the two of them was all that mattered). Rose is the epitome of an individualistic thinker: she has no feelings for the man she is supposed to marry (Cal), feels constricted by the social world she belongs to, and would rather dance with Jack and the poor immigrants in the bottom of the ship than hang around with her family.

How would such a story sound to a collectivistic culture? In many places in the world, arranged marriages have been the norm for centuries: it is your parents, or a matchmaker, or perhaps a group of elders, who decide who you are going to marry, and the good of society takes precedence over the feelings of one or both partners. If a particular action (such as marrying a poor American you fell in love with on the deck of a ship) would bring shame on your family, you wouldn’t consider it. One of the benefits of such a system is that you don’t have to face the disapproval that Jack would have surely faced if he had survived and married Rose. Collectivistic cultures place high value on harmony and loyalty, and speaking your mind or following your own path may be seen as a threat to that harmony.

If you want to see a more recent love story that includes discussion of collectivistic values, watch Crazy Rich Asians (2018). Much of the dialogue revolves around whether the central characters represent true Asian values or whether they have been corrupted by living in America. Some admire the character of Nick for choosing to be with the woman he loves despite family disapproval, but others might ask, “Wait a minute: who’s going to take over the family empire?” Looking out for the welfare of everyone involved in a large family business by not handing it over to an incompetent relative is important, too.

How does this affect communication patterns? Along with factoring into life decisions, it can also have an effect on how a person interacts in a group. If you don’t agree with a majority decision, do you speak up? Chapter 17 discusses conflict styles, including avoidance. People from individualistic cultures might view avoiding conflict as a moral failing: if you have a problem with someone, say something! People from collectivistic cultures might be more concerned with preserving harmony in the group, and not expressing upset is a way of showing respect for others.^[1] Is staying silent cowardly, or unselfish? Often, it is our cultural conditioning that dictates our answer to that question.

Part 2: Power Distance

What do you call your teachers? As a teacher myself, I have noticed a lot of ambiguity about this issue: some students call me by my first name, others are more formal, calling me “professor” or a similar title. To reduce the potential anxiety about this, I tell my students to call me “Dr. J.” — intended as a compromise between the informal and the formal. Still, a lot of students continue to call me “professor,” and others use my first name.

This reflects another dimension that Hofstede identifies: comfort with the idea that some people have far more power than others. In high power distance (HPD) cultures, people are accepting of hierarchy and not inclined to question authority. In contrast, you can tell that the American “founding fathers” leaned more toward low power distance (LPD) because they wrote things like “all men are created equal,” and decided the leader of the country should be called “Mr. President” instead of “Your Royal Highness.” Of course, many of those same founding fathers also owned slaves, so their commitment to LPD was not total. Even better examples can be found in Scandinavia, where the informal Law of Jante says “You are not to think you’re anyone special, or that you’re better than anyone else.” (You can hear Scandinavians talk about the good and bad sides of this philosophy in this video).

How does this dimension show up in daily life? It translates into the expectation that children should be unquestioningly obedient to their parents (HPD), or that decisions should be made by democratic vote (LPD). People in HPD countries are more focused on individual success and achievement; people in LPD countries are more concerned with the social welfare and making sure no one gets left behind (you can probably see a connection to Individualism-Collectivism).

If LPD people see an extreme exercise of power, such as an authority figure blatantly disobeying rules everyone else has to follow, they demand an explanation or a reckoning; HPD people, in contrast, accept the situation for what it is. Is questioning an authority figure’s decision seen as “insubordination” (HPD) or admired as “speaking truth to power” (LPD)? The contrast is depicted humorously in a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where HPD King Arthur gets in an argument with LPD peasants who object to his claims to power. When Arthur orders one of the peasants to be quiet, they respond, “Order, eh? Who does he think he is?” Arthur asserts his divine authority (the Lady of the Lake bestowed the sword Excalibur on him), but the peasants don’t buy it: ”Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.”