Book: Uncertainty Avoidance in “Outliers”
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011In “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, Singapore is listed as the “culture best able to tolerate ambiguity”, or the country with the lowest UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE. This led me to http://www.geerthofstede.nl where we find more detail about this and other cultural features (termed “cultural dimensions” when quantified on a relative scale).
Uncertainty Avoidance
Uncertainty avoidance deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and 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, 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.
Also from the website…”Because values are acquired in childhood, national cultures are remarkably stable over time; national values change is a matter of generations. What we see changing around us, in response to changing circumstances are practices: symbols, heroes and rituals, leaving the underlying values untouched.”
In this search, I also found CultureGPS (http://www.culturegps.com) by sales-genetics (http://www.sales-genetics.com) and downloaded it onto my iPad via the App Store.
Perhaps it would be an interesting exercise to show the values of the various cultural dimensions and see if they are expected among the youth participants. It would also be interesting to see whether aiming change at youth (by youth and among youth) has greater influence on promoting a value change.
Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance and Individualism Values from CultureGPS Lite (listed in order; downloaded 5/4/11; no version number):
Country | UA | PDI | IDV | Comments |
US | 46 | 40 | 91 | high IDV; depend on yourself |
China | 40 | 80 | 20 | |
Malaysia | 36 | 104 | 26 | high PDI; little leadership transfer? |
Singapore | 8 | 74 | 20 | |
India | 40 | 77 | 48 | |
Taiwan | 69 | 58 | 17 | |
Japan | 92 | 54 | 46 | very high UA; follow procedure |