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    Twirling dragon Maciamo's Avatar
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    Arrow different "uncertainty avoidance" creating arguments

    For those who haven't read the thread on "individualism vs collectivism", have a look here to know who is Hofstede.

    I'd lie to talk about the 4th cultural difference category in this thread : uncertainty avoidance.

    He defines it as follow :

    "Uncertainty avoidance deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man's search for Truth. 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, different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'. 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 as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions."

    In other words, people with a high uncertainty avoidance are more worried about the future and tend to plan and prepare everything well in advance. Unsurprisingly, Japan scored 92% on Hostede's scale. Most European countries also have high scores, except Scandinavia (Denmark = 23, Sweden = 29, Norway = 50) , the Netherlands (53) and Britain and Ireland (both 35). Low uncertainty avoidance results in less planning, more risk taking, a more adventurous and we-will-see-when-it-will-happen attitude to life. As Lord d'Abernon put it "An English mind works best when it's almost too late"*, reflecting the low uncertainty avoidance of the English. I personally surely have a low score as well. English-speaking countries usually have low uncertainty avoidance (US=46, Canada=48, Australia 51), but no country in the world can beat Singapore (8) and Jamaica (13), which only common point is the English-language.

    Japanese ae well-known for planning well and worrying a lot about what could possibly happen. Once, I went to an interview for a job in Chiba and I was amazed to find an envelope with exactly the money it cost me for a return ticket. They had checked it on the Internet, and even though there were 3 different ways to go there from my station, they had supposed which I was going to use.

    I know lots of Japanese who would reserve each and every hotel, train or bus and prepare an exact schedule of their trip when they go sightseeing somewhere (in or outside Japan), while I never book anything more than my plane ticket.

    When travelling around Asia and Australia, I met hundreds of English, Dutch, Danish and Swedish people, only a few Germans, French, Swiss or Americans, and virtually no Southern European (no Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, and just 2 or 3 of Italians) or Belgians. When checking Hofstede's results, the proportion for each nationality almost match perfectly the "uncertainty avoidance" score. For some strange reasons, similar neighbouringcountries like the Netherlands and Belgium have completely different scores (53 vs 94) and in fact I met only 3 Belgians for surely over 100 Dutch in 1 year of travel. When I ask Belgian, French, Italian or Spanish people why they don't travel more like English or Dutch people do, taking a year off, stuffing their backpack, buying a round-the-world ticket or taking the first last minute flight to anywhere exotic, and improvise once arrived, I am usually told that they are affraid. Not only of adventure, but also of taking a full year off. Before starting univerity, they fear not being able to study after resting one year. When a university, between 2 years, they usually can't (Germans can stop easily anytime in their studies for one semester or more, but that system seems imposible in Latin countries). Once they finish university, they are affraid to travel, because they might lose the opportunity to find a job upon graduation, and not finding anything once they come back. Once they have a job, they can't take a year off anymore without losing it, which they obviously don't want. As a result very few travel outside their short summer holidays.

    Japan seem the only exception of a country with high uncertatinty avoidance and quite a lot of travellers. The explanation is that they really love travelling, but also that there are proportionally 13 times more Japanese than Belgians or Portuguese. I surely met 3x more Dutch people or Danes than Japanese, though their respective population is 15 million and 5 million, against 127m for Japan. So statistically, it stays in tune with Uncertainty Avoidance levels. Furthermore, most Japanese travel for short periods (a few days to 2 weeks, maybe) and rarely in such an adventurous way as Northern European backpackers. No, everything has to be decided and organised before leaving (there ar of course a few exceptions, like everywhere - one cannot expect millions of people from a same country to all behave in an identical way).


    ------------------------------------

    At home, the arguments with my (Japanese) wife are often due to our different "uncertainty avoidance" levels. It's also possible than men have a lower level than women in general, which accentuates our cultural divergences. For example, everytime she goes somewhere a bit far (30min by train) she checks the timetable on Internet. She plans her cooking and shopping ays before and accuses me of never taking the initiative to wash my clothes or start cooking before she does it. The problem is that she would prepare the morning the evening meal, while I would only think about it once I am getting hungry. Same for the washing, I usually wait that almost all my clothes are dirty to wash everything in one time, but she insist n doing it almost everyday to be sure that I won't need this or that shirt when it's still dirty. Maybe is it because my mind also function best when it's almost too late.

    Likewise, I usually leave at the last minute for my appointments (and arrive exactly on time, not 2 min early or late), but lots of Japanese prefer to arrive well in advance, to be sure. Thta always irritates my wife (an my mother when I was a child, as I have always been like this) whenever we have to go somewhere together. But we haven't been late anywhere so far, because I know the shortcuts.

    I rarely have problems adapting to Japanese ways, but this "uncertainty avoidance" thing is almost impossible for me to cope with. They are much too anxious about everything, even trivialities such as the washing.

    Is anybody else in the same case as me ?


    *From the book Euromanagers and martians, by Richard Hill, which I also recommend for cultural differences between European countries.
    Last edited by Maciamo; Oct 17, 2003 at 13:53.

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