Chapter 6: Culture and Worldview
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In a Universalism-Particularism dichotomy, people define dilemmas based upon different
cultural norms. ___________ is based on exceptions, circumstances, and relations, while
___________ is based on rules, codes, laws, and generalizations.
a. Universalism/Particularism
A stereotype is a belief about a person or group that puts everyone into a category. Which of
the following statements reflect a stereotype?
a. With stereotypes, you tend to reject contradictory information.
Kashmir vs. Sweden: The United Nations appointed a Swedish army officer as an observer in
Kashmir. The officer and his family move into a houseboat on the river in Srinagar, the capital of
the province. As has been customary for Europeans working in Kashmir, the family employed a
local woman to take care of all of the family’s household services during their stay. The
housekeeper was always helpful and took care of their needs.
The family was very pleased with her work, and after a short time decided to give her a raise.
Surprisingly, the housekeeper did not turn up for work the next day, and her younger sibling
arrived in her place. On her new higher salary, the previous helper had employed her younger
brother to work for the military family. With the raise, she could maintain her standard of living
and help her brother.
Consistent with the Kashmiri helper being a Hindu, she did not believe that she could improve
her standard of living in her lifetime. So, by being good and not disturbing the harmony of her
circumstances, she believed her brother could be reincarnated into a higher position in her next
life.
This natural tendency to accept life with no expectation for either improvement or material
goods contrasts sharply with the Swedish family’s notion of working hard to achieve personal
goals and improve one’s material lot in this life. The Swedes’ surprise at seeing the younger
Kashmiri sibling arrive for work reflects this contrast. Regarding what we learned from the
Kluckhohn/Strodtbeck cultural values model, this story is most accurately an example of the
differences in:
a. masculinity and femininity
Fatalism can be understood as a belief system in which people understand that events in their
lives are totally determined by the outside world and that “there is nothing they can do about
it.” The COI Orientation explains this orientation as:
If a receptionist acts as a gatekeeper and says to you, “I don’t care if you are the President of
the United States, you are NOT going to speak to the boss!” this would be a rule’s based
_____________response.
d. hedonistic
Kluckhohn was an anthropologist who did work with the Navajo Indians in the 1940s and 1950s.
He believed that cross-cultural understanding and communication could be facilitated by
analyzing a given culture’s orientation to five key aspects of human life. These five orientations
are:
a. social relations
b. activity
c. time sense
d. people and nature
e. human nature
Stereotypes can be grouped into the following categories:
Stereotypes are mental categories also known as _______________, which are useful tools that
help us categorize what is unfamiliar or complex.
The concept of stereotypes comes from the historical development in _________.
We all try to sort out and categorize the world with mental processes that are predictable and
easy to manage. When we overgeneralize, this is called:
Prototypes are physical representations based on general characteristics that are not fixed and
rigid but rather are open to new definition.
Value Trumping—recognition that in specific contexts certain sets of values take precedence
over others.
Paradox: a statement that seems to be untrue but is in fact true.
World view: a collection of beliefs about life and the universe.
Five orientations regarding human values: people, place, time, groups, actions.
Universalism: is about finding exceptions; when no rules fit, figure it out on its own merit.
Particularism: is about rules; when no rules fit, find a rule to figure it out.
Human Nature is the deepest level of culture according to Hofstede—because of human nature,
there are many behaviors and understandings that all people share even though they come
from different cultures