3. Cultural Predestination!

Cultural comparisons should avoid overstressing differences because it leads to overemphasizing the features of a given culture, as if it were a unique attribute. It is quite clear that in the past, in order to make comparisons more striking, people have been tempted to exaggerate differences, leading to a focus on a given country’s distinctive features at the expense of those characteristics it shares with other societies. Yamazaki (2000) writes: “Human beings seem to like to give themselves a sense of security by forming simplistic notions about the culture of other countries.” Stereotypes are then often created.

It is essential to research distinctive features in the light of features which are common to other cultures. To put it in Yamazaki’s words:“Commonalities are essential if comparisons are to be made” (Yamazaki, 2000). Cultures are not predestined to have some immutable distinctive characteristics. Yamazaki uses the expression “cultural predestination” (2000) and Demorgon (2005) emphasizes the same idea: “The absolute distinctiveness of cultures is a problematic notion.” The reason for this is quite simple: cultures influence each other and often there is a process of fusion. How can one attribute at a given moment distinctive features to a culture which is in perpetual development and change? This point will be developed to a greater extent in the section dealing with the dynamism of cultures.

4. Individual Values

A nation or an ethnic group cannot be considered as a single unit. Nations are not culturally homogeneous. Within the same nation, social classes, age, gender, education, religious affiliations and several other factors constitute theself-awareness and self-consciousness which become the markers of cultural identity, subcultures within a national culture. There are, within a nation, regional cultures, cultures of towns and villages, small group cultures, and family cultures which form cultural units. Renan’s 1882 famous definition of nation, “L’essence d’une nation est que tous les individus aient beaucoup de choses en commun” [The essence of a nation is that the individuals of this nation have many things in common] has to be extended to the various groups which constitute cultural units in a nation. The members of these groups also have many things in common. Nations are not culturally homogeneous. Individuals within a given nation are not always identical and their cultural behavior might be different. Several studies, for instance, Kim (2005), and Kim, Hunter, Miyara, Horvath, Bresnahan and Yoon (1996) have emphasized this point. Very often, individual values rather than cultural values will be better predictors of behavior (Leung, 1989, Leung & Bond, 1989, Triandis, 1988). It is quite evident in the modern world that culture-level generalizations or national-culture generalizations are no longer adequate for intercultural research.

It is sufficient to consider the vast number of countries in the world which are multicultural and multilingual and where there is considerable immigration. Canada, where you have English-Canadians and French-Canadians, First Nations, and another 35 percent of the population which is neither from British or French origin but coming from forty different countries, is only one example. It is also the case for the United States, all countries of the European Union, South American countries, most Asian and African countries. Here, one cannot resist quoting some passages of a very recent article by James B. Waldram (2009): “Anthropologists began to appreciate the artificial nature of their notion of ‘cultures’ as distinct, bounded units harbouring culturally identical citizens…. We began to appreciate ‘culture’ as a live experience of individuals in their local, social worlds”. In addition, he adds: “Cross-cultural psychology has retained the broad generalizations and essentializations rejected by anthropology, to continue to assign research participants to groups as if there were no significant intra-cultural variability, and then engage in primarily quantitative comparisons”.

It is now more than evident that serious cultural research cannot apply anymore the absolute and general dimensions of individualism versus collectivism, high-context versus low-context and other similar dimensions to most countries in the world.