For this weekend, first make sure you have all the materials from the last meeting, link here.
Then make sure you have the new materials available here.
There is another copy of the materials below the jump (click where it says 'czytaj więcej').
Also, if someone will leave a group email address in the comments, I'll be happy to send the materials there too.
See you all Sunday!
First dimension of culture:
POWER DISTANCE
There is inequality in every society. From the most basic hunter-gatherer group to the most modern information societies, some people have more power than others, especially in influencing or determining the behavior of others. This power may result from purely physical characteristics favoring the bigger, stronger or more attractive. It may result from mental capacity as some people are smarter or more verbally capable than others. Some people acquire more wealth than their fellows while others receive more status and respect than others.
Different kinds of power may or may not go together. Successful athletes, or scientists may enjoy status but only in some societies do they obtain wealth as well and rarely do they have political power. Politicians in some countries might have status and power without wealth while businessmen might have wealth and power without status.
Some societies regard inconsistencies of this kind to be a problem and try to distribute various kinds of power more consistently. Sportsmen may become business professionals to gain wealth and politicians may exploit their positions to do the same. Businessmen may enter politics to gain status. The final result of these interactions is to increase the overall inequality in these societies. The classic model may show a small elite dominating every facet of society while the majority have little to no power.
In other societies, the dominant feeling is that it is a good thing if a person's high rank in one area is balanced by low rank in another. The result of this (when applied consistently) is to increase the size of the middle class between the small group that come out on top in all areas and the small group with no advantages. The laws in some countries have been conceived to serve this ideal of power though no society can make reality match the ideal completely.
The Power Distance Index
All countries can be distinguished by the way they are accustomed to deal with inequalities. Power Distance is one of the dimensions of national cultures. In the IMB values survey, three questions in particular were correlated:
* Answers by non-managerial employees to the question: "How frequently, in your experience, are employees afraid to express disagreement with their managers?
* Subordinates perception of their boss's actual decision making style, that is the percentage reporting either an autocratic or paternalistic style (choices also included 'democratic' and 'consultative' styles and 'none of these')
* Subordinates preference for their bosses decision-making style (percentage not favoring a consultative style ).
In a Small Power Distance culture, there is a limited dependence of subordinates on bosses and a preference for consultation. That is, there is interdependence between boss and subordinate. The distance is relatively small: subordinates readily approach and even contradict their bosses.
In Large Power Distance cultures there is more dependence on bosses by subordinates, who prefer such dependence (in the form of an autocratic or paternalistic boss) or by rejecting it entirely, a process known as counter-dependence, that is negatively evaluated dependence. Large Power Distance cultures show a pattern of polarization between dependence and counter-dependence. The distance between boss and subordinate is large and subordinates are not likely to approach or contradict their bosses directly.
Power Distance is defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. It is explained then from the point of view of the less powerful members of society. This is because authority survives only when it is met with obedience.
Power Distance in the family
Almost all people in the world are born into families which where they start acquiring their mental software from the elders in whose presence they grow up..
In a Large Power Distance situation, children are expected to be obedient towards their parents. Sometimes there is even an authority among the children themselves with younger children expected to yield to older children. Independent behavior is not encouraged. Respect for parents and other elders is seen as a basic virtue.
Children see others showing such respect and soon acquire it themselves. There is often considerable warmth and care in the way parents and older children treat younger ones, especially when these are very small. But they are looked after, not expected to experiment or experience things for themselves.
Respect for parents and older relatives lasts throughout adulthood and parental authority continues to play a role in people's life as long as the parents are alive.
In a Small Power Distance situation, children are treated as equals as early and as much as possible. The goal of parental education is to let children take control of their own affairs as soon as they can. Active experimentation by the child is encouraged. A child is allowed to contradict its elders and learns to say 'no' very early. Relationships are not dependent on status and formal respect and deference are rarely encountered. Family relations in such societies often strike people from other societies as cold and distant and lacking in intensity.
When children grow up both the children and their parents expect that the parent-child relationship will be replaced by one of equals. There is no idea that an adult would ask for their parents' permission (or even advice) before making an important decision. The ideal is one of personal independence.
These two descriptions are purposefully polarized and meant to describe the extremes of Large and Small Power Distance. Most societies are found in various places along the continuum And as always, the trends are probabilistic and not deterministic and the patterns found in any particular family may differ from the idealized norms of the society.
Power Distance at school
In most societies children are expected to attend school for some amount of years. In poorer societies, formal schooling may last only a few years while in the more affluent societies various kinds of schools may take over 20 years to finish. At school some mental programs are strengthened and others reduced in importance. The question of how much a school can create values or only modify already existing values remains open.
But overall, the same patterns of differences appear that were already found within families. The role pair parent-child is supplemented by the relationship teacher-student.
In Large Power Distance societies the fundamental inequality between parent and child is perpetuated by inequality between teacher and students that caters to the need for dependence that is well-established in the student's mind. Teachers are treated with respect (older teachers even more than younger ones) and students may have to stand up when they enter the room.
The educational process is teacher-centered. Teachers outline the intellectual path to be followed and the methodology to be used. In the classroom there is a strict order with the teacher expected to initiate all communication. Students are to speak up only when invited to and teachers are not publicly contradicted or criticized. When a child misbehaves teachers involve the parents and expect their help in bringing the child to order. Education is also personalized, especially at the higher levels where what is transferred between teacher and student is not some impersonal Truth but the personal wisdom of the teacher. In such a system the quality of education is dependent on the excellence of the teachers.
In the Small Power Distance situation teachers are expected to treat their students as basic equals and expect to be treated as equals by the students. Younger teachers are more equal and as a result more liked than older ones. The educational process is student-centered with a premium placed on student initiative. Students are expected to find their own intellectual paths with the help of teachers. Students can make uninvited interventions in class. They are supposed to ask questions when they do not understand something and may disagree with teachers. When a child misbehaves the parent is likely to side with the child against the teacher.
Overall, the educational process is more impersonal. What is transferred is 'truth' or 'facts' which exist independently of any particular teacher. Effective learning in such a situation very much depends on whether the supposed two-way communication between students and teachers really exists. The entire system depends on the students need for independence and the quality of education is dependent on the performance of the students.
Power Distance in the workplace
In more affluent societies people begin their working lives as young adults after having gone through learning experiences in the family and at school.Therefore, it should surprise no one when attitudes towards parents (especially fathers) and teachers which are part of people's mental programming are transferred toward their bosses.
In the Large Power Distance context superiors and subordinates are existentially unequal. The hierarchical system is felt to be based on this existential inequality.
Organizations centralize power in as few people's hands as possible. Subordinates expect to be told what to do.
There are a lot of supervisory personnel structured into hierarchies of people reporting to each other. Salary systems show wide gaps between the top and bottom of the organization. Educational levels of most workers are relatively low and manual work has less prestige than office work. Superiors are entitled to privileges (private laws) and contacts between superiors and subordinates are supposed to be initiated by the superiors alone. The ideal boss in the subordinates' position is a benevolent autocrat or a 'good father'. Being a victim of power abuse by one's boss is just bad luck, there is no assumption that there should be a means of redress against such a situation. If it gets too bad, people may join forces for a violent revolt. After experiences with 'bad fathers' they may ideologically reject the boss's authority while in practice they will still comply. Management models invented in other countries will not work if they presuppose some form of negotiation between subordinate and superior that neither party feels comfortable with.
In the Small Power Distance situation subordinates and superiors regard each other as equal and any hierarchical system reflects inequality of roles established for convenience. What's more, the roles may change and that someone who is subordinate in one context may be the superior in another situation in the same workplace at the same time.
Organizations are mostly decentralized with flat hierarchical pyramids and limited supervisory positions. Salary ranges between the top and bottom are smaller (and may be fixed by a formula). Workers tend to be more educated and high-skill manual work has more status than low-skill office work. Privileges for higher ups are viewed as undesirable. The ideal boss is a resourceful, respected democrat. Subordinates expect to be consulted before a decision that affects their work is made even as they accept that the boss will be the one who decides.
"Matching realities"
One of the hardest things for people to accept about human communication is the uselessness of logic. It comes as something of a shock to discover that logic has been proven to have almost nothing to do with the effective of persuasive language. In fact, language can be so far out on the edges of total non-logic that it approaches insanity without keeping it from functioning perfectly well as a means of persuasion.
This is one reason why advertising is generally so awful. Advertisers know that a tasteful, clever commercial causes people to remember the commercial and not the product. Logic might indicate that irritating commercials would cause buyers to avoid the product being advertised. In reality though, obnoxious advertisements have a more positive than negative effect on sales.
George Miller formulated an extremely useful rule for all kinds of communication, which will be referred to as Miller's Law hereinafter: In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of.
Notice that he does not say you must assume it is true if it is logical or reasonable. Just assume it is true (in the sense that the other person is accurately conveying how they perceive reality) and proceed.
This is perhaps easier said than done. Nonetheless, the skill of entering other people's realities is perhaps the most important communication skill of all. But because of the difficulties, it is helpful to examine carefully how people build and live in their reality in several steps.
Reality Statements
It is a great problem that the human senses, the only means for people to perceive physical reality, cannot be relied on to accurately do so.
You feel the earth beneath your feet as steady and unmoving (except in earthquakes or other extraordinary occurrences). On the other hand, according to the scientific consensus, it is rapidly spinning as it travels through space at a speed of many thousands of kilometers per hour.
People have to deal with the disconnect between what their senses tell them vs what the scientific consensus tells them. One way of dealing with this awkward situation is to construct a set of statements about 'reality'.
These include uncontroversial propositions such as:
'Water is a liquid.'
'People need oxygen to breathe.'
As well as seemingly contradictory statements such as:
'The earth is stable beneath my feet.'
'The earth is spinning as it travels through space at great speeds.'
There are also personal reality statements:
'It's fun to drink beer.'
'I look better in blue than in red.'
People treat social reality in the same way and there is a category of general reality statements about life as lived on a day to day basis.
'Poland is in Europe.
'Work is no fun.'
When a group has enough reality statements in common, you have a culture. Much of the uneasiness of 'culture shock' comes from having to interact with people who appear to be operating under a very different set of reality statements.
Not all reality statements apply to all areas of life however. People also have to accept small sets of auxiliary reality statements that only apply to one particular part of life.
The general rule is "It's wrong to kill another human being." But soldiers can only function in combat by temporarily accepting the conflicting reality statement 'It's necessary to kill as many human beings of a specified kind as possible'. Outside of combat a soldier sets aside the combat reality statement and abides by the first statement.
Constructed Realities
People understand fiction, fairy tales and television dramas because they are willing to give up their knowledge of the real world for a while. Certainly movie audiences realize at some level that the man who was just shot is not really hurt.
But it is necessary to suspend that knowledge and assume that his death was real to understand the movie. It would be alarming if someone asked why the man's wife was weeping when the man is unharmed and isn't her real husband anyway.
When you agree to believe in the worlds you see on film and read about in books, you are accepting constructed realities. What you may not realize is that many other constructed realities exist as well. But instead of watching or reading them, people live inside these constructed realities. These are realities made up of reality statements and held together by metaphors.
What are Metaphors Phor?
The formal pattern of a metaphor is not complicated. The basic pattern is: X is Y (with the condition that this is not literally true). That is, selected features of Y are mapped onto X. A good metaphor is immediately understandable to the intended target. Metaphors are extremely useful in both describing something new in terms or something already known and in helping people perceive the familiar in new ways.
A poet who compares his lady love to a swan is counting on the reader to correctly match the relevant features (grace and beauty, perhaps a slender neck) and disregard features of the swan such as standing around in mud and eating insects.
Standardized tests in many countries contain many problems that ask questions like "Cub is to bear as calf is to ___." This is because satisfactory functioning in any culture depends in many ways on the ability to understand metaphors and to quickly discover the relevant matching points and disregard the irrelevant ones. Small children have a difficult time with this and must deal with it constantly as they develop their language skills. This is why when an adult says "He shot down my argument." A child not recognizing the metaphor might ask "Did he have a gun?"
Metaphors in Real Life
All the preceding is important, because it give clues as to how people understand the world and their place in it. This crucial in learning to apply Miller's law and be able to enter the constructed realities of other people, an extremely useful skill.
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