Individualism, Respect and Competence vs Collectivism, Respect and Friendliness

Abstract: Negative views of ageing can lower respect for older adults.Yet, negative views of ageing vary across cultures. Asian collectivistic cultures are assumed to respect older adults more than Western individualistic cultures do. However, recent empirical findings on this cross-cultural comparison have suggested that negative attitudes toward older people are also prevalent, or even more evident in collectivistic cultures than individualistic cultures. Using data from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey, a dataset consisting of 75,650 individuals from 56 societies, we employed Linear Mixed Modeling to test the association between perceived competence of older adults and respect towards them. We also explored and the moderating role of culture on this association. 

In the present study, perceived competence of older adults was indexed as a proportional score representing the relative perception of competence (i.e. relative competence perception = competence / (competence + friendliness). Results showed that individuals tended to respect older adults who were more competent or friendly. Furthermore, individuals who were more individualistic respected older adults more when older adults were perceived to be more competent relative to friendly. This pattern was reversed in individuals who were less individualistic. These findings suggest that whether people who differ on personal individualistic values respect older adults depends on whether older adults are perceived to be competent versus friendly. Findings from this study highlight the importance of changing cultural values on ageism attitudes, especially the potential effects of rising individualism on negative attitudes of ageing in Asia. (Chen & Fung, 2020)

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- Chen, A. X. & Fung, H. (2020). Individualism Increases the Influence of Perceived Competence of Older Adults on Attitudes Toward Them. Innovation in Aging, 4(1), link
- photograph by Andy Sweet (1953-1982) via

Politeness. A Reflection of Cultural Norms.

Language is a reflection of culture and accepted cultural norms, polite conducted and interaction is inseparable to culture. Polite interaction takes on many forms in the way people interact, not only by the spoken word but also by the unspoken messages portrayed by behaviour, body language, eye contact and facial expressions. People from the same country speaking the same language and same cultural background have a basic common shared ideology and value system defining general accepted norms and rules of conduct to be followed. Accepted norms of behaviour and linguistic appropriateness in one culture are not necessarily acceptable in another culture. What is considered polite in one cultural society may be considered impolite in another. (...)



Politeness in any given society is conducted within a system of acceptable social behaviour and social linguistic cultural norms that govern the way in which citizens interact. (...) Accepted behaviour and politeness within a society and sharing the same value system and cultural understanding is part of the fibre of society. Rules within a language community guide behaviour and communication within the society; (not only guiding what people do or say but, equally important what people do not do or say). (...)

Politeness is a fundamental part of culture which shapes human behaviour within a society. Goode et al. (2000) explains this politeness and behaviour as an ‘integrated pattern of human behaviour that includes thoughts, communications, languages, practices, beliefs, values, customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviours of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the ability to transmit the above to succeeding generations.’ This view illustrates the importance of politeness in language teaching, culture and politeness is mirrored and represented in all the above human interactions, as a result politeness can not be considered a separate isolated component of language learning. The spectrum of politeness affects all human behaviour and interactions, therefore ‘linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language’ (Krasner, 1999). Language learners need to understand culture, context and politeness to be able to function and communicate appropriately in the target language. (...)

excerpts taken from O'Sullivan (2007)

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- O'Sullivan, W. (2007). A study on politeness teaching to English learners in China. The International Journal of Language Society and Culture, 23, 47-52.
- photograph (Elswick Kids, 1978) by Tish Murtha via

The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man, by Clifford Geertz (1973)

Attempts to locate man amid the body of his customs have taken several directions, adopted diverse tactics ; but they have all, or virtually all, proceeded in terms of a single overall intellectual strategy: what I will call, so as to have a stick to beat it with, the "stratigraphic" conception of the relations between biological, psychological, social, and cultural factors in human l ife.



In this conception, man is a composite of "levels," each superimposed upon those beneath it and underpinning those above it. As one analyzes man, one peels off layer after layer, each such layer being complete and irreducible in itself, revealing another, quite different sort of layer underneath. Strip off the motley forms of culture and one finds the structural and functional regularities of social organization. Peel off these in turn and one finds the underlying psychological factors-"basic needs" or what-have-you-that support and make them possible. Peel off psychological factors and one is left with the biological foundations-anatomical, physiological, neurological -- of the whole edifice of human life.
The attraction of this sort of conceptualization, aside from the fact that it guaranteed the established academic disciplines their independence and sovereignty, was that it seemed to make it possible to have one's cake and eat it. One did not have to assert that man's culture was all there was to him in order to claim that it was, nonetheless, an essential and irreducible, even a paramount ingredient in his nature. Cultural facts could be interpreted against the background of noncultural facts without dissolving them into that background or dissolving that background into them. Man was a hierarchically stratified animal, a sort of evolutionary deposit, in whose definition each level-organic, psychological, social, and cultural-had an assigned and incontestable place. To see what he really was, we had to superimpose findings from the various relevant sciences - anthropology, sociology, psychology, biology - upon one another like so many patterns in a moire; and when that was done, the cardinal importance of the cultural level, the only one distinctive to man, would naturally appear, as would what it had to tell us, in its own right, about what he really was. For the eighteenth century image of man as the naked reasoner that appeared when he took his cultural costumes off, the anthropology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries substituted the image of man as the transfigured animal that appeared when he put them on.
Geertz (1973:38)

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- Excerpts taken from Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays. NY: Basic Books, download
- photograph of Clifford James Geertz (1926-2006) via

"Dear applicant, we regret to inform you...". Rejection letters and politeness strategies in Japan and the U.S.

An analysis of Japanese and US-American rejection letters sent to applicants came to the conclusion that politeness strategies differ. While US-American letters tend to look personal - e.g. by addressing letters personally, often by forename - Japanese letters openly show that all rejected applicants receive the same letter and don't use forenames as not preserving a certain distance would be considered as disrespectful. US-Americans attempt to look positive and communicate concern while Japanese feel less uncomfortable when they are rejected as "one of many" (Baresova, 2008).



"To counterbalance the negativity of refusal and inadequacy with something positive, the Americans frequently added praise for the candidate’s “excellent qualifications”, which, although very personal in appearance, lacked any specifics and were, upon closer comparison, remarkably similar, even between letters addressed to the candidate with many years of experience and the new graduate with no qualifications at all."
Baresova, 2008:108

"It could be argued that the Americans only seem to be more personal than the Japanese, because the Americans also send virtually the same letter to all applicants, but this would be to ignore the more significant fact. Of course neither the Americans nor the Japanese are going to write individualized letters. The difference is that the Americans want to seem personal."
Baresova, 2008:109



"Each culture has a different perception of what is polite, and each language has various devices for expressing politeness. Some situations call for more politeness than others. The importance of politeness increases with the degree of potential offense to the hearer. Rejection is, by its very nature, one of the most offensive speech acts, and if not done politely it is quite likely to negatively impact the hearer’s self-image. Therefore, various politeness strategies are employed to minimize its negative impact. To perform a rejection is not easy, even if both parties have a complete understanding of the language and rituals concerning politeness in that culture. To reject someone from another culture without causing offense or misunderstanding is even more challenging."
Baresova, 2008:11




- Baresova, I. (2008). Politeness Strategies in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Study of American and Japanese Employment Rejection Letters. Olomoue: Palacky University.
- photographs by Micheal Rougier (1964) via and via and via and via

Anthropology and the Abnormal, by Ruth Benedict (1934)

"(...) Normality, in short, within a very wide range, is culturally defined. It is primarily a term for the socially elaborated segment of human behavior in any culture; and abnormality, a term for the segment that that particular civilization does not use. The very eyes with which we see the problem are conditioned by the long traditional habits of our own society.



It is a point that has been made more often in relation to ethics than in relation to psychiatry. We do not any longer make the mistake of deriving the morality of our own locality and decade directly from the inevitable constitution of human nature. We recognize that morality differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved habits. Mankind has always preferred to say 'It is morally good' rather than 'It is habitual,' and the fact of this preference is matter enough for a critical science of ethics. But historically the two phrases are synonymous."



"The problem of understanding abnormal human behavior in any absolute sense independent of cultural factors is still far in the future. The categories of borderline behavior which we derive from the study of the neuroses and psychoses of our civilization are categories of prevailing local types of instability. They give much information about the stresses and strains of Western civilization, but no final picture of inevitable human behavior. Any conclusions about such behavior must await the collection by trained observers of psychiatric data from other cultures. Since no adequate work of the kind has been done at the present time, it is impossible to say what core or definition of abnormality may be found valid from the comparative material. It is as it is in ethics: all our local conventions of moral behavior and of immoral are without absolute validity, and yet it is quite possible that a modicum of what is considered right and what wrong could be disentangled that is shared by the whole human race."



- Benedict, R. (1934). Anthropology and the Abnormal via
- photographs by Leon Levinstein via and via and via

Steve McQueen's Driving Licence & The Friendly Car in Ethiopia

The analogy between cars and facial shape is not a new one. Car advertisements and the entertainment media (e.g. Pixar's "Cars" or Disney's "Herbie") utilise our tendency to anthropomorphise objects. Windhager et al. (2012) assume that if there is a biologically determined overgeneralsisation from faces to cars, there would be a generalisation across cultures. The authors tested differences between Ethiopia, a culture that is not exposed to car marketing, and Austria.



Consistencies between the attributions child-adult, female-male, and submissive-dominant to cars were examined through changes in design, e.g. a manipulation of the grille (e.g. the wider and taller the grille, the more maleness, dominance and higher age were attributed). Despite differences in street scenery in Austria and Ethiopia, a high cross-cultural consisteny in child-adult, female-male and submissive-dominant attributions to cars was found which might be due to a common psychological mechanism.



However, the authors found differences between Austrian and Ethiopian ratings in items with emotional valence. In Austria, there was a high differentiation between cars ranging from negative to positive descriptions (e.g. "angry", "afraid", "happy") while in Ethiopia, all cars were judged positively (e.g. "happy", "friendly", "open"). Various reasons could explain this finding. For instance, Ethiopians are very polite and could wish to avoid negative attributions. Another explanation could be that interactions with real cars are generally positive in Ethiopia. Or: The missing traits are not perceived as they are lacking in local marketing strategies (Windhager et al., 2012). In general, it is considered as crucial to integrate cultural aspects in the design of products (Syed Mohamed et al., 2013).



Steve McQueen, "King of Cool", (1930-1980) was a motorcycle and racecar enthusiast - he even considered a professional career in race car driving. His motorcycle licence from 1964 was sold at an auction in 2009 (via).



Syed Mohamed, M. S., Shamsul, B. M. T., Rahman, R. (2013) Cultural Model in Predicting Car Center Stack Design Preferences. International Journal of Education and Research, 1(6), 1-12
Windhager, S., Bookstein, F. L., Grammer, K., Oberzaucher, E., Said, H., Slice, D. E., Thorstensen, T. & Schaefer, K. (2012) "Cars have their own faces": cross-cultural ratings of car shapes in biological (stereotypcial) terms. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33, 109-120
Photos via and via and via and via