essay on cross cultural values

What are Cultural Values? A Comprehensive Guide for All

 Cultural values are the shared beliefs, norms, and practices that guide the behavior and attitudes of a group of people. They influence how people communicate, interact, and cooperate. They also shape how people view themselves, their identity, and their place in the world. Cultural values are not fixed or static; they can change over time and vary across different contexts and situations. 

Sanju Pradeepa

You know cultural values shape so much of how we see the world, yet we rarely stop to ponder their meaning and influence. Cultural values are the beliefs and ideals that bind groups together and guide behavior. They influence everything from etiquette to ethics, holidays to habits. Understanding cultural values—both your own and those of others—is key to navigating our increasingly global society.

In this article, we’ll unpack the meaning of cultural values, explore how they form and spread, see how they differ around the world, and discuss why they matter in today’s world. By the end, you’ll have a deeper appreciation for the cultural values that make us who we are. So find a comfy seat, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, and let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What are cultural values.

Cultural values are the principles and standards of a society that guide the way people think, feel, and behave. They shape our beliefs, attitudes, and actions.

Some key cultural values include:

• Individualism vs. collectivism: Individualist cultures value independence and personal achievement, while collectivist cultures emphasize group harmony and loyalty.
• Power Distance: This refers to how much inequality people accept in a culture. High power distance means hierarchy and unequal power distribution are accepted, while low power distance means people value equality and decentralization of power.
• Uncertainty Avoidance: Cultures with high uncertainty avoidance prefer rules, structure, and predictability. Those with low uncertainty avoidance are more tolerant of ambiguity and chaos.
• Masculinity vs. Femininity: Masculine cultures value competitiveness, ambition, and achievement, while feminine cultures emphasize quality of life, relationships, and work-life balance.
• Long-term vs. short-term Orientation: Long-term-oriented cultures value thrift, perseverance , and adaptation to changing circumstances. Short-term-oriented cultures emphasize tradition, personal stability, and fulfilling social obligations.
• Indulgence vs. Restraint: Indulgent cultures allow relatively free gratification of natural human drives related to enjoying life, while restrained cultures suppress gratification of needs and regulate it by means of strict social norms.

Cultural values shape how we see the world, interact with each other, and go about our daily lives. Understanding them leads to more effective cross-cultural communication and cooperation. What values does your culture hold dear?

The Origins and Evolution of Cultural Values

Cultural values shape societies in profound ways. They originate from a mix of influences: religion, language, ethnicity, history, and environment. As cultures evolve, values adapt to changing circumstances.

The role of religion

Many cultural values stem from religious beliefs. For example, Christian societies often emphasize kindness, forgiveness, and charity. Buddhist cultures promote harmony, patience, and humility and also value concepts like dharma (duty), karma (cause and effect), and ahimsa (non-violence).

Language and ethnicity

Shared language and ethnicity strengthen cultural connections and shape values within groups. Concepts like hospitality, family loyalty, or honor are commonly emphasized. Minority ethnic groups may highlight values that strengthen their identity.

Historical experiences

A culture’s history significantly impacts its values. Societies that have endured hardships like famine, war, or oppression frequently value qualities like perseverance , courage , or independence. Values can also be influenced by interactions with other groups as cultures blend together over time through trade, migration, or colonization.

Environmental factors

Geography and climate shape cultural values by necessitating certain qualities for survival. For example, cultures in harsh, resource-scarce environments often emphasize self-reliance , hard work, and thriftiness. Coastal societies frequently value concepts related to fishing, sailing, and trade. Agricultural communities tend to value harmony with the land and seasons.

Cultural values provide a shared sense of meaning , purpose, and identity within societies. While values originate from a culture’s unique circumstances, there are also universal values common to humanity—things like love, compassion, justice, and wisdom—that transcend cultural differences and unite us all.

Why Cultural Values Matter

Cultural values are the beliefs and ideals that shape how a group views themselves and the world around them. They govern behavior, shape attitudes, and influence important life decisions. Understanding cultural values—both your own and those of others—is key to effective communication and building meaningful relationships.

Shared Identity

Cultural values connect us to others in our group, creating a sense of shared identity. When we uphold the same values as our peers, it strengthens our bonds and reinforces our place within the community. However, this can also lead to an “us vs. them” mentality towards those with differing values. It’s important to balance cultural pride with openness to other perspectives.

Influence Outlook

The cultural values we absorb from an early age shape how we interpret the world around us . They act as a lens, filtering our perceptions and judgments. We tend to see those who share our values as “right” or “normal,” while perceiving those with opposing values as “strange” or even “wrong.” Recognizing this tendency in ourselves and others can help promote understanding.

Guide Behavior

Cultural values are not just abstract ideals. They directly impact how we live our lives and interact with others. The values we hold dear shape the choices we make, the way we communicate, and our unquestioned habits and routines. When values come into conflict, it can lead to misunderstandings and tensions. Navigating these differences with empathy, respect , and an open mind is key to overcoming cultural barriers.

In an increasingly connected world, understanding cultural values—both shared and diverse—is crucial. Appreciating both the uniting and distinguishing power of values allows us to build common ground while also honoring what makes each culture unique. By understanding why cultural values matter, we can work to promote inclusion, foster meaningful connections across perceived divides, and make progress together.

Examples of Common Cultural Values

Cultural values refer to the ideals and beliefs that shape how people in a society live and interact. They influence attitudes, priorities, and behaviors within a culture. Here are some of the most common cultural values found around the world:

Individualism vs. collectivism

Some cultures emphasize individualism, prioritizing individual goals and achievements. Others focus on collectivism, valuing group cohesion and harmony. Individualistic cultures like those in the US and Western Europe encourage uniqueness , while collectivist cultures in Asia, Africa, and Latin America stress community and social bonds.

Power Distance

This refers to how much inequality people accept in a culture. High-power distance cultures like China and India accept an unequal distribution of power, while low-power distance cultures such as Australia aim for equality and less hierarchy.

Uncertainty Avoidance

Cultures with high uncertainty avoidance, like Japan and Germany, value rules, order, and clear expectations. They prefer to avoid ambiguity and minimize risk. Cultures low in uncertainty avoidance, such as the US and UK, are more tolerant of uncertainty and open to unstructured ideas or situations.

Masculinity vs. Femininity

Masculine cultures value competitiveness , achievement, and material success. Feminine cultures emphasize quality of life, caring for others, and social relationships. Japan and Austria rank high in masculinity, while Scandinavian countries like Sweden are more feminine.

Long-term vs. short-term orientation

Long-term-oriented cultures such as China and Japan focus on perseverance, thrift, and future rewards. Short-term-oriented cultures like the US and France value immediate gratification, consumption, and quick results.

Cultural values shape how we interpret the world around us and interact with each other. Recognizing these values in yourself and others can help promote cross-cultural understanding and bring greater harmony between people from diverse backgrounds.

How Cultural Values Shape Society

Cultural values are the ideals and beliefs within a society that shape behaviors and social norms. They influence how people think, communicate, and interact with one another in their daily lives. Cultural values also help determine what is considered right or wrong, good or bad, and important or unimportant in a society.

Tradition and Change

Cultural values often represent a balance between tradition and change. Societies value tradition by passing down beliefs and practices between generations. However, as societies evolve, cultural values also adapt to fit the times. Older generations may cling to more traditional values, while younger generations push for progressive changes. Finding the right balance between honoring tradition and embracing change is key to the growth and prosperity of any culture.

Morality and ethics

Cultural values shape a society’s morality and sense of ethics. They determine views on fundamental issues like life and death, family and relationships, and justice and human rights. Societies grapple with moral questions of what constitutes virtuous behavior and how to achieve “the good life.” Cultural values provide a moral compass for navigating these complex questions.

Cooperation and conflict

Cultural values influence how people in a society interact and relate to one another. Values like individualism versus communalism, competition versus cooperation, and harmony versus confrontation shape the nature of social relationships. Societies that emphasize cooperation and communalism tend to have more collectivist cultures , while those that emphasize individualism and competition tend to have more individualistic cultures. A society’s orientation towards cooperation or conflict impacts social cohesion and quality of life.

In summary, cultural values are the DNA of society. They shape how people think and act, determine morality and ethics, influence tradition and change, and affect cooperation and conflict. Cultural values reflect what really matters in a society, so understanding them is key to understanding the society itself.

Cultural Values Across Different Cultures

Cultural values represent the collective beliefs and ideals that shape a society. They are passed down through generations and influence how people think and behave. Cultural values can vary widely between different groups of people.

Individualism versus collectivism

Some cultures promote individualism, emphasizing personal achievement and independence. Others are more collectivist, focusing on group harmony and loyalty.

• Individualist cultures like those in the U.S. and Western Europe value personal freedom and achievement. People see themselves as autonomous individuals.
• Collective cultures in Asia, Africa, and South America value community over the individual. People see themselves as interdependent and define themselves by group membership. Loyalty to family and community is key.

This refers to how cultures view power hierarchies and inequality. High power distance means people accept an unequal distribution of power as normal. Low power distance means people value equality and challenges to authority.

• High power distance: Cultures in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America accept hierarchy and authority. People respect age, status, and titles.
• Low power distance: Western cultures question authority and value egalitarianism. People see themselves as equals, regardless of age, status, or gender.

This refers to how cultures view uncertainty and ambiguity . High uncertainty avoidance means people prefer order, rules, and security. Low uncertainty avoidance means greater tolerance for ambiguity and risk.

• High uncertainty avoidance: Cultures in East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America prefer structure, rules, and traditions. People seek security and conformity.
• Low uncertainty avoidance: U.S. and Western European cultures are comfortable with ambiguity and risk. People value independence, creativity, and openness to change.

In summary, cultural values shape how people think, communicate, and behave in profound ways. Recognizing these differences can help promote cross-cultural understanding and bring people together, despite their diverse beliefs and worldviews.

The Impact of Cultural Values on Business

Cultural values shape how businesses operate and interact with customers in society. Understanding the cultural values of your target market is key to success.

Communication

How people communicate varies across cultures. Some prefer direct, blunt communication, while others rely more on context and reading between the lines. When marketing or providing customer service, adapt your communication style to match your audience. For indirect cultures, focus on building relationships and trust. For direct cultures, get straight to the point.

Time Orientation

Cultures also differ in their view of time. Some see time as rigid and unchanging, while others see it as fluid. In monochronic cultures like Germany or the US, people value punctuality and efficiency . In polychronic cultures like Brazil or Egypt, flexibility and relationships are more important. Accommodate these differences when scheduling meetings or deadlines.

Some cultures emphasize individual goals and achievements (individualism), while others focus on group harmony and loyalty (collectivism). In individualist cultures, highlight personal benefits and freedom of choice in your messaging. In collectivist cultures, the focus is on the benefits to families, communities, and society.

Risk Tolerance

The level of uncertainty and risk deemed acceptable varies across cultures. Some cultures, like the US, tend to be more risk-tolerant, while others, like Japan, are more risk-averse. When introducing new products or services, determine the risk profile of your target market and adjust accordingly. In risk-averse cultures, the focus is on stability, security, and risk mitigation. In risk-tolerant cultures, highlight opportunities for reward and status.

Understanding cultural values provides insight into your target customers and how to best serve them. Adapt your business practices, marketing, and customer service to align with the values of your audience. Respecting cultural differences will lead to greater success in today’s global marketplace.

Promoting cross-cultural understanding

To truly understand different cultures, you need to recognize and respect their values. Cultural values are the ideals and beliefs that shape how a group thinks and acts. Promoting cross-cultural understanding means appreciating how values differ between societies.

Openness and Curiosity

The first step is developing an open and curious mindset . Try to understand cultural values from an insider’s perspective, not an outsider looking in. Ask questions, do research, and seek to learn why certain values are meaningful to that group. For example, many Western cultures value independence, while other societies put more emphasis on interdependence and community. Neither is right nor wrong; they are just different.

Recognize Differences

Don’t assume all cultures share your values. What you consider normal or ethical may be viewed very differently elsewhere. For instance:

• Views on family and gender roles can vary widely between cultures.
• Concepts of personal space and privacy are culturally dependent.
• The importance placed on traits like assertiveness , competitiveness, and ambition differs across societies.

Appreciating these differences will help you avoid insensitive or disrespectful behavior. Make an effort to understand values in the proper cultural context.

Find common ground.

While values may differ between groups, all cultures share some universal values like compassion, kindness , and fairness. Focus on the values you have in common rather than those that divide you. Look for opportunities to build connections and foster mutual understanding. Engage in open and honest dialog to promote cooperation and trust between cultures.

Promoting cross-cultural understanding is a lifelong process that requires patience, empathy, and a willingness to step outside your comfort zone . But by making the effort to learn about different cultural values, you can help create a more inclusive society where diversity is celebrated rather than feared. Understanding each other’s differences is the first step to overcoming them.

How to Uphold and Strengthen Cultural Values

To uphold and strengthen cultural values within a society, community, or organization, there are several effective strategies you can implement:

Promote understanding

Educate others about the origins and meaning behind your cultural values. Explain how they shape attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Increase insight into why certain traditions, rituals, or practices are important. The more people comprehend the significance, the more they will appreciate and support the values.

Honor traditions

Continue established customs, ceremonies, and celebrations that highlight meaningful cultural values. Participate in cultural events and invite others to join in. Make cultural values visible through symbolic representations like flags, statues, paintings, or clothing.

Share stories

Pass down cultural values through narratives, folklore, music, or art. Stories are a powerful way to convey morals, lessons, and wisdom to future generations. Share stories of role models or key historical figures who embodied important cultural values.

Set an example.

Model the behaviors and attitudes you want to see in others. Practice the cultural values in your own words, actions, and decisions. Be a mentor for those who want to strengthen their connection to the culture. Your passion and commitment will inspire others.

Reward and recognize

Provide positive reinforcement by acknowledging those who demonstrate cultural values. Thank them for their efforts and contributions. Highlight their achievements within the community. Recognition motivates people to continue promoting cultural values.

Strengthening cultural values requires ongoing dedication and teamwork. But by making the values a central part of individual and community identity, you ensure they endure and remain a source of meaning for generations to come. Focus on understanding, tradition, storytelling, leading by example, and positive reinforcement. Together, these strategies will keep cultural values alive and thriving.

Attitude and Mindset: Intersection, Importance & Difference

Threats to cultural values in today’s world.

Globalization and access to technology have exposed most of the world’s cultures to outside influences, which can threaten traditional cultural values. Some of the biggest threats to cultural values today include:

Cultural appropriation

When aspects of a minority culture are adopted by members of the dominant culture, it can feel disrespectful or like the meaning and importance are lost. Cultural appropriation of clothing, hairstyles, music, or religious practices can damage or dilute cultural values when done without proper understanding, respect, or permission.

Spread of misinformation

The internet and social media have enabled the rapid spread of both information and misinformation. False or misleading information about cultural beliefs , practices, or histories can undermine and distort cultural values. It’s important we educate ourselves about cultures different from our own to avoid perpetuating stereotypes or spreading misinformation, even unintentionally.

Globalization of media.

Access to media from around the world through streaming services and the internet exposes us to cultures different from our own. While cultural exchange can be positive, the globalization of media does threaten local cultural values by promoting more western or American ideologies. Local media, arts, music, and entertainment industries struggle to compete, and traditions can be lost.

While tourism promotes cultural appreciation and economic benefits, uncontrolled tourism can be damaging. Disrespectful tourists who treat cultural sites and practices as spectacles rather than with reverence can degrade sacred values. Overtourism leads to overcrowding, environmental damage, and a loss of authenticity. Regulations and sustainable tourism practices are needed to protect cultural values from the threats of tourism.

Overall, protecting cultural values in today’s connected world requires education, open-mindedness, cultural sensitivity, and a willingness to listen and understand each other, even when we don’t see eye to eye. Promoting inclusiveness, fighting misinformation, and encouraging cultural diversity will help ensure traditional values survive and thrive. But change is inevitable, and cultural values will continue to evolve and adapt to the modern world, as they always have.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Cultural Values in a Globalized World

Cultural values shape societies and bring people together, but in today’s globalized world, cultural identities are evolving. As cultures blend and ideas spread, cultural values are adapting to reflect more inclusive and progressive ways of thinking.

Looking ahead, cultural values will likely drift in a more humanitarian direction. There will be a greater emphasis on human rights, empathy, and mutual understanding between groups. Discrimination based on attributes like ethnicity, gender, sensual orientation, and religion will continue to decline. People will value diversity and push for equal treatment of all individuals.

Interconnectedness will be highly prized. Things that divide us, like nationalism and tribalism, will be discouraged in favor of a shared human identity. There will be more appreciation for how our fates are bound together in an increasingly global community. Cooperation and collaboration across borders will be seen as vital to solving problems that affect us all.

Environmentalism will likely feature more prominently in cultural values. As the impacts of climate change intensify, cultures will promote more sustainable ways of living that reduce humanity’s ecological footprint. Protecting biodiversity and natural habitats will be seen as keys to ensuring a livable planet for future generations. An ethic of environmental stewardship will spread.

Even as cultures blend, cultural traditions will still be honored. While globalization exposes us to outside influences, people will continue to value the histories, languages, arts, and other hallmarks that make their cultural identities unique. The trick will be balancing cultural preservation with a spirit of openness, inclusion, and shared progress.

The future of cultural values looks bright if we make the well-being of all people and our planet central to how cultures evolve in the decades ahead. By embracing diversity, championing human rights, and protecting our environment, cultural values can help create a more just, sustainable, and prosperous world for all.

You now have a sense of what cultural values are and how deeply they shape society. But cultural values are complex; they evolve over time and differ across groups. The values you hold dear say a lot about your identity and experiences. At their best, cultural values bind communities together and give life deeper meaning. At their worst, they can promote close-mindedness and conflict with others.

Understanding cultural values—both your own and those of others—is so important in today’s global world. So keep exploring, questioning assumptions, and seeking to understand people who are different. That’s the only way we’ll build a future filled with more connection and less division. Cultural values matter, so make the effort to understand them.

• Cultural exchange: Embracing Cultural Exchange in a Globalized World by FasterCapital 
• 38 Cultural Values Examples By  Pernilla Stammler Jaliff (MSSc)
• Understanding How Culture Impacts Local Business Practices
• Behav Sci (Basel) , Individualism, Collectivism, and Allocation Behavior: Evidence from the Ultimatum Game and Dictator Game Jingjing Jiao , –  doi:  10.3390/bs13020169 from An official website of the United States government.
• Cross-Cultural Communication and Cultural Understanding Written by MasterClass
• PhD Assoc. Prof. Natalia Bogoliubova, PhD Assoc. Prof. Julia Nikolaev, – Cultural Ties in a Globalization World: The Threats and Challenge (PDF)

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Why cross-cultural communication is important—and how to practice it effectively

Many bachelor’s degree programs require students to complete a few courses in a foreign language; learning another language can be a vital skill in many careers as well as a way to gain broader perspective on culture and global connections. But language instruction often requires an immersive and intensive classroom schedule that isn’t well-suited to part-time study or the flexible online platform offered by Penn LPS Online’s Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) degree.

“When we were thinking about what the new Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences would look like, we thought that the residential language program didn’t work as well to address the needs of a very diverse student body which might not even be located here in Philadelphia,” recalls Dr. Christina Frei, Academic Director of the Penn Language Center . “We needed to figure out a way to still have a discussion about language in the degree. I proposed that we offer a course that focuses on the role that language plays in intercultural communication.”

The resulting course is one of the foundational requirements of the BAAS degree. The purpose of ICOM 100: Intercultural Communication is to develop effective communication skills and cultural understanding globally as well as within diverse communities.  While the Intercultural Communication course does not replace the intensive language instruction necessary to speak and read in another language, it does develop the intercultural perspective, which is vital to learning a new language and engaging meaningfully with people across language and cultural differences. “Language is embedded and highly connected to culture. One cannot understand language outside of cultural or vice versa,” says Frei. “I designed the course to pique students' interest in the power of language and the complexities of language and culture.”

What is intercultural communication?

Intercultural communication has become a key concept in language instruction, but only recently. “In the last 20 years—and particularly in the last 10 years—we really understand more about the role that language plays in identity,” says Frei. In her many roles at Penn, Frei ensures that language and cultural studies meet the standards of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), which has started to center identity and culture. At the Penn Language Center, which houses language instruction that falls outside of established foreign language departments such as the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures (for which Frei is the Undergraduate Chair), Frei oversees course offerings and learning opportunities in languages spoken in Africa and South Asia as well as American Sign Language and even language instruction for professional use (such as Spanish for health professionals and Chinese for business). Frei is also the Executive Director of Language Instruction for the School of Arts and Sciences, and in that capacity, she oversees language education across Penn to ensure professional standards are met and a cohesive pedagogical approach is achieved. “Over the last 10 years, the best practices have changed, and ACTFL really has begun to look towards intercultural communication,” says Frei.

To understand what intercultural communication is, it helps to understand culture as something active and pervasive. “Culture is a verb,” says Frei, citing one of the assigned texts from her course: Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction by Ingrid Piller. “You’re doing culture all the time,” explains Frei. “In order to become aware of what culture actually is, you have to really develop a critical eye to look at your perceptions and your surroundings.” Doing culture can include ways of speaking and acting but also thoughts and beliefs you’re not even aware of—although you’re most likely to become aware of how you “do culture” when you interact with someone who “does culture” differently. Intercultural communication encompasses a vast array of verbal and nonverbal interactions that may take place on such occasions: learning a new language or visiting another country are common examples but joining a new workplace or participating in a community organization with members of diverse backgrounds can also engage intercultural communication skills.

“If you want to do culture interculturally, you cannot do it by exclusion,” adds Frei. “Inclusivity, to me, is the new word for being truly multicultural, to really be open-minded and understanding about the differences that human beings have in their lives, their languages, and in their beliefs and cultural practices.”

The importance of intercultural communication

Intercultural communication plays a pivotal role in our increasingly globalized world, where people from various cultural backgrounds interact regularly. It is of paramount importance as it facilitates understanding and collaboration among individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds, helping to break down the walls of stereotypes and assumptions that can hinder effective communication. In a world where cultural diversity is the norm, effective intercultural communication fosters empathy, reduces misunderstandings arising from differing cultural norms, and promotes tolerance. By embracing the nuances of different cultures, we bridge divides and harness the rich tapestry of perspectives, ideas, and talents that diverse populations bring to the table. It is a cornerstone for successful diplomacy, international business, and peaceful coexistence. Intercultural communication promotes unity in diversity, enhancing our collective capacity to address global challenges and build a more inclusive and harmonious global community.

How do you develop intercultural understanding in the classroom?

To provide a broad range of opportunities for students to analyze examples of “doing culture,” the Intercultural Communication course incorporates an array of readings, videos, and websites to explore different ways of expressing and interpreting culture through language. There are recorded interviews with scholars and activists who have compelling perspectives on how to “do culture” as a member of a minority population: a Lakota historian who protested the construction of a pipeline in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, an applied linguist involved in a social impact project with a Bangladeshi community in Philadelphia, and the director of the American Sign Language program at Penn who shares insight about language and culture within the deaf community. In addition to the Intercultural Communication textbook and assorted reading assignments, the students read The Enigma of Arrival , V.S. Naipaul’s autobiographical novel about his journey from the island of Trinidad to the countryside of England. “It’s a fabulous book that I hope the students enjoy reading,” says Frei. “It’s one person’s story about coming to a new place and doing culture from the outside, so to speak. There is a lot of self-observation and self-reflectivity about how, as he is doing culture, he begins to understand himself and the place differently.”

Students analyze and reflect on these cultural artifacts in class discussions and written assignments. “The workshops that I usually offer here at Penn and the courses I teach have a communicative approach with a lot of reflection, so that's part of the Intercultural Communication course as well,” says Frei. “We do tons of personal reflection because it’s important to know what your own prejudices are, what your own value system is, what your own sense-making is, and what your own analysis is, and what your own observations are.” In particular, students are asked to step back and observe how they communicate with others, from workplace and religious communities to interactions with friends and family to brief encounters at the supermarket. “It's almost like an anthropological journal, if you wish,” says Frei. ”It builds a particular kind of sensitivity to observe without judgment what you’re thinking and how you react, which helps you to be inclusive, to have empathy, and to understand the people you engage with.”

Though the course is asynchronous, Frei says, discussion boards and reflective practices bring students into the discussion and require them to communicate clearly and thoughtfully with one another. “Perhaps that’s the beauty of an online course,” says Frei. “You really do need to listen or read and pay attention to what your peers are saying. I think they really will gain an understanding of what intercultural communication means to each of them.”

“The students are actually creating the knowledge of the course,” she adds. “I'm giving them a tool kit, but what they actually do with it is up to them—and that’s very exciting.”

Tips for effective cross-cultural communication

To succeed in the course, Frei emphasizes that students need to pace themselves and schedule themselves plenty of time to think, reflect, and feel as they go through the coursework. “These are not just assignments where you can just check a box and you're done. These are thinking pieces,” says Frei. “Students need to really make sure to put some time aside because they have to think in order to do the work. They need to allow themselves to be open-minded about themselves and perhaps, in their own thinking, surprise themselves.”

Time management gives students the space needed to develop their practice of reflection, which is an important skill for communication in any context. For Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences students, Frei notes, reflection is built-in throughout the entire degree, culminating in the ePortfolio degree requirement . “It makes complete sense,” she says. “The ePortfolio is not just a curated collection of your best work. It’s a curated collection that you thought about and where you reflected on your benchmarks, your rubrics, your qualifiers for your best work.” Likewise, reflection is a vital step in thinking about culture and language.

But to Frei, reflection is deeply entwined with the concept of self-care. “Ask yourself: How can I be healthy emotionally, intellectually, physically? How does that all come into the mix?” says Frei. In her German classes, Frei will often ask students to complete a self-assessment of their reading practices: where do they typically sit, how focused do they usually feel, what kinds of emotions to do they experience and when. By being attuned to those details, says Frei, a student can make choices that will help them both enjoy and absorb more in their reading. Likewise, when it comes to language and culture, “self-care is key,” she says. “Self-reflection and understanding your own practices, your own cultural beliefs, your own cultural practices and perspectives will help you to sensitize you.”

“This is a course that shares knowledge through books and instructional design. You’ll gain insights into minority discourses and you’ll learn about communication and language. Those skills are transferable to other courses,” says Frei. “But it’s also a place where you can get to know yourself a little bit more. I think that could be really helpful.”

For more information about this unique online degree and its requirements, visit the Penn LPS Online feature “What is a Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences degree? ”

Dive deeper into all the opportunities available through Penn LPS Online by visiting our homepage .

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Cross-cultural differences and similarities in human value instantiation.

• 1 School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
• 2 Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom
• 3 Departamento de Psicologia, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, Brazil
• 4 Department of Psychology, University of Derby, Derby, United Kingdom
• 5 Departamento de Psicologia, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Joao Pessoa, Brazil
• 6 Department of Psychology, Karnatak University, Dharwad, India

Previous research found that the within-country variability of human values (e.g., equality and helpfulness) clearly outweighs between-country variability. Across three countries (Brazil, India, and the United Kingdom), the present research tested in student samples whether between-nation differences reside more in the behaviors used to concretely instantiate (i.e., exemplify or understand) values than in their importance as abstract ideals. In Study 1 ( N = 630), we found several meaningful between-country differences in the behaviors that were used to concretely instantiate values, alongside high within-country variability. In Study 2 ( N = 677), we found that participants were able to match instantiations back to the values from which they were derived, even if the behavior instantiations were spontaneously produced only by participants from another country or were created by us. Together, these results support the hypothesis that people in different nations can differ in the behaviors that are seen as typical as instantiations of values, while holding similar ideas about the abstract meaning of the values and their importance.

Introduction

In recent years, many Western countries have accepted once again tens or even hundreds of thousands of immigrants into their country. This has sparked widespread discussions of how well immigrants are able to acculturate (e.g., The Economist, 2016 ). For example, a recent Canadian survey found that three quarters of Ontarians feel that Muslim immigrants have fundamentally different values than themselves ( Keung, 2016 ). This feeling is in contrast to large international surveys of human values in which it was found that people from more than 55 nations are consistent in valuing some values more and others less ( Schwartz and Bardi, 2001 ). How then is it the case that people from different countries appear to be so different? The present research follows up this train of thought by testing whether people in different nations differ in the behaviors that are seen as typical instantiations (i.e., examples) of values, while holding similar ideas about the abstract meaning of the values and their importance.

Conceptualizing Values and Value Differences

Values, abstract guiding principles, have gained a lot of attention, not just within psychology, but also in neighboring fields such as sociology, economics, philosophy, and political science ( Schwartz, 1992 ; Gouveia, 2013 ; Maio, 2016 ). In the last three decades, researchers have asked people to rate diverse values in terms of their importance as guiding principles in their lives. Analyses of these ratings have taught us that the structure of human values is very similar across more than 80 countries ( Schwartz, 1992 ; Bilsky et al., 2011 ; Schwartz et al., 2012 ). That is, the same values have been grouped together in most countries, resulting in the view that values within a cluster are motivationally compatible. More specifically, in the predominant value model ( Schwartz, 1992 ) 10 value types are distinguished: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. The 10 value types can be combined into four higher order value types, which form the endpoints of two orthogonal dimensions: openness values vs. conservation values, and self-transcendence values vs. self-enhancement values (see Figure 1 ). Adjacent value types are motivationally compatible and hence positively correlated, whereas opposing value types are expected to be motivationally incompatible and negatively related.

FIGURE 1. Schwartz’ (1992) circumplex model of human values displaying 10 value types (bold font) and examples of values in each type (normal font) along two dimensions.

In addition, there is similarity in value hierarchies ( Schwartz and Bardi, 2001 ). Benevolence, universalism, and self-direction values are regarded as the most important across more than 50 countries, whereas tradition and power are valued least. Country of origin explains on average only 2–12% of inter-individual variance ( Fischer and Schwartz, 2011 ). Thus, there is high consensus on value priorities across countries.

Given these findings, how is it that people often persist in believing that people from different countries hold different values? Some factors are likely to be motivational: abundant evidence points to the roles of realistic group conflict ( Bobo, 1983 ), social identification ( Tajfel and Turner, 1986 ), symbolic racism ( Kinder and Sears, 1981 ), and various biases (e.g., symbolic self-completion, Gollwitzer et al., 1982 , or system justification, Jost and Banaji, 1994 ) that can lead us to feel that our own group is superior to other groups in numerous characteristics, including values. Other factors are cognitive: social learning ( Bandura et al., 1961 ) and stereotyping processes (e.g., illusory correlation, Hamilton and Rose, 1980 ) may lead us to encode other groups’ characteristics in ways that magnify the differences between groups. More relevant to the present research, however, is the nature of the values concept itself. Specifically, as abstract ideals, values subsume a wide range of behaviors as exemplars of the concepts. People may perceive differences between social groups because of the differences between groups in the specific behaviors that are seen as exemplars of different values, even if other behaviors that are exemplars of the values do not differ. Thus, by thinking about groups in terms of concrete instances, differences may be stronger than similarities.

In other words, people in different social groups may endorse the same values but associate different behaviors with them ( Maio, 2010 ). For example, the value of equality may be linked to comparisons between men and women in countries where gender equality is promoted, but not in countries where gender equality is not part of the political agenda. Indeed, Turkish people value equality as much as people in other European countries, but endorse gender equality less strongly ( Hanel et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, equality on an abstract level and gender equality were slightly negatively associated in Turkey, but positively in most other European countries.

These differences are not as evident if “meaning” is understood only as abstract conceptualizations of values, which tend to be vague in nature. The concrete actions that people link to values are value instantiations ( Hanel et al., 2017 ). The concept of instantiations originates from cognitive psychology. Instantiating a rule or concept involves applying it to a concrete exemplar ( Anderson et al., 1976 ). ‘Instantiation’ thus refers to a particular realization or instance of an abstraction or to the process of producing such an instance. Instantiation is therefore based on the relationship between general and specific, as in different levels of a conceptual hierarchy. For instance, football is an instantiation of the category sport , fork is an instantiation of cutlery , and pear is an instantiation of fruits (see Hanel et al., 2017 , for a more extensive overview).

Maio (2010) suggested that values can be modeled as mental representations on three levels. The first level is the system level, on which values are connected to each other, as in Schwartz’s (1992) model. The second level is the level of specific abstract values (e.g., equality and wealth), which comprise the importance that people attach to the abstract concepts. Finally, the third level is the instantiation level, which includes specific situations, issues, and behaviors relevant to the values.

Similar to instantiations of animals and other categories, research has found that value instantiations can vary in typicality, with important ramifications. For example, Maio et al. (2009) found that contemplation of typical, concrete examples of a value increased subsequent value-related behavior more than did contemplation of atypical examples. That is, the act of thinking about a typical, concrete example of a value led people to be more likely to spontaneously apply the value in a subsequent situation. This finding illustrates the importance of finding typical instantiations over a range of values (perhaps due to their greater familiarity or fit with the ideal or central tendency), which is another aim of Study 1. Based on this finding, Maio (2010) indicated that value instantiations could operate in different ways. More specifically, concrete value instantiations “could (1) affect a strength-related property of the abstract value itself (e.g., value certainty), (2) act as metaphors that we apply to subsequent situations through analogical reasoning, or (3) affect our perceptual readiness to detect the value in subsequent situations” ( Maio, 2010 , p. 27).

The Present Studies

In Study 1 we used a qualitative approach to measure (behavior) instantiations of 23 values from Schwartz’s (1992) value model, while comparing them in a systematic way across three countries. To help us examine the value instantiations, participants were asked to report situations in which they considered a value to be relevant, including the people in this situation and their actions . This method was an extension of previous concept-mapping approaches used in the study of attitudes (e.g., Lord et al., 1994 ), creativity research ( Sternberg, 1985 ), and values ( Maio et al., 2009 ).

We expected that people in different countries would differ in their concrete (behavior) instantiations of values, because we assumed that personal experiences and the socio-cultural environment exert a strong influence at the concrete level ( Morris, 2014 ; Hanel et al., 2017 ). To test this hypothesis, we collected data from regions of three countries: north-east Brazil, south-west India, and south Wales. These countries differ on various dimensions. In terms of years of schooling, GNP, and life expectancy ( United Nations Developmental Programme, 2014 ), India is the least developed of the three countries, and the United Kingdom is the most developed. Brazil and India are perceived to be much more corrupt than the United Kingdom ( Transparency International, 2014 ), and the homicide rate in Brazil is 25 times higher than in the United Kingdom and almost eight times higher than in India ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2014 ). Thus, corruption may be more spontaneously associated with equality as a value and protections against physical violence may be more strongly associated with family security in Brazil than in the United Kingdom. There are also marked differences in climate and natural resources. These differences may well be reflected in differences in value instantiation between the nations. For example, water conservation may be more spontaneously associated with the value of protecting the environment in places where water is scarce (e.g., north-eastern Brazil) than where it is abundant (e.g., most of the United Kingdom). Similarly, waste recycling may be more spontaneously associated with protecting the environment in places where recycling is possible and promoted than where it is not possible and/or not promoted. This difference could emerge even if the absolute or relative importance of the value protecting the environment – a key value relevant to these behaviors – is the same in both types of location. Furthermore, such differences may emerge even if people in both regions recognize the behaviors as potential ways to promote the environment (see Study 2). That is, people in both types of location may recognize that water conservation and recycling protect the environment, but they may simply differ in how strongly they spontaneously associate these behaviors with the value in day-to-day life.

With the results of this study in hand, the next substantive issue was whether the (behavior) instantiations that were most frequent in each nation would fit the value as it is conceived in the other nations. That is, even if we focus on the instantiations that appeared only in one nation but not in another, could the instantiations be matched to values (i.e., ‘back-translated’). Study 2 examined the degree to which instantiations could be recognized as belonging to the values from which they originated. For example, would participants recognize recycling as an example of protecting the environment and keeping secrets as an example of loyalty to an equal extent across countries? This step was important because it would reveal the conceptual relevance of the instantiations to the values. In other words, people should be able to recognize the value that a behavioral instantiation promotes, even if the instantiation is atypical for the participant’s own region. This matching would show that the instantiations vary merely in their spontaneous natural activation by values, but not in their conceptual relevance to values. Both studies were approved by the ethics committee of the School of Psychology, Cardiff University. That means that informed consent was obtained by the participants, which included that their participation was voluntarily, they could withdraw at any time without providing a reason, and that the information participants provided would be held anonymously. At the end of each study, participants were fully debriefed. The English versions of the questionnaires used in both studies, along with the two datasets, can be found on https://osf.io/s5vwa/?view_only=6803c67e69af48278640fbcbb2a7b3ea .

Study 1: Exploring Value Instantiations

This study aimed to find typical value instantiations in Brazil, India, and the United Kingdom and estimate the degree of similarity between them. This aim was achieved using a paradigm that has been used to examine exemplars of natural categories (e.g., Collins and Quillian, 1969 ), as well as in later research on typicality effects ( Fehr and Russell, 1984 ; Lord et al., 1994 ; Maio et al., 2009 ) and on the strength of associations between categories and their members ( Fazio et al., 2000 ). For example, Maio et al. (2009 , p. 601) asked participants “to list situations in which they considered equality to be important”. A different approach was chosen by Lord et al. (1994) , who asked their participants to complete attitude concept maps on capital punishment and social welfare in order to identify how participants refer to people who are affected by each of those social policies. Specifically, participants were asked to construct a concept map by adding nodes to a central node that stated “capital punishment” or “social welfare,” and the added nodes were generated in response to questions asking “what,” “where,” “when,” “who,” “why,” and “how”.

Following those examples, in Study 1 participants were asked to list situations in which they considered a value to be important and to include people and their actions. These responses were then used to create a conceptual map representing values and value instantiations for each country. These maps were similar to those created by Lord et al. (1994 , p. 661), except that our method maps values, rather than natural concepts (see the 23 figures in the Supplementary Materials for such ‘value maps,’ one for each of the 23 value investigated in this study).

Participants in Brazil

Participants were 189 mostly postgraduate students from João Pessoa, a coastal city from north-east in Brazil. Participants were not compensated. The average socioeconomic status (SES; Sharma et al., 2012 ) of 18.50 indicates that the average participant was part of the Brazilian upper-middle class (see Table 3 for details).

Participants in India

Participants were 214 undergraduate and graduate students from Dharwad, south-west India. Participants were not compensated. The mean SES was 20.78, indicating that the average participant was part of the Indian upper-middle class (see Table 3 for details).

Participants in the United Kingdom

Of the 227 participants in the United Kingdom, 122 were psychology undergraduate students, and 105 were other members of Cardiff University (students or staff). The students received course credits in exchange for their participation, and other university members could add their name to a raffle of three cash prizes of $30, $20, and $10. The participants’ SES was similar to the SES of participants in the two other countries (Table 1 ).

TABLE 1. Demographic details of the two samples.

The design was qualitative and entailed the use of open questions.

We examined 23 out of the 56 values of Schwartz (1992) value model (see Table 2 ). The values were selected according to their perceived relevance for explaining cross-cultural differences. That is, we expected the instantiations for the chosen values to be more varied than for some other, non-chosen values. From most value types, two values were selected. The exception was the value type universalism, for which seven values were selected, with an eye to potential future research. To measure socioeconomic status, Kuppuswamy’s Socioeconomic Scale ( Sharma et al., 2012 ) was used; it consists of three items, assessing education, occupation, and family income per month. Responses were summed up to one score. To adjust the income classes, the most recent available official income distribution from all countries was used. The questionnaire was translated to Portuguese from the original English version for the Brazilian sample by an experienced translator. The translation was double-checked by others who are fluent in both languages. The questionnaire was in English for the Indian and British samples.

TABLE 2. Length of average responses for each value and number of participants.

Participants were asked to list typical situations in which they considered each value to be important. Furthermore, they were asked to include a “short description of the people in the situation and what they do.” The instructions provided two examples that pertained to two values not included in our measures or in Schwartz’s value model: “For example, the value ‘enjoyment’ could be relevant during leisure time. Relevant people in the situation can be friends and the family. They could spend time together at the beach or playing games at home.”

Participants were asked to list at least two to three situations, people, and actions for each value, up to a total of seven. To reduce the risk of fatigue, each participant responded to four out of the 23 values (see Table 2 for the sample size for each value), resulting in approximately 30 to 40 participants per value. Subsequently, participants completed socio-demographic items. Brazilian and British participants completed the survey online, while Indian participants used a pen-and-paper version.

Data Analysis

The data were analyzed with the open access program Iramuteq, which is built on R and Python and designed for content and frequency analyzes (version 0.6 alpha 3; Ratinaud, 2009 ). The data were analyzed separately for each value and country. For all analyses, very similar words (e.g., people and person) as well as different verb forms (e.g., advice, advises, and advised) were treated as equivalent. Additionally, we grouped together certain words that seemed very similar (e.g., parents, dad/father, and mother/mum), but in general this was generally avoided because participants may have used the words in different ways even if they seemed similar to us. Furthermore, only nouns, verbs, and adjectives were analyzed.

To analyze the data, we conducted an explicit and implicit content analysis, because both the length (see Table 2 ) and the comprehensibility of the responses differed across countries. We struggled to interpret some of the responses, especially those made by Indian respondents. Therefore, an explicit content analysis seemed to be appropriate, because the meaning of a single word is usually easier to understand than the meaning of a sentence. Explicit content analysis “locates what words or phrases are explicitly in the text, or the frequency with which they occur” ( Carley, 1990 , p. 2). This analysis is straightforward and easy to reproduce, but can miss out the meaning. In contrast, an implicit content analysis aims to detect the meaning of what is said ( Carley, 1990 ). However, because the responses of British and Indian participants were much shorter than those of Brazilian participants, an implicit content analysis was difficult to produce. The British and Indian responses often consisted of only one word (e.g., “recycling” for a situation in which protecting the environment is relevant for British participants). This problem was identified after carefully reading all responses.

Next, we conducted an automated explicit content analysis with Iramuteq by counting the frequencies. We then re-read all responses which contained words that were mentioned at least by 20% of the participants to get a better understanding of the context in which the word was mentioned (i.e., implicit content analysis). The cut-off point was set to identify prospective typical instantiations, and we noted which behaviors were mentioned 10 times or more by at least five participants in one country. This threshold was selected because it enabled us to consider between 5 and 10 instantiations as candidates in each country. This procedure was not intended to definitively identify the typical instantiations, but to identify a range of instantiations that are potentially typical exemplars. In the concept mapping approach ( Lord et al., 1994 ), instantiations that are mentioned very rarely or not at all are regarded as unlikely to be core aspects of the concept, whereas frequent instantiations are seen as plausible candidates. These were then compared between the nations and considered for future study.

Finally, we re-read all responses to ensure that we had not missed any meaning or theme which was not flagged up in the frequency analysis conducted with Iramuteq, which was rarely the case. Below we report and discuss instantiations that were mentioned by at least 50% of the participants per value in each country and in the Supplementary Materials we also list 5 to 10 other instantiations per value and country that were mentioned by around 20% of the participants.

Because hardly any negations (e.g., “recycling is not relevant”) were used by Brazilian and British participants, the absolute frequencies of specific words and their connections are meaningful. Indian participants used more negations, which itself is an interesting finding, reflecting the fact that they seemed to focus more on what a value does not mean. However, we do not consider this to be an issue for the analysis, because such occurrences were still rare and they appear to have been used to express the same points as if the affirmative had been used. For example, one instantiation for the value helpfulness, “people do not come forward and rescue the victim, though they can,” was reported as an example of action antithetical to helpfulness, and was therefore judged to be equal to the hypothetical positive version (“rescue the victim”). The Brazilian instantiations were first identified by a native speaker and then translated by an experienced translator (Portuguese native speaker), who ensured that the meaning was correctly translated.

Because the three different facets of a given response – “situation,” “people in the situation,” and “what are they doing” – were all part of the instantiation, they were analyzed together. Furthermore, family, friends, and people or person were mentioned for most values at least 10 times as the “relevant people in the situation.” The value itself was also very frequently mentioned. Therefore, these responses are not informative and are not discussed further. The frequencies of these words are nevertheless listed in the Supplementary Materials.

All authors contributed to the data analysis and interpretation: The Brazilian data were analyzed and interpreted by the Brazilian authors of this paper and the authors based in the United Kingdom. The Indian data were analyzed and interpreted by the Indian authors of this paper and the authors based in the United Kingdom. The British data were analyzed and interpreted by the authors based in the United Kingdom.

Results and Discussion

The responses of the Brazilian participants for each value were on average nearly twice as long as the responses from Indian and British participants (see Table 2 ). The number of words mentioned at least 10 times barely differed between the Brazilian and the British sample. The number of words mentioned by at least 20% of the sample was lower in the Indian sample, resulting in fewer potentially typical instantiations in this sample.

Detailed analyses for each value can be found in the Supplementary Materials. There we list how often the most common instantiations of each country were mentioned and by how many participants. To address the question of whether value instantiations are more influenced by culture than values on an abstract level, we counted the number of instantiations that were mentioned by at least 50% of the participants in each country. If culture shapes how values are instantiated, people in each country should have a common understanding of values. We used 50% as an admittedly arbitrary threshold to define common understanding because of our relatively small sample sizes for each value (around 35 participants responded to each value in each country). This approach also allowed us to focus on larger effects, thus reducing the probability of a Type-I error.

As can be seen in Table 3 , for 11 out of the 23 values, 7 instantiations mentioned by at least 50% of the participants were found in Brazil, and another 7 in the United Kingdom. For example, 50% (18 out of 36) Brazilian participants mentioned spending time with the family as an instantiation for the value ‘pleasure’ and 58% (21 out of 36) British participants considered relationships as an instantiation of ‘honesty’ (mainly in the sense that honesty is important in a relationship). In India, no instantiation was mentioned by at least 50% of the participants.

TABLE 3. Instantiations mentioned by ≥50% of the participants in each country.

In a next step, we computed the number of instantiations mentioned by at least 50% more participants in one nation than in another country. However, because the majority of all instantiations in all countries were mentioned by less than 50% of the participants, only two instantiations revealed large differences: 62% of the Brazilian participants considered throwing garbage into a bin as typical for ‘protecting the environment,’ whereas only 3% of the Indian participants did so. Also, 57% of the British participants mentioned art as a typical instantiation of ‘creativity,’ whereas only 6% of the Indian participants did so.

Finally, we looked for similar instantiations in different values across all samples. In the descriptive analyses above and the Supplementary Materials, it is easy to discern a number of instances in which participants in one nation used the same example for a different value than was used in another nation. To illustrate this diversity with only the relatively frequent examples, we list here four words which were mentioned at least 10 times for different value types. New was relevant for ambition (self-enhancement) and daring, varied life, creativity, broad-mindedness (openness and self-transcendence); support was relevant for family security (conservation) as well as loyalty (self-transcendence); and work was relevant for success and ambition (self-enhancement) and creativity (openness).

Some other examples of overlap were found in the Brazilian sample. In particular, typical instantiations of wealth in this sample often focused on a good family life, thereby overlapping wealth with family security. In addition, Brazilian participants understood social power more as social responsibility.

While Study 1 focused on the comparison of Brazil, India, and the United Kingdom, in Study 2 we focused only on Brazil and the United Kingdom. This was done because the quality of the responses of the Indian participants was overall low. This finding was surprising because some of the authors of this paper have successfully conducted multiple quantitative studies with student samples from the same departments of the Indian university with overall reliable results. This suggests that the English proficiency of most students might have been adequate for quantitative research, but not for qualitative research.

Study 2: Matching Instantiations to Values

In Study 1 we found that, although few instantiations were mentioned by more than 50% of the participants in each country, some were mentioned more frequently by participants in one country than in one or both of the other countries. Of importance, these instantiations were produced spontaneously as examples of the values. If they are valid examples of the values, then these spontaneously produced exemplars should be correctly regarded as value instantiations; that is, when presented with an exemplar, people should be able to identify the value that elicited it. More importantly, we wanted to establish whether the examples would be seen as valid even in a country in which they had not been frequently generated. Should this be the case, it would indicate that the nations differ primarily with respect to the nature of the spontaneously produced examples, but not with respect to whether the examples are regarded as valid and therefore defining of the value. In other words, such a finding would show that the concrete examples of values that spontaneously come to mind in the mental representations differ between countries, but that the abstract meaning of the values is similar enough that even examples that do not spontaneously come to mind are seen as valid instances of a given value. The aim of Study 2 was therefore to test whether instantiations can be reliably matched to the values from which they were derived.

In Brazil, 427 under- and postgraduate students (mainly in psychology), from João Pessoa participated ( M age = 23.42, SD age = 6.96, 64.60% women). They were not compensated.

British participants were 250 psychology undergraduate students ( M age = 19.32, SD age = 2.25, 89.00% women) from Cardiff University. They received course credits in exchange for their participation. Prior to data analysis, 42 non-British participants were excluded, to be consistent with the homogeneous Brazilian sample.

Material and Procedure

One-hundred thirty-eight instantiations were chosen to be matched to values, six for each of the 23 values. The instantiations were chosen mainly based on the results of Study 1, but also for exploratory purposes. The instantiations used were a priori categorized as either typical (i.e., mentioned frequently) in the United Kingdom, typical in both countries, typical in Brazil, or not typical in either country. The latter group were instantiations that we generated for exploratory purposes, based on their perceived relevance to the present research and also based on previous studies. They were used when there were fewer than six instantiations that seemed suitable in the first three categories. For example, Maio et al. (2009) found that discrimination against left-handed people is an atypical (albeit highly unacceptable) instantiation for equality for British participants. Thus, we expected that this atypical example would be recognized as an instantiation of equality by British participants and also, presumably, by Brazilian participants.

The instantiations selected from Study 1 were chosen based on the frequency with which they were mentioned in each country, while balancing the instantiations that were mentioned in both countries with those mentioned in only one country but not the other. Typical instantiations for protecting the environment, for example, were (1) “Putting certain rubbish in recycle bins rather than general waste,” (2) “Making sure the lights are off,” (3) “Walk instead of using car for short distances,” (4) “Throwing garbage in the bin,” (5) “Saving water,” and (6) “Installing heat insulation in the house.” The first three instantiations were considered as more typical by British than Brazilian participants (Study 1, see Supplementary Materials), whereas the fifth instantiation was considered more typical by Brazilian participants. The fourth instantiation was frequently mentioned by participants in both countries, and the sixth instantiation was added for exploratory purposes. Given the differences in climate between João Pessoa and Cardiff, we expected this last instantiation to be more reliably matched to the value ‘protecting the environment’ by British than by Brazilian participants. A list of all 138 (137 in the United Kingdom) instantiations can be found in the Supplementary Table S70, including the values they were derived from and whether they were mentioned by participants in both countries, just one country, or were added by us. 1

The instruction to the participants was: “Your task in this study is simple: You will be given a specific situation and you are asked to choose the most suitable value in this situation.” This was followed by an example: “Leisure time is promoted most by valuing …”. This stem was followed by six values (in the current example: success, equality, ambition, wisdom, enjoyment, and respect for tradition), and a seventh “don’t know” option. Our example then stated a possible solution: “A possible answer is the value enjoyment: Leisure time is more related to the value enjoyment than to any other value in this set.” For this example, we intentionally selected a value that is not part of Schwartz’s value model. Both the ordinal position of the ‘correct value’ 2 among the response alternatives and the five alternative values were chosen randomly. The five alternative values were a subset of the 23 values from Schwartz’s 56 values listed in Study 1. Within the six instantiations of one value, both the order and the alternatives were kept constant. The five alternative values were kept constant across both countries. All participants then completed further scales, unrelated to the present study. On average, each instantiation was matched with values by 71 Brazilian and 41 British respondents.

Brazilian participants completed a paper version of the survey in classroom settings of 10 to 40 people. British participants completed the survey online. To reduce fatigue, each participant completed only one-sixth of the items, with each participant responding to one instantiation per value.

To perform the principal analyses, we first counted how often each value was identified as being promoted by an instantiation, separately for each country (see Supplementary Table S70). Next, we compared for each instantiation and each country whether the most frequently chosen response option (whether this was a value or don’t know) was chosen significantly more often than the second-most commonly chosen option, using χ 2 -tests. This is a conservative approach, which partly takes the research design (multiple choice) and the influence of the response alternatives into account. For example, if the ‘correct’ value was chosen by 20 out of 40 British participants, another value by 12, and a third by 8 participants, we would not count it as correctly matched, because the difference between 20 and 12 is not significant, χ 2 = 2.00, p = 0.16.

Overall, in both countries, most instantiations were correctly matched with the value from which they were derived (see Supplementary Table S70). Of the 138 (137 in the United Kingdom) instantiations, 94 were correctly matched by the Brazilian participants and 110 by the British participants. This difference (94 vs. 110) did not reach statistical significance, χ 2 (1) = 0.63, p = 0.43. Indeed, the similarities were much larger: both British and Brazilian participants were significantly more likely to choose the same, ‘correct’ value 86 out of 137 times. That is, they chose the same value significantly more often than any other value (or the ‘don’t know’ response). For another 12 instantiations, no value was chosen significantly more often than the second most frequent value in both countries.

For example, the instantiation “Putting certain rubbish in recycle bins rather than general waste” was correctly identified in both countries by the majority of participants as being promoted by the value protecting the environment (54 out of 67 Brazilian participants did so and 42 out of 43 British participants). In the Brazilian sample, the number of participants who chose protecting the environment differed significantly from the number of participants who chose the second-most frequently chosen value, helpfulness (54 vs. 9, χ 2 = 32.14, p < 0.001). Overall, Brazilian participants correctly matched five out of the six instantiations for protecting the environment, and British participants correctly matched all six instantiations to protecting the environment. As can be seen in Table 4 , participants from both countries were approximately equally likely to match instantiations that had been mentioned in both countries (columns 3 and 8), mentioned more frequently in Brazil, and also the exploratory instantiations. Brazilian participants had somewhat more difficulty in matching British instantiations, compared to their British counterparts (34 vs. 45, respectively), although this difference did not reach statistical significance, χ 2 = 1.53, p = 0.22.

TABLE 4. Frequencies of correctly matched instantiations for all values combined and depending on the origin of the instantiation.

In a final step, we computed how often differences occurred based on the taxonomy proposed in Study 1, while taking the unequal sample sizes into account. We compared all values that were mentioned by at least half the participants in one country with the percentage of participants choosing the same value in the other country. We focused on differences where one option was chosen by at least 50% more of the participants in one group than the other. Fifty percent was chosen as a cut-off value because it allowed us to focus on larger effects while reducing the probability of a Type-I error. For example, if 20% of the Brazilian participants reported that they thought that a specific instantiation is best promoted by wealth, at least 70% of the British participants (a difference of 50%) needed to choose wealth before we would call it a difference. This 50% cut-off value also aligns approximately with a p -value of 0.001 of a χ 2 -test, which in our view adequately controls for multiple-comparisons.

Differences were found for five instantiations (see Supplementary Table S70): ‘Traveling’ was considered to be best promoted by the value of ‘pleasure’ in the Brazilian sample and by ‘freedom’ in the British sample (84% of the Brazilian participants chose pleasure vs. 25% of the British participants and 13% of the Brazilian participants chose freedom vs. 75% in the British sample; see Supplementary Table S70). ‘Maintaining a good work life balance’ was considered to be promoted by ‘success’ in the Brazilian sample, but not in the British sample (73% vs. 12%), whereas British participants correctly matched this instantiation to ‘a varied life’ more often than Brazilian participants did (79% vs. 6%). ‘Being able to buy organic food’ was considered to be promoted by ‘wealth’ by British participants, but not by their Brazilian counterparts (61% vs. 6%). ‘Living your own life and not following the crowd’ was considered to be promoted by ‘self-discipline’ by Brazilian participants, but not by their British counterparts (84% vs. 13%), whereas the reverse applied for the value of ‘freedom’ (1% vs. 83%). This is an interesting finding because freedom and self-discipline are thought to be motivationally incongruent ( Schwartz, 1992 ), but nevertheless appear to be related in the Brazilian respondents’ views of their social relationships. Finally, ‘customer service’ was thought to be promoted by ‘social justice’ by Brazilian participants (61% vs. 7%), whose country is one where cultural issues of corruption are relevant, but was correctly matched to ‘helpfulness’ by British participants (83% vs. 21%).

General Discussion

The aim of this research was to explore whether value instantiations vary across countries, despite there being similarities in values at an abstract level ( Fischer and Schwartz, 2011 ). We first discuss the implications and limitations of Study 1, before turning to Study 2.

Implications of Study 1

In Study 1, we explored concrete examples (i.e., instantiations) associated with values across 23 values and 3 countries. This design enabled us to test the hypothesis that on a concrete level values differ between countries. However, only a few differences were found. There was large individual variability in the responses within countries, which made it difficult to detect differences between countries. This can be explained in terms of the ‘value as truism’ hypothesis ( Maio and Olson, 1998 ). People usually do not think about their values or discuss them with others in order to arrive at a shared understanding of the meaning of values. If, for example, students were to discuss whether freedom is important, they would presumably develop a more shared understanding of this value.

This variation in responses within and between countries has further implications relating to possible misunderstandings both within and perhaps especially between countries. Take the value of ‘protecting the environment,’ for example. If a Brazilian, an Indian, and a British person were to talk about the importance of protecting the environment, they might easily talk past each other, because it is quite likely that they would have somewhat different understandings of it. For example, the Briton might conceive of protecting the environment as entailing the reduction of carbon emissions, whereas the Brazilian and Indian individuals might be thinking of putting rubbish into a bin. This implication is consistent with research in law and political sciences. There it has been argued that “human dignity” is understood differently both across jurisdictions and also (over time) within jurisdictions ( McCrudden, 2008 ), resulting in intergovernmental and intergenerational misunderstandings, as governments treat their citizens based on their own interpretation of human dignity.

One conclusion from Study 1 is therefore that debate and discussion would be more constructive, and behavioral change interventions more effective if they linked the abstract values being considered to more concrete exemplars. Linking actions to abstract values carries a prescriptive, motivational impetus, which can predict behavior independently of attitudes, norms, and other constructs often used to predict behavior ( Schwartz and Tessler, 1972 ; Maio and Olson, 2000 ). By making the connections of values to an action explicit, people can reason through their relevant attitudes and intentions to achieve better fit with their values. Such an approach could be used to support intervention programs, which have to deal with the fact that several behaviors are closely linked to values. For example, protecting the environment is usually considered to be an important value ( Schwartz and Bardi, 2001 ), but can be linked to a variety of behaviors. Nonetheless, some of these behaviors are more damaging to the environment than others. For example, it may be more beneficial to alert participants to the fact that avoiding short distance flights or installing good heat insulation are effective ways of protecting the environment, rather than simply reminding people that environmental protection is important. Most people already agree that this value is important, and they might imagine that engaging in less impactful behaviors (e.g., recycling) demonstrates their support for the value. Highlighting important behaviors about the value should help to change their perceived typicality with respect to the value and the motivational impetus attached to these actions.

The only two exceptions where we found large differences between countries pertained to the values of ‘protecting the environment’ and ‘creativity.’ Specifically, Brazilians considered throwing garbage into a bin to be a typical instantiation of protecting the environment, whereas Indian participants did not. This finding is in line with our casual observation of the regions in Brazil and India from where the data were collected: the streets and roadside ditches in Brazil were much cleaner than those in India. Indeed, previous research found that 98% of Brazilian college students felt uncomfortable or very uncomfortable when seeing garbage all over the ground ( Profice and Edington, 2014 ) – a common sight in many places in India. Further, more than half of the British participants mentioned ‘art’ as an instantiation of ‘creativity,’ whereas hardly any Indian participants did so. This indicates that the so-called art bias, “the misunderstanding of creativity that equates it with artistic talent” ( Runco, 2007 , p. 384), could be a Western phenomenon (see Hanel et al., unpublished for follow-up studies).

Other meaningful differences across countries were related to contextual differences. For example, a typical instantiation of ‘success’ for Brazilian participants was ‘passing an entrance test,’ which is highly competitive in that country, but promises a prestigious job with a permanent contract. Another example is that Indian participants mentioned castes or caste-ism, mainly in relation to ‘equality,’ but also in connection with other values. This refers to a social system that does not exist in Brazil and the United Kingdom, although prejudice based on social class is somewhat similar. These examples show that the examples provided by participants depended to some degree on the social and physical environment in which they live.

Another aim of Study 1 was to identify instantiations that are more frequent in one country than another, to select these for further confirmatory studies. There were a number of findings suggesting that the presence or absence of instantiations in participants’ responses to the open-ended questions used in this research are not suitable to serve as the sole criteria for selecting typical instantiations. For example, the presence of the same examples in relation to different values is a complicating factor. There were many instances of the same context being referenced for different values. In some instances, the same example was used for motivationally similar values, but countries varied with respect to which value generated the example (e.g., ‘meeting new people’ used for ‘broadmindedness’ in the United Kingdom, but used for ‘a varied life’ in Brazil). This pattern suggests that small shifts in understanding the meaning of the values may affect which examples are given.

Our approach can be generalized to other psychological constructs, such as goals ( Grouzet et al., 2005 ) and personality traits ( McCrae and Costa, 2003 ; Ashton et al., 2004 ). The importance of instantiations is especially relevant to measures that require participants to respond to single-word items, such as the markers of the Big-5 traits ( Goldberg, 1992 ; Saucier, 1994 ) because they are not embedded in a context or defined, thus increasing the likelihood that the adjectives are differently instantiated. When completing such items, participants indicate how well adjectives such as ‘creative,’ ‘philosophical,’ or ‘warm’ describe themselves. However, participants across different groups might instantiate these adjectives differently. Future research could therefore investigate whether differences in how these adjectives are instantiated can account for potential failures to replicate the five-factor model of personality in some countries ( McCrae et al., 2005 ; Gurven et al., 2013 ). For example, if ‘creative’ is differently instantiated in different countries, the relations with other items of the same factor, and thus the factor loadings, are likely to differ. Further, as outlined above for values, knowing the trait instantiations might help to predict the trait-behavior link.

Limitations of Study 1

An important limitation of Study 1 is that it is likely that participants’ open-ended responses occasionally miss typical instantiations that they take for granted and, therefore, may neglect to mention. For instance, prior research has identified Blacks and women as two groups that are often used to instantiate the value of (lack of) equality in the United Kingdom ( Maio et al., 2009 ). However, these groups were mentioned in Brazil, but not in the United Kingdom. Conversational norms apply to the information that participants might choose to identify, and one important norm is not offering information already mutually understood (one of the Gricean maxims; Grice, 1975 ). This might sometimes cause people to neglect to report common instantiations that are not salient. Another possibility is that participants’ responses are somewhat egocentric. That is, treating students or job applicants equally is something that would directly affect the British participants, whereas equal treatment of Black people does not (bearing in mind that most of the British participants were Caucasian). Although these observations are speculative, they show that open-ended measures of concept mapping, as used here and in past research, are likely to be unreliable as sole measures of the typicality of an exemplar.

Another issue is that although some of the observed differences in instantiations are clearly explicable in terms of contextual factors, others are more difficult to explain. Examples of readily explicable differences in instantiations include references to caste-ism in the Indian sample and the association of ‘electric fences’ with ‘family security’ among Brazilian participants, given that caste-ism does not exist in Brazil and the United Kingdom, and both India and the United Kingdom are safer than Brazil ( Office for National Statistics, 2014 ). A difference that is more difficult to explain is in the use of ‘saving water’ for ‘protecting the environment.’ Although it seems obvious why saving water was mentioned more often in the relatively dry north-east of Brazil than in rainy Wales, it is less clear why saving water was barely mentioned by the Indian participants. Water conservation is an aspect of daily life in the region where this research was conducted (Karnataka), making it highly relevant to the residents. However, they did not spontaneously think of this behavior in relation to environmental protection. This may be a case where an instantiation is taken for granted, making it less salient to respondents (Gricean maxims; Grice, 1975 ). Alternatively, it may be the case that water conservation is seen as a basic necessity rather than a way to protect the environment. As a result, Indian participants may have perceived water shortage as a personal challenge rather than a challenge to the environment.

A further limitation pertains to the samples used. Because most participants were students in specific regions of each nation, generalizing to the population of each country should be done with caution (cf. Hanel and Vione, 2016 ). For example, Brazilians mentioned passing entrance exams for prestigious jobs as an instantiation. However, it is less likely that people who are close to retirement would also regard this as an instantiation for success. In other words, the instantiations seem also to be shaped by respondents’ age and educational level. Further, although the instantiations are in general not in line with typical gender stereotypes, similar limitations may pertain to the large proportion of female participants in all samples.

Finally, the answers in the Indian data were more heterogeneous (i.e., fewer typical instantiations) and were grammatically challenging to analyze, because of many grammatical errors. Most of the Indian participants did not have English as a first language, although English was the language of instruction both in school and at university. As a result, English proficiency varied substantially between participants. Another possible explanation for the difficulties we had in parsing the Indian responses is that Indian participants used a line of thought that was too unique for us to follow. This is sometimes a problem in anthropological research ( Barley, 1986 ). We sought to minimize the extent of this problem by working closely with our Indian collaborator. Despite the difficulties in interpreting the Indian data, we did not exclude it because excluding conditions is perceived to be bad practice ( Simmons et al., 2011 ) and it might be an useful for other researchers who seek to do qualitative research in India.

We aimed to get an overview of typical instantiations across 23 values and 3 countries. However, because of large within- and surprisingly small between-country variabilities in combination with relatively small samples sizes of around 30 participants in each country, cross-cultural comparisons were difficult. Thus, future research might want to measure instantiations in larger samples to detect potential (small) effects of group membership (e.g., culture) on how values are instantiated. Larger sample sizes would also allow one to test for moderators. For example, do left- and right-wingers instantiate conservation and openness values differently? A further possibility is to ask participants to describe three situations in the past in which they applied the value themselves or have seen applications of the value.

Implications of Study 2

The aim of Study 2 was to test the extent to which the instantiations obtained in Study 1 would be recognized as being promoted by the specific value that had elicited them. Most instantiations were correctly matched in both the United Kingdom and Brazil, indicating a relatively similar understanding of which instantiations are related to which values. Interestingly, participants were often able to correctly match instantiations that their compatriots had not mentioned in the free recall procedure used in Study 1. For example, although British participants in Study 1 did not mention ‘saving water’ as often as their Brazilian counterparts did when asked to identify behaviors that ‘protect the environment,’ participants in both countries were able to correctly match saving water to protection of the environment. Thus, the findings of Studies 1 and 2 converge with evidence from cognitive psychology indicating that most people are able to recognize instances of a category, even when the instances are atypical; for example, people can label an ostrich or a penguin as members of the bird category, even though these birds are seldom the first examples that come to mind when participants were asked to name birds (e.g., Mervis and Rosch, 1981 ). Hence, the instantiations that have been correctly matched can be regarded as valid instantiations, but are potentially atypical when they were not spontaneously generated in Study 1.

Limitations of Study 2

An obvious limitation of Study 2 is the use of fixed response alternatives, i.e., the six values that could be selected as best promoting a specific instantiation. Although five of the six values were chosen randomly (with the remaining value being the one related to the instantiation), they were the same across participants and countries for all six instantiations of each value. Consequently, although we can compare findings between participants and regions, we cannot do so between value instantiations and values. If the five alternative values had been selected out a broader range of values (e.g., Schwartz’s, 1992 , 57 values), a much larger sample would have been required to achieve adequate power. In other words, conclusions such as “instantiation A was more reliably matched to value X than instantiation B to value Y ” cannot be drawn, because these comparisons also depend on the response alternatives. On the other hand, between-country conclusions such as “instantiation A was more often ‘correctly’ matched to value X in Brazil than the United Kingdom” are justified, given that participants in both countries were given the same response alternatives. However, between-country comparisons may also be moderated by the choice of response alternatives. It might be the case that the nature of the differences between countries depends on which response options are offered. Nonetheless, given that these options were chosen randomly, there is no reason to suspect any systematic effect of the options on the between-country comparisons.

Future Research

Our results suggest that some behaviors are more closely associated with some values than other behaviors. Thus, an unanswered question is whether the value-behavior link is moderated by the typicality of an instantiation (behavior). This issue is theoretically important because it points to different ways in which typicality might affect the role of values in behavior. This consideration is based on attitude representation theory (ART; Lord and Lepper, 1999 ). The ART postulates, based on previous findings of the authors (e.g., Lord et al., 1984 ), that attitude-behavior consistency is moderated by typicality. As argued above, both personal experiences and social-contextual factors influence the extent to which a behavior is a prominent instantiation of values. This, in turn, leads to the activation of one or more values that influence which behavior is chosen in a specific situation (cf. the representation postulate of the ART). Thus, not only the attitude-behavior link should be moderated by typicality, but also the value-behavior link: If an instantiation (here: behavior or behavioral intention) is more closely linked to a value, the two are more strongly associated. It is important to know whether typicality matters, because it allows us to better predict when values are correlated with behavior. For example, one might expect protecting the environment predicts saving water in the United Kingdom but not in Brazil. In conclusion, we hope that our findings allow researchers to develop more specific hypotheses in which context and for which sample type a value predicts a behavior.

Overall, Study 1 revealed that most examples that are spontaneously attached to values vary in how much they are shaped by context. In most cases, within-country variability outweighed between-country differences. Nevertheless, many of the instances for which between-country differences were found could be linked to contextual factors. In Study 2, we found that most instantiations that had been spontaneously produced by participants in another country could reliably be matched to the values that they exemplified. Taken together, our results further challenge “the prevailing conception of culture as shared meaning system” ( Schwartz, 2014 , p. 5), as long as culture is equated with country or nation: the within-country variability outweighs the between-country variability, similar to values on an abstract level ( Fischer and Schwartz, 2011 ). In other words, people endorse the same values to a similar extent across countries and also instantiate them similarly. We hope this research helps to lay a foundation for future research examining these differences and their implications for intercultural understanding and communication.

Author’s Note

Both studies are described in the Ph.D.-thesis of the first author ( Hanel, 2016 ).

Author Contributions

GM and AM: conceptualization. PH, GM, and AM: study design. GM, VG, SK, and AM: funding acquisition. PH, GM, AS, KV, GdHC, VG, AP, SK, and AM: data analysis and provided critical revision. PH and AS: visualizations. PH, GM, and AM: wrote the original draft.

This study was financial support by the School of Psychology, Cardiff University ( psych.cf.ac.uk ), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC; www.esrc.ac.uk ) to the PH (ES/J500197/1), and the CAPES Foundation (Brazil, http://www.capes.gov.br/ ) to KV and GdHC.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00849/full#supplementary-material

• ^ Due to an administrative error, one instantiation of honesty, “borrowing money and giving it back,” was presented twice (to different participants) in the British sample, whereas “returning money which you have found or wrongly received” was not presented.
• ^ “Correct” is meant in a relative sense, based on the findings of Study 1 and our theoretical reasoning. Of course, there are no de facto right and wrong answers in tasks like this.

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Keywords : human values, instantiation, cross-cultural, value-behavior relations, similarities, differences

Citation: Hanel PHP, Maio GR, Soares AKS, Vione KC, de Holanda Coelho GL, Gouveia VV, Patil AC, Kamble SV and Manstead ASR (2018) Cross-Cultural Differences and Similarities in Human Value Instantiation. Front. Psychol. 9:849. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00849

Received: 21 February 2018; Accepted: 11 May 2018; Published: 29 May 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Hanel, Maio, Soares, Vione, de Holanda Coelho, Gouveia, Patil, Kamble and Manstead. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Paul H. P. Hanel, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Global Cognition

Cross-cultural competence: engage people from any culture.

by Louise Rasmussen updated September 15, 2021

Cross-cultural competence refers to your ability to understand people from different cultures and engage with them effectively. And not just people from the one culture that you’ve studied for years. Having cross-cultural competence means you can be effective in your interactions with people from most any culture.

Being able to communicate and work with people across cultures is becoming more important all the time. People are traveling, reaching out, and mixing with different others like never before. They do it for fun, but they also do it for work. In all cases, success requires developing a relationship. And doing this means bridging a cultural divide.

Cross-cultural competence helps you develop the mutual understanding and human relationships that are necessary for achieving your professional goals.

But what exactly makes up cross-cultural competence? What are the specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes that make someone cross-culturally competent?

Louise Rasmussen and Winston Sieck conducted a study to address these questions. They described their model of cross-cultural competence in an article published in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations . Rasmussen was also granted an award from the Defense Language and National Security Education Office to further study and validate the model, which describes 12 elements of cross-cultural competence.

Rasmussen and her team interviewed cross-cultural experts about their experiences interacting in foreign cultures. These experts were military personnel who had a great deal of cross-cultural experience. They were also nominated by their peers as being especially effective in their interactions with members of other cultures.

The researchers did not ask about the opinions of the cross-cultural experts. Instead, they used cognitive task analysis in which they asked questions to get at the interviewees’ actual, lived overseas experiences. From these experiences, Rasmussen and her team uncovered the skills and knowledge the experts drew on as they interacted with people from other cultures.

Rasmussen, Sieck, and their colleagues identified 12 core aspects of cross-cultural competence. These competencies were frequently found in the thought process of the experts. They are listed here as a set of principles that can help you be more effective on your next sojourn:

• Stay focused on your goals : If you’re overseas for work, then building intercultural relationships is not just for fun. Building relationships will help you get your work done.
• Understand the culture within yourself : Keep aware of the fact that you see the world in a particular way because of your own background, personal history, and culture.
• Manage your attitudes towards the culture : You don’t always have to love the culture. But you do have to keep check on your reactions to values and customs that are different from your own. The first two principles can also help you manage your attitudes.
• Direct your learning of the culture : Don’t expect a book or training course to hand you the answers. Try to make sense of the culture for yourself, using the information you come across as clues.
• Develop reliable information sources : Find two or three locals to get answers from about the culture. Build the relationships so you feel comfortable asking about most anything. Check with more than one and compare their answers in your head.
• Learn about the new culture efficiently : You can’t learn everything about the culture before your trip. It’s unrealistic. Focus on learning a few things that fit your interests, and use those to make connections and learn more while you are abroad.
• Cope with cultural surprises : No matter how much you prepare in advance, you will find yourself faced with people acting in ways that you find puzzling. When you do, try to find out why. Doing so will often lead to new insights.
• Formulate cultural explanations of behavior : Routinely try to explain to yourself why people act as they do in this culture, differently from your own. Using things you know about the culture to explain behavior will help you build a deeper understanding of the culture overall.
• Take a cultural perspective : Try to see things from the point of view of the people from the other culture. By taking a cultural perspective , you may create a whole new understanding of what’s going on around you.
• Plan cross-cultural communication : Think ahead of time about what you have to say and how you want the other person to perceive you. Use what you know about the culture to figure out the best way to get that across.
• Control how you present yourself : Be deliberate about how you present and express yourself. Sometimes you’ll be most effective if you’re just yourself. Other times you have to adapt how you present yourself to the culture you are in to be most effective.
• Reflect and seek feedback : Continue to reflect on and learn from your interactions and experiences after they occur. After an interaction you can think about whether you got the messages across you intended. You can even ask a local how they think you did.

These twelve principles give you some pointers about how to think about the experiences you have in new cultures. They are essential to cross-cultural competence.

Reading through the principles you may be asking yourself “do I really need to do this much thinking when I go abroad?”

Rasmussen consistently found this thoughtful approach among those with high cross-cultural competence. Keep these principles in mind and use them. You will be more capable and confident engaging people from any culture.

Rasmussen, L. J., & Sieck, W. R. (2015). Culture-general competence: Evidence from a cognitive field study of professionals who work in many cultures . International Journal of Intercultural Relations , 14(3), 75-90. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2015.03.014

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About Louise Rasmussen

Dr. Louise Rasmussen is an applied cognitive psychologist. She works to advance cultural competence in demanding environments through research, training, and assessment.

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Cross-Cultural Psychology

WEIRD, Culture

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Cross-cultural psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the similarities and differences in thinking and behavior between individuals from different cultures.

Scientists using a cross-cultural approach focus on and compare participants from diverse cultural groups to examine ways in which cognitive styles, perception, emotional expression, personality , and other psychological features relate to cultural contexts. They also compare cultural groups on broad dimensions such as individualism and collectivism—roughly, how much a culture emphasizes its members’ individuality versus their roles in a larger group.

Psychologists who are interested in expanding psychology’s focus on diverse cultures have pointed out that the majority of research participants are, to use a popular term, WEIRD: they are from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Cross-cultural research has made it clear that what psychologists conclude about this slice of the world’s population does not always extend to people with other cultural backgrounds.

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Psychology’s mission to understand how humans think and behave requires studying humanity as broadly as possible—not just the humans to which researchers tend to be nearest. Psychologists who conduct cross-cultural research investigate the richness of human psychological variation across the world, including points of consistency and divergence between populations with distinct cultural backgrounds, such as those in Western and East Asian countries.

Psychological research that incorporates a more global sample of people provides insights into whether findings and models (such as those about the structure of personality or the nature of mental illness) are universal or not, the extent to which psychological phenomena and characteristics vary across cultures, and the potential reasons for these differences. Cross-cultural research demonstrates that experimental effects, correlations, or other results that are observed in one cultural context—for example, the tendency of Western participants to rate their abilities as better-than-average—do not always appear in the same way, or at all, in others.

While various definitions are used, culture can be understood as the collection of ideas and typical ways of doing things that are shared by members of a society and have been passed down through generations. These can include norms, rules, and values as well as physical creations such as tools.

Cross-cultural studies allow psychologists to make comparisons and inferences about people from different countries or from broader geographic regions (such as North America or the Western world). But psychologists also compare groups at smaller scales, such as people from culturally distinct subpopulations or areas of the same country, or immigrants and non-immigrants. 

While there is overlap between these approaches, there are also differences. Cross-cultural psychology analyzes characteristics and behavior across different cultural groups, with an interest in variation as well as human universals. Cultural psychology involves comparison as well, but has been described as more focused on psychological processes within a particular culture. In another approach, indigenous psychology, research methods, concepts, and theories are developed within the context of the culture being studied.

The inhabitants of different regions and countries have a great deal in common : They build close social relationships, follow rules established by their communities, and engage in important rituals. But globally, groups also exhibit somewhat different psychological tendencies in domains ranging from the strictness of local rules to how happiness and other emotions are conceived. Of course, within each region, nation, or community, there is plenty of individual variation; people who share a culture never think and act in exactly the same way. Cross-cultural psychology seeks to uncover how populations with shared cultures differ on average from those with other cultural backgrounds—and how those differences tie back to cultural influence.

While there are shared aspects of emotional experience across cultural groups, culture seems to influence how people describe, evaluate, and act on emotions. For example, while the experience of shame follows perceived wrongdoing across cultures, having shame may be evaluated more positively in some cultures than in others and may be more likely to prompt behavioral responses such as reaching out to others rather than withdrawing. Different emotional concepts (such as “ anxiety ,” “ fear ,” and “ grief ”) may also be thought of as more or less closely related to each other in different cultures. And cultural differences have been observed with regard to how emotions are interpreted and the “display rules” that individuals learn about appropriate emotional expression.

While happiness seems to be one of the most cross-culturally recognizable emotions in terms of individual expression, culture can influence how one thinks about happiness. Research indicates that people in different cultures vary in how much value they place on happiness and how much they focus on their own well-being. Culture may also affect how people believe happiness should be defined and achieved —whether a good life is to be found more in individual self-enhancement or through one’s role as part of a collective, for example. 

Some mental health conditions, in addition to being reported at markedly different rates in different countries, can also be defined and even experienced in different ways. The appearance of depression may depend partly on culture —with mood-related symptoms emphasized in how Americans think of depression , for example, and bodily symptoms potentially more prominent in China. Features of certain cultural groups, such as highly stable social networks, may also serve as protective factors against the risk of mental illness. Increased understanding of cultural idiosyncrasies could lead to gains in mental health treatment.

Individualism and collectivism are two of the contrasting cultural patterns described in cross-cultural psychology. People in relatively collectivist cultures are described as tending to define themselves as parts of a group and to heed the norms and goals of the group. Those in relatively individualistic cultures are thought to emphasize independence and to favor personal attitudes and preferences to a greater degree. Cross-cultural psychologists have pointed to East Asia, Latin America, and Africa as regions where collectivism is relatively prominent and much of Europe, the U.S., and Canada as among those where individualism is more pronounced. But individualism-collectivism is thought of as a continuum, with particular countries, and cultures within those countries, showing a balance of each.

Tightness and looseness are contrasting cultural patterns related to how closely people adhere to social rules. Each culture has its own rules and norms about everything from acceptable public behavior to what kinds of intimate relationships are allowed. But in some cultures, or even in particular domains within cultures (such as the workplace), the importance placed on rules and norms and the pressure on people to follow them are greater than in other cultural contexts. Relatively rule-bound cultures have been described as “tight” cultures, while more permissive cultures are called “loose.” As with individualism and collectivism, tightness and looseness are thought of as opposite ends of the same dimension.

It seems to be. In the West, the Big Five model of personality traits and related models were developed to broadly map out personality differences, and they have been tested successfully in multiple countries. But research suggests that in some cultures, the Big Five traits are not necessarily the best way to describe how people perceive individual differences. Scientists have also found that associations between personality traits and outcomes that appear in some cultures may not be universal. For example, while more extraverted North Americans appear to be happier, on average, extraverts may not have the same advantage elsewhere.

While some mating preferences, such as a desire for kindness and physical attractiveness in a partner, appear in many if not all cultures, preferences also differ in some ways across cultures—like the importance placed on humor or other traits. In the realm of physical attraction , both men’s preferences and women’s preferences seem to depend partly on the cultural context, with research suggesting that men in wealthier societies more strongly favor women of average-to-slender weight, for instance.

In cross-cultural psychology, an analytic cognitive style roughly describes a tendency to focus on a salient object, person, or piece of information (as in an image or a story) independently from the context in which it appears. A holistic cognitive style, in contrast, involves a tendency to focus more on the broader context and relationship between objects. Using a variety of tasks—such as one in which a scene with both focal objects and background elements is freely described—psychologists have reported evidence that participants from Western cultures (like the U.S.) tend to show a more analytic cognitive style, while those from East Asian cultures (like Japan) show a more holistic cognitive style. Analytic thinking and holistic thinking have been theorized to stem, respectively, from independent and interdependent cultural tendencies.

The psychological findings that get the most attention are disproportionately derived from a fraction of the world’s population. Some scientists call this relatively well-examined subgroup of human societies WEIRD: that is, Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. As long as people who live in countries that meet these descriptors are the primary subjects of psychological research—and that has long been the case—it will often be difficult for psychologists to determine whether an observation applies to people in general or only to those in certain cultural contexts. Increasing the representation of people from diverse cultures in research is therefore a goal of many psychologists.

WEIRD populations are those who are broadly part of the Western world and who live in democratic societies that feature high levels of education , wealth, and industrialization. While there is not a single agreed-upon list of WEIRD cultures—and populations within particular countries can show different levels of these characteristics—commonly cited examples of WEIRD countries include the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and other parts of Western Europe, and Australia. 

Sampling top psychology journals in the mid-2000s, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett observed that 96 percent of research subjects came from Western, industrialized countries that represented just 12 percent of the world’s population, and that about two-thirds were from the U.S. Subjects seemed to largely be sourced from the countries in which the researchers lived. In 2010, citing this finding and others, Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine, and Ara Norenzayan introduced the term WEIRD to describe this subpopulation. They expanded on the problems with focusing so exclusively on such participants and with assuming that findings from a relatively unrepresentative group generalized to the rest of the world.

In numerical terms, it seems, not much. While the problems with global underrepresentation in psychology research have gained more attention in recent years, an updated analysis of top journals in the mid-2010s found that the vast majority of samples were still from Western, industrialized countries, with about 60 percent from the U.S.

In many ways, WEIRD populations seem to be less representative of humans in general than non-WEIRD populations are. Overlapping with other findings from cross-cultural psychology, psychological differences between people from relatively WEIRD countries and those from elsewhere have been noted: WEIRD samples show higher levels of individualism and lower levels of conformity , on average, among other characteristics. One scientist behind the WEIRD concept theorizes that societal changes in the West caused by the Catholic Church, and their subsequent cultural impact, help explain these signature differences.

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How to Resolve Cultural Conflict: Overcoming Cultural Barriers at the Negotiation Table

Avoid cultural conflict by avoiding stereotypes when negotiating across cultures.

By Katie Shonk — on August 3rd, 2023 / Conflict Resolution

After losing an important deal in India, a business negotiator learned that her counterpart felt as if she had been rushing through the talks. The business negotiator thought she was being efficient with their time. Their cultures have different views on how to conduct negotiations, and in this case, the barrier prevented a successful outcome. In this useful cross cultural conflict negotiation example, we explore what this negotiator could have done differently to improve her negotiation skills.

Research shows that dealmaking across cultures tends to lead to worse outcomes as compared with negotiations conducted within the same culture. The reason is primarily that cultures are characterized by different behaviors, communication styles, and norms. As a result, when negotiating across cultures, we bring different perspectives to the bargaining table , which in turn may result in potential misunderstandings. Misunderstandings can lead to a lower likelihood of exploring and discovering integrative, or value-creating, solutions. Let’s talk about the main causes of cross cultural negotiation failure.

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Cultural conflict in negotiations tends to occur for two main reasons. First, it’s fairly common when confronting cultural differences, for people to rely on stereotypes. Stereotypes are often pejorative (for example Italians always run late), and they can lead to distorted expectations about your counterpart’s behavior as well as potentially costly misinterpretations. You should never assume cultural stereotypes going into a negotiation.

Instead of relying on stereotypes, you should try to focus on prototypes —cultural averages on dimensions of behavior or values. There is a big difference between stereotypes and prototypes.

For example, it is commonly understood that Japanese negotiators tend to have more silent periods during their talks than, say, Brazilians. That said, there is still a great deal of variability within each culture—meaning that some Brazilians speak less than some Japanese do.

Thus, it would be a mistake to expect a Japanese negotiator you have never met to be reserved. But if it turns out that a negotiator is especially quiet, you might better understand her behavior and change your negotiating approach in light of the prototype. In addition, awareness of your own cultural prototypes can help you anticipate how your counterpart might interpret your bargaining behavior. It’s not just about being aware of their culture, but also how yours might be viewed.

A second common reason for cross-cultural misunderstandings is that we tend to interpret others’ behaviors, values, and beliefs through the lens of our own culture. To overcome this tendency, it is important to learn as much as you can about the other party’s culture. This means not only researching the customs and behaviors of different cultures but also by understanding why people follow these customs and exhibit these behaviors in the first place.

Just as important, not only do countries have unique cultures, but teams and organizations do, too. Before partaking in any negotiation, you should take the time to study the context and the person on the other side of the bargaining table, including the various cultures to which he belongs—whether the culture of France, the culture of engineering, or his particular company’s corporate culture. The more you know about the client, the better off you will do in any negotiation.

In this cross cultural conflict negotiation example, we see that the negotiator has learned after the fact that her Indian counterpart would have appreciated a slower pace with more opportunities for relationship building. She seems to have run into the second issue: Using time efficiently in the course of negotiations is generally valued in the United States, but in India, there is often a greater focus on building relationships early in the process. By doing research on the clients cultural prototypes, they can adjust their negotiation strategy and give themselves a better chance at creating a valuable negotiation experience for both themselves and their counterpart.

As this business negotiator has observed, cultural differences can represent barriers to reaching an agreement in negotiation. But remember that differences also can be opportunities to create valuable agreements. This suggests that cross-cultural conflict negotiations may be particularly rife with opportunities for counterparts to capitalize on different preferences, priorities, beliefs, and values.

Related Article: Dealing with Difficult People – The Right Way to Regulate Emotion  – Knowing how to correctly project emotion at the bargaining table is a negotiation skill that the best negotiators have mastered. How do emotions change negotiation strategy and what negotiating skills and negotiation tactics can bargainers use involving emotions at the negotiation table? This article offers some negotiation skills advice and bargaining tips based on negotiation research.

Do you have any advice on how to solve cultural conflict? What experiences have you had that might help our other readers? We would love to hear from you.

Adapted from “Dear Negotiation Coach: Crossing Cultures in Negotiation,” by Francesca Gino (Associate Professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter, September 2013.

Originally published 2014.

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No Responses to “How to Resolve Cultural Conflict: Overcoming Cultural Barriers at the Negotiation Table”

13 responses to “how to resolve cultural conflict: overcoming cultural barriers at the negotiation table”.

One should first understand cultural dynamics of the disputants. Local people should be the one to be included in the council as they are the custodians of 5he society.

One major problem most Americans have is the assumption that their way is the right way resulting in failed negotiations and cooperation. We also live and die by the clock compared to other cultures. I have been part of multiple key leader engagements (KLE) where military and civilian personnel were dismissive of cultural norms during meetings and when an impasse arose, along with running out of the allotted time for the KLE, an opportunity was lost.. I also see similar issues within the US as it pertains to gender, culture, race, etc. As individuals and groups, we need to do our homework on the environment and people were are to engage, make assessments upon arrival and be open to other view points and accept solutions that are conducive to the other person. A noticeable trait, Americans are great in the “sprint” but not so good with “marathons” in the international relations game.

Like so much in Interculturel Communications, these small anecdotal scenarios are logically analyzed, but in living color impossible to predict. Our problem is not how to introduce students to such case studies, but how to prepare young professionals for true encounters and disaster avoidance. In truth, let’s be honest…it is impossible without living it.

Perhaps one might consider diversifying negotiation teams to include more voices and perspectives from a wider range of cultural backgrounds.

Cross-cultural communication requires intercultural competence to be able to identify the underlying values behind the visible behavior observed on the negotiating table. Barriers often occur when one is trapped in own’s perspectives- as the saying goes, “we see according to what we know”.

Thanks. This is a valuable piece of discourse and very relevant to the peacebuilding initiatives/peace process in Mindanao, Philippines. I would like to think that civil society (local homegrown NGOs especially) has always been advocating this track in resolving the decades-long conflict in Mindanao (Southern Philippines) but the central government in Manila has always been calling the shots. The basic principle on Cultural Relativism in not just in the vocabulary of a unitary government. Hope to read more on this.

Like so much in Interculturel Communications, these small anecdotal scenarios are logically analyzed, but in living color impossible to predict. Our problem is not how to introduce students to such case studies, but how to prepare young professionals for true encounters and disaster avoidance. In truth, let’s be honest…it is impossible without living it.

in my opinion, as negotiator we must know that we meet all types of people from many difference cultures, it is a common sense that we must learn or adapt from others’ culture and not judge the book by its cover.

This article is very interesting, and we should admit that cross cultural negotiations are very difficult. For example, in the case where an American negotiator is conscious of the difference of culture between him and his Chinese counterpart, and thinks that he should adopt the Chinese method of negotiation, while his Chinese partner also thinks that to avoid misunderstandings he should adopt the American culture of negotiation. That could tangle up the negotiators, and could be perceived by each negotiator as a refusal to negotiate from the other part, don’t understanding that his counterpart wants to behave like him to facilitate the negotiations. To avoid this scenario, the solution could be simple. One party could at the beginning of the negotiation tell to the other that he/she will wishes that the negotiation to be made in his counterpart’s culture, to avoid misunderstandings. I really think it could greatly avoid misunderstandings, and where it appears, the counterpart will not first interpret the other’s gesture as hostile, but will first try to understand, knowing that his counterpart has expressed a real will to negotiate, and the misunderstanding is probably due to the cultural difference.By so doing, cross cultural negotiations could be eased.

This case is a filtering issue. If we see perceptions filtered through layers of personal traits, family and cultural traits everything we communicate is affect by each one of these layers. Same thing happens in the receiver side. Stereotypes are like biased filters. They tend to allow more of some “colors” than others. Still though its up to the “color” each individual emits and this can be much different from what we believe it should emit. This image probably best describes the above: http://e-negotiations.org/chapters/4-perception

Many thanks for describing and comparing all the points. They are crutial, valuable and worth to study and use in the field. Having experience I have got working for the International Criminal Court in the Hague the Netherlands with colleagues from all over the world I absolutely agree with all the information presented.

I am in agreement that it is critical to take time to study the context and the person. However, in an inter-cultural communication, it is difficult to assess the value or meaning of a specific behaviour or thoughts of the other party from your own point of view, which has been formed in a specific cultural background. That is, you see it but you do not recognized it.

I agree, please send mor articles in this feild, best

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Research: How Cultural Differences Can Impact Global Teams

• Vasyl Taras,
• Dan Caprar,
• Alfredo Jiménez,
• Fabian Froese

And what managers can do to help their international teams succeed.

Diversity can be both a benefit and a challenge to virtual teams, especially those which are global. The authors unpack their recent research on how diversity works in remote teams, concluding that benefits and drawbacks can be explained by how teams manage the two facets of diversity: personal and contextual. They find that contextual diversity is key to aiding creativity, decision-making, and problem-solving, while personal diversity does not. In their study, teams with higher contextual diversity produced higher-quality consulting reports, and their solutions were more creative and innovative. When it comes to the quality of work, teams that were higher on contextual diversity performed better. Therefore, the potential challenges caused by personal diversity should be anticipated and managed, but the benefits of contextual diversity are likely to outweigh such challenges.

A recent survey of employees from 90 countries found that 89 percent of white-collar workers “at least occasionally” complete projects in global virtual teams (GVTs), where team members are dispersed around the planet and rely on online tools for communication. This is not surprising. In a globalized — not to mention socially distanced — world, online collaboration is indispensable for bringing people together.

• VT Vasyl Taras is an associate professor and the Director of the Master’s or Science in International Business program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA. He is an associate editor of the Journal of International Management and the International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, and a founder of the X-Culture, an international business competition.
• DB Dan Baack is an expert in international marketing. Dan’s work focuses on how the processing of information or cultural models influences international business. He recently published the 2nd edition of his textbook, International Marketing, with Sage Publications. Beyond academic success, he is an active consultant and expert witness. He has testified at the state and federal level regarding marketing ethics.
• DC Dan Caprar is an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Business School. His research, teaching, and consulting are focused on culture, identity, and leadership. Before completing his MBA and PhD as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Iowa (USA), Dan worked in a range of consulting and managerial roles in business, NGOs, and government organizations in Romania, the UK, and the US.
• AJ Alfredo Jiménez is Associate Professor at KEDGE Business School (France). His research interests include internationalization, political risk, corruption, culture, and global virtual teams. He is a senior editor at the European Journal of International Management.
• FF Fabian Froese is Chair Professor of Human Resource Management and Asian Business at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and Editor-in-Chief of Asian Business & Management. He obtained a doctorate in International Management from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and another doctorate in Sociology from Waseda University, Japan. His research interests lie in international human resource management and cross-cultural management.

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The Common Experience in King University’s Core Curriculum requires a Cross-Cultural Experience:

The cross-cultural experience allows students to confront their own presuppositions about what culture is and what culture means. The experience also helps students broaden their awareness and appreciation of diverse cultures. It seeks to prepare them to operate more thoughtfully in a world that is increasingly interconnected. As students encounter other cultures, they may realize ways to interact creatively to meet needs they see and will also realize that new situations transform them.

The Cross-Cultural Experience requirement is separate and different from the Chapel, Convocation, and Service (CCS) requirement. Cross-Cultural Experience credit requires

• at least thirty hours of direct contact with
• a distinct population following
• a culture markedly different from the student’s home culture;
• a written reflection on the student’s presuppositions about the population and its culture, and
• a written exploration on lessons learned during time with the population, including reflection on how the student’s presuppositions have changed.

Students should register for KING 3000 during the semester in which they plan to complete the requirement, generally in  the semester or two before graduation .    Doing so will give the student access to the KING 3000 Canvas site.  The site will allow the student to designate one of five ways for fulfilling the requirement.

King students have a long tradition of studying abroad. Many of these opportunities allow students to travel to English speaking countries in Africa, the Pacific, or the U.K, while other destinations allow students to enhance their foreign language skills.

King has relationships with various schools, programs, and universities, which ensures that students receive transferable credit for their coursework in foreign countries.

Visit Travel Opportunities for more information or contact Prof. Karen Shaw at  423.652.4798 .

Mission Trips

The University plans several mission trips each year. Short-term trips are scheduled during Spring Break to locations within the U.S. and abroad. The Chaplain’s Office plans longer trips to Africa, India, and other destinations, and campus coaches organize trips that allow athletes to minister to children through sports.

Contact Prof. Brian Alderman at  423.652.4708 .

Student-Initiated Experience

Students may also propose an activity as fulfilling the Cross-Cultural Experience requirement.

A student-initiated experience requires a demonstration of how the activity meets the requirements listed above. This demonstration has two parts:

• completion of an in-depth proposal , and

a final project (for example, a reflection paper or a poster session) exploring lessons learned during time with the population andconsidering how the student’s presuppositions have changedThe Student-Initiated Experience may be an extended service experience within the Bristol community, such as working at the Salvation Army, participating in the Big Brothers-Big Sisters program, supporting a King University International Student, volunteering at Remote Area Medical expeditions, or befriending a child whose parent is in prison.  To fulfill the Cross-Cultural Experience requirement, such activities need to go beyond regular service and address the requirements listed above regarding engagement with and reflection on the culture of a distinct population. Although the local option typically involves working with or through a local mission or service organization, the option is not about community service per se. Not everything that qualifies for CCS credit will qualify for the Cross-Cultural Experience requirement. For example, litter pick-up is a fine community service, but it lacks the cultural dimension required.

Students needing assistance in identifying a local service opportunity should see Ms. Ashley Albertson, Coordinator of Student Engagement (423.652.4752;  [email protected] ).

Please note:

• The student-initiated experience must occur after matriculation to King.
• The student must complete the self-initiated Cross-Cultural Experience requirement before graduation.
• Experiences such as tours, vacations, and sport-related travel generally fail to meet the requirement of thirty contact hours of direct engagement with a distinct population and will generally not be accepted.

If a Student-Initiated Experience proposal is rejected, the student may  resubmit a proposal for the activity after consultation with Dr. Glenn Sanders, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences  (423.652.4842 ;  [email protected] ). A second rejection will require the writing of a new proposal.

International Student Experience

Cross-cultural Experience in this category concerns the international student’s experience with American culture.  The writing of a reflective essay on the experience will fulfill the requirement.

Course-based Completion (ICST 2120, Nursing and Social Work Majors)

Students who successfully complete ICST 2120, NURS 4020, or SOWK 3810/3820/3830 will receive credit for the requirement after completing a brief introductory reflection essay.

Cross-Cultural Marketing and Cultural Differences in Markets Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Theoretical approaches to cross-cultural marketing, the impact of culture on the marketing elements, reference list.

Businesses face various challenges and one among them is cultural differences in markets. Consumers from different cultures differ in the way they think and behave. Increased competition in the local markets has also forced businesses to venture into new markets that have different characteristics from the ones they have been serving.

This has brought about the need of developing new approaches that will enable the firms sell effectively to different cultures in the new markets. Much of marketing has focused on values of different cultures and effect of those cultural values on the objectives of the firm.

Previous researches show that cultures affect customer’s expectations, evaluation and reaction to goods and services. Some organizations have been successful in using the cultural differences as opportunities, while some have made mistakes in trying to sell to different cultures (Doole & Lowe, 2005).

Culture affects how businesses carry out their marketing activities and different theories for countering the cultural barriers have been put forward. They include the following: The classical approach. This is whereby firms that enter markets with different cultures from the ones they were serving seek to adapt their products and marketing strategies to be in line with those new cultures.

Here the firm changes its products and services as well as its marketing activities to align them to the new cultural expectations. This includes changing the name or brand of a product or company, changing the language of its advertisements or even pricing strategies (Trompenaars & woolliams, 2003).

For example, when Toyota was entering the American market, it introduced a brand by the name Toyopex. This was not received well by the American consumers due to the connotation, toy and pex. Therefore, the company was forced to withdraw the brand and change the name (Toyota, n.d).

Secondly, there is a standardization approach. In this approach, the firm uses the same strategies in different markets that have varying cultures. Here the firm introduces the same product to different markets using the same promotion strategies, such as the brand name, the language, promotion tools as well as pricing strategies. A good example is coca-cola that has been able to establish its coca-cola brand globally.

Therefore, the brand name is the same in all of its markets in the world. There are instances that the firm has used the same advertisement in all of its markets. For instance, during the world cup the company used the same advertisement all over the world (Schumann, 2009).

There is the reconciliation approach, which is also known as the convergence approach. Through this approach, the company tries to reconcile its business practices with the cultural values of the market that it is serving. Firms that believe that they have effective marketing strategies mostly carry this out. Therefore, the use of the approach is driven by the desire to accomplish objectives in the most efficient and cost effective way.

As a result, cultural conflict is avoided yet the objectives of the firm are achieved (Burton, 2009). For instance, McDonalds is known globally for its fast food business however, when it entered the Chinese market it had to add other foods to its menu such as vegetable soup.

This was necessitated by the Chinese culture, which favours traditional foods that have colour and flavour. Therefore, the company did not stop offering fast foods but it only added some cultural aspects to its product offering (China Daily, 2004).

As businesses seek to serve different markets that apparently have different cultures, they must be able to determine when and how to use the marketing elements. This will enable them to get a positive reception in their areas of operations, as they will not offend the values of those cultures (Phillips, Doole & Lowe, 1994). In addition, they will be able to determine what attracts the different markets.

As a result, they will profitably satisfy the various customer needs. Therefore, different marketing elements are appropriate for different markets based on their cultural values and beliefs.

This is because different cultures perceive those elements differently. The elements of marketing mix include product, promotion, price and place. The use of marketing elements has been affected largely by culture as explained below (Associated Press, 2007).

Product refers to the physical goods or services offered to customers at a price. Components of the product that are affected by the culture include brand, attributes, quality, labelling or packaging (Foxall, 1981). The extent to which a product conflicts with the norms of a given culture will determine the extent of its adoption by the consumers of that culture.

First, there is brand which is used to identify a given product or service. As a result, customers can be able to specify a product, reject or recommend it. Companies serving different cultures can decide to sell its product using different brand names in different markets.

This is because some names that are well received in some markets may have offensive meanings in some markets. Therefore, it is important a company find the meaning of its brand name as defined by the locals before using to market its product (Herbig, 1998).

Unilever is one such company that uses different brand names to sell its products. For example, it markets a cleaning liquid, which is known by different brand names in different countries. In Germany, it is called Vis, in Britain and Greece it is know as Jif, while in Switzerland, it is referred to as Vif and in France, it is called Cif. On the other hand, other companies choose to use the same brand name across many cultures.

This is important for international travellers as they will be able to identify it easily than the local brands. Some of the companies that have successfully used this approach include Toyota, coca-coal, Kodak, Nestle and IBM (Herbig, 1998).

However, there is also a tendency of brand names from different cultures to take a given trend. For instance, car models from the US tend to be named after animals such as Cougar, Mustang as well as Cutlass. On the other hand, those from Japan tend to take after names of girls or pastoral names.

They include Violet, Gloria as well as Sunny and Bluebird. Some brands have however failed in some markets due to cultural connotations. For instance, Coca-Cola had to rename its diet coke to coke Lite, because in France the term ‘diet’ is associated with poor health.

In Japan, the company changed the name Diet coke to Coke light. This was because the term ‘diet ‘in Japan refers to sickness and the Japanese women would not like to be associated with dieting (Herbig, 1998).

Packaging is another aspect of the product that is affected by culture. The Japanese for instance lay more emphasis on how a product is packaged and its overall appearance. They insist that a product must be wrapped in the right way. As a result, a Japanese consumer may not buy a product that he/she believes has not been wrapped properly.

This is because most of them associate poor packaging with low quality. The standard packaged product is one that is wrapped in three layers (Herbig, 1998). This is opposed to perceptions in the Kenyan market, whereby quality is associated to the manufacture’s country of origin.

Therefore, a product manufacture from the US is deemed to be of high quality even if the packaging is poor. Therefore, it is evident that culture has a big impact on the presentation of a product. Hence, a company should carefully consider the impact of a brand and its packaging before taking it to the consumers (Burton, 2009).

Promotion refers to ways in which the seller communicates with customers about products. A firm in carrying out its promotion can use various promotional tools. These include advertisement, personal selling, direct marketing and sales promotion. However, the effective use of each of these tools is determined by the cultural values and beliefs of the market that the company serves (Trehan & Trehan, 2009).

First, there is advertising. This refers to a paid form of non-personal communication. It is meant to pass information about the organization and/or its products. The organization has to make payment to the firm offering the service. It can be done through newspapers, television, magazines, radio or any other media that can transmit the messages to a large group of people simultaneously (Kurtz & MacKenzie).

Most companies would prefer to use a standardized advertisement. This involves using the same advert across different markets without changing the copy, theme or even the illustration. However, this becomes difficult when such an advert goes against the local morals and regulations. In addition, an item can have different meanings in different cultures therefore; it might not have the same results in different cultures.

One aspect of culture that affects advertisements is language. Different cultures have different languages and therefore, another person in a different culture may, not understand what is said in this language. Furthermore, one thing may have different meanings in different cultures. Therefore, an organization must be extremely careful while designing advertisements (Mitchell, 2000).

An organization is deemed to fail if it tries to force a standardized advert on an audience that is unreceptive. For instance, the Japanese market would prefer that the advertisers suggest instead of persuading. In addition, adverts that use comparison are considered as pushy. Therefore, any advertiser that goes against these norms will not succeed in passing his message across.

The initial introduction of Cheers detergent in Japan is a good example. It was advertised in a format similar to that, which was successfully used in the US – known as slice-of life. The results were embarrassing as it was rated among the most hated adverts in Japan. The advert was subsequently replaced by an advert, which used a famous Japanese wrestler as its spokes person, which led to improved results (Burton, 2009).

Cultures respond to messages and communications differently. Therefore, advertisers must always address these differences in the advert content and the type of ad (Stonehouse & Campbell, 2004). For instance, Korea is a country that uses more of word-of-mouth advertising. This is because, one is likely to believe a customer’s testimony (who can be a friend or family member) than an advert on a newspaper.

This is true of the Chinese culture. Therefore, the adverts tend to play more adverts that involve the family. On the other hand, advertisers may resort to non-verbal adverts due to language barrier. Although, this may seem as an easier way of advertising through cultures that have different languages it is worth noting that different body motions and symbols may carry different meanings in different cultures (Paul, 1966).

For instance, kissing in the western culture is normal and a way of showing affection. However, in most Asian countries such as India, kissing in public is seen as offensive and it should not be viewed in public places like television. Therefore, any television advert that shows people kissing will automatically put off the audience.

Personal selling, sales promotion and direct marketing can also be affected by culture because they require the marketer to directly interact with the customers. One such aspect is distance between people during communication. Different societies have what they consider as appropriate distance during conversation.

For example in the US five to eight feet is the customary distance during conversations, while eighteen inches to three feet is for personal businesses. People tend to be uneasy when this customary distance is either reduced or extended further. Therefore, it is important that a marketer understand this in order to achieve his objectives effectively (Paul, 1966).

There are also cultural roles and positions that affect the promotional tools mentioned above. Although a handshake is a common form of greeting in business settings all over the world, in Saudi Arabia a woman is not allowed to shake a man’s hand. Therefore, when a marketer has an appointment for direct marketing in such a country and he is accompanied by a female he should ensure that no handshake takes place.

Otherwise, the other party will be offended. In carrying out sales promotions, the marketer should consider the connotations of colour by the different cultures. For example, most western cultures associate black colour with death.

Therefore, if the marketer uses black in communicating hope his campaign might not succeed. Therefore, the marketer must ensure that the colour used is in the same frame of reference as the customer’s (Paul, 1966).

It is evident that culture presents various challenges to businesses. The challenges are also unavoidable as businesses are forced to venture into new areas due to competition pressures. As a result, various theories have been developed to help businesses achieve their objectives effectively across different cultures.

The approaches include the classical, whereby the business tries to change its operations and offerings to fit into the new culture. There is also the standardization approach, whereby the business seeks to provide the same products using the same strategies across various markets. Lastly, through reconciliation approach firms seek to reconcile their strategies with the cultural beliefs and values of the firm.

Culture affects the various elements of marketing. For instance, in products it determines the brand of the product, its attributes as well as packaging. Culture also affects the promotional tools. For instance, in advertisement it determines the language to be used, the theme, the content of the message and the media to be used. In addition, sales promotion, direct marketing and personal selling are also affected by culture.

Associated Press, (2007). McDonald’s China strategy , Los Angles Times . Web.

Burton, D, (2009). Cross-cultural marketing: theory, practice and relevance . New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

China daily, (2004). KFC and McDonald’s — a model of blended culture . Web.

Doole, I. and Lowe, R., (2005). Strategic marketing decisions in global markets . London: Cengage Learning EMEA.

Foxall, G. R., (1981). Strategic Marketing Management . London: Taylor & Francis.

Herbig, P. A., (1998). Handbook of cross-cultural marketing . Binghamton, NY: Routledge.

Kurtz, D. L., MacKenzie, H. F. and Snow, K., (2009). Contemporary Marketing . Toronto: Cengage Learning.

Mitchell, C., (2000). A short course in international business culture . Novato, CA: World Trade Press.

Paul, J., ( 1996). International Marketing : Text And Cases . New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.

Phillips, C., Doole, I. and Lowe, R., (1994). International marketing strategy: analysis, development, and implementation . New York, NY: Routledge.

Schumann, J. H., (2009). The Impact of Culture on Relationship Marketing in International Services: A Target Group-Specific Analysis in the Context of Banking Services . Munchen: Gabler Verlag.

Stonehouse, G. and Campbell, D., (2004). Global and transnational business: strategy and management . West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons.

Toyota, (n.d). Toyota Corporation . Web.

Trehan, M. and Trehan, R., (2009). Advertising and Sales Management . New Delhi: FK Publications.

Trompenaars, A. and Woolliams, P., (2003). Business across cultures . West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons.

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IvyPanda. (2019, May 1). Cross-Cultural Marketing and Cultural Differences in Markets. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cross-cultural-marketing-essay/

"Cross-Cultural Marketing and Cultural Differences in Markets." IvyPanda , 1 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/cross-cultural-marketing-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Cross-Cultural Marketing and Cultural Differences in Markets'. 1 May.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Cross-Cultural Marketing and Cultural Differences in Markets." May 1, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cross-cultural-marketing-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Cross-Cultural Marketing and Cultural Differences in Markets." May 1, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cross-cultural-marketing-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Cross-Cultural Marketing and Cultural Differences in Markets." May 1, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cross-cultural-marketing-essay/.

Home — Essay Samples — Business — Media — Advertising Effects on American Culture

Advertising Effects on American Culture

• Categories: Consumer Behavior Media

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Published: Jun 6, 2024

Words: 620 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, body paragraph 1: consumerism driven by advertising, body paragraph 2: shaping social norms and values, body paragraph 3: psychological effects on individuals.

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Want to Keep Your Growing Company Culture Positive? Here is What You Should Do

Table of Contents

Imagine the following situation — you have a small-sized company where everyone knows each other and works together hand in glove. 

You have employees who have been in your company for years and customers who have been loyal to your company for even longer. 

However, you’re now developing a project that will be your cash cow in the future. But, it requires your business to grow — to find more employees and evolve your business strategies. 

Although doing so can bring various benefits, it can also mean that your company’s core values might become endangered — unless you find a way to introduce new employees and customers to your company culture and adjust it to the new circumstances. 

To help you learn more about developing a company culture in a growing company, we will show you what a positive culture should look like and provide tips that will help you achieve it. 

#1 New employees share and respect your company’s core values

Let’s imagine your company is looking for a new developer. 

After some time, an applicant with one of the strongest CVs you and your HR team have ever seen applies to your ad. They’ve been instrumental in many massive projects and even worked for a couple of governments, so you invite them for an interview immediately. 

However, after speaking to them in person, you learn they wouldn’t respect two of your company’s culture core values — tolerance and inclusion. 

So, should you hire them and achieve amazing results but risk the unhappiness of the whole team? Or thank them for applying and look for a more suitable culture fit? 

It is an ongoing dilemma among CEOs and recruiters. The company’s growth period can test the board’s willingness to stand behind the company’s values.

We would always recommend hiring only those people who respect your company’s values and can even add something new to them in the future.  

This requires a careful selection process and professionals who can recognize whether a candidate would be the right fit or not. 

Suppose you organize remote interviews with potential candidates. 

In that case, you can arrange voice calls or video interviews , business communication tools, such as Pumble , where you can ask questions related to the situations at work that could give you a clear picture of one’s reaction in situations where they would need to show an understanding of the company’s values. 

For example, a question such as “ Do you think you would be able to collaborate well with people from XYZ country/minority group? ” can tell you a lot about one’s openness and tolerance. 

Or, a question like “ How can we further advance our employees’ benefit package?” can show you whether someone would not only be a good fit for your company but also an innovator who can offer new viewpoints and ideas. 

#2 Employees feel valued

One of your employees works diligently and achieves good results with every project they take on. Recently, they have fixed a bug that was a huge problem for the company for some time. 

What would you do? 

The answer is simple — publicly praise them in the office and via team communication channels . 

Why is public praise important? Well, it shows everyone that someone’s hard work and dedication are something you notice and value. 

Furthermore, other colleagues can also join the public praise by congratulating them in coworker’s DM or commenting in threads . This way, they’ll make this moment even more memorable. 

If the good work continues, don’t think too long, give them a pay raise or, if a company isn’t in the position to offer a higher salary, a few days off every once in a while.  

As a result, the employee would feel appreciated and motivated to continue the good work and the company would achieve better results. 

Employers often make the mistake of thinking that their higher-ups only care about profits. Meanwhile, decision-makers often think that money is the only thing that would make employees feel valued. 

The reality is somewhat different. 

Yes, money is important, but showing respect and care for your employees is even more important.  

💡 Pumble Pro Tip

To see some additional ways of providing employee recognition, check out the following article:

• How to Provide Employee Recognition  

#3 Managers lead by examples

After a steady rise, an influx of new employees who joined your flourishing company,, and a golden age for business development, your company has gone through some rough times.

The huge worldwide business crisis has taken its toll on your business, as well. 

There is not enough money for additional employees, raises or new equipment, but current employees still work hard to achieve everything the board has planned. 

They are sure that better times will come — since you still make them feel appreciated, they want to stay in the company and continue with good work. 

However, one day, they see that their manager has come to work with the latest BMW he bought from his bonus while convincing them they should wait for better times for their pay raises or additional staff. 

Now wait a minute — the board didn’t allow any hard-working employees a raise, but the manager got a bonus high enough to buy a BMW!?

What would be their reaction?

There would be, at least, a lot of eyebrows raised within the team, for sure.

The employees that have been in your company for some time would probably become unhappy and disappointed, while the new ones might become skeptical about their future in the company. 

As a result, your retention rates might drop and it might become harder to find suitable additions to your team.

Yes, we all strive for better pay or promotions, but a positive work culture is only possible when every single employee (especially those in higher positions) leads by example. 

In other words, if there is room for raises, great! Everybody should get it, or at least the most diligent team members. 

However, if someone (particularly a manager) gets a promotion or a raise, they shouldn’t show off, especially in front of those who are in a less than ideal financial position — it presents a lack of empathy and poor taste.  

Good managers lead by example but there are also some other values they should have. Check out the following article to see what makes a good manager: 

• How to Be a Good Manager: Qualities, Benefits and Expert Tips  

#4 Job descriptions and organization values are transparent

When the crisis is over, it is time for new employees — and you got lucky, you approached a few great developers and they accepted your offers. 

However, after some time, a few of your newest employees start acting rude and passive-aggressive towards others just because they might be better workers. 

What do you do?

If you don’t warn them at least, you risk your current employees becoming distrustful and dissatisfied with your management, while potential employees in the future might avoid your company because it doesn’t stand firmly behind their values.

That’s why company values have to be not only clearly stated, but also diligently implemented to foster a positive company culture . 

This means — the same rules apply to all.

According to one research, reported by Forbes , 87% of professionals want their next job to be in a company that promotes transparency.

Therefore, the choice is obvious — join the transparent companies club! 

Ensure your old and new employees know what to expect — both in terms of their duties and what their company stands for. 

Hence, make your employees learn how to earn promotions, additional time off, or other benefits that the company has to offer.  

This knowledge that stems from transparency will increase not only employees’ engagement but also retention rates. When people know what they’re supposed to be doing and why they should do it, they are more likely to roll up their sleeves and actually, you know — do it. 

Of course, transparent communication can only get you so far — if you don’t follow up in practice and provide what you promised, your employees will be unproductive and demotivated.

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Workplace safety (physical and mental) should be one of the priorities of any company. Check out the following articles to learn how to create it:

• How to Create Psychological Safety in the Workplace?
• 12 Key Safety Meeting Topics and Expert Tips to Keep Your Team Safe   

#5 Changes in company culture are communicated clearly

At one point, your company decides to introduce a new dress code — you want your employees to dress smart because you want to leave a better impression on potential customers and partners.

You decide to implement this change the right way — which means that your board members and other decision-makers need to invite team managers and discuss how potential company culture changes would influence the employees’ well-being or attitude towards work. 

So, that’s exactly what you do — your board organizes meetings with managers (and even employees) months before an official introduction to see how the employees should benefit from that and whether they like the idea or not. 

If everything goes smoothly and professionals like it, the news would be officially announced weeks before. 

In addition, employees are going to be reminded a day before to avoid possible miscommunication and misunderstandings. 

The same rules apply to the more serious changes in work policies, as well. 

However, every change has to be planned and communicated efficiently and clearly. 

#6 Company culture is always in accordance with the needs of employees

Over time, your company has grown to the point where it needs to expand to new markets such as South Asia or Africa. 

And it approaches employees in the same way as it does in Europe and America. 

“ No worries ”, said your main recruiter, “ We will lure exciting and young Asian and African prospects with time off for Independence Day! Americans love it, I don’t see why they wouldn’t like these benefits, as well. ” 

You can only imagine what the results of this job ad would be — most likely 1 applicant (who applied by mistake) and 0 new employees — because people worldwide don’t celebrate American Independence Day, they have their own holidays. 

To avoid situations like this, your recruiters need to see what professionals worldwide value the most and what principles and requirements you should include in your company culture. 

This awareness of people’s needs and willingness to incorporate their values into the company culture can result in great things, such as: 

• More diverse team-building events, 
• Workshops about cultural differences, or 
• More time off for all employees due to their colleague nations’ bank or religious holidays. 

It’s a good idea to always keep your finger on the pulse of industry trends to stay aware of employees’ needs and social trends.   

To learn how to adapt  communication so it aligns with your company culture and cater to international teams, check out the following article: 

• A Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Workplace Communications  

Pumble can help you grow a company culture 

Nurturing a positive company culture in a growing company requires dedication and time. 

However, it is easier when you have an efficient business communication app, such as Pumble , at your disposal. 

Apart from the fact that it allows you to have flawless communication and use a variety of reactions and emojis that would contribute to the positive atmosphere at work, you can always return to your old messages and files , go through them, and check every aspect of your company culture, thanks to unlimited message history . 

Most importantly, you can record your workshops or important meetings, and show them later to new employees during onboarding sessions. 

If you like what you have read and want to try Pumble yourself — sign up for Pumble today ! 

And if you’re in need of more tools that will ensure peak productivity for your team, try the CAKE.com Productivity Bundle and get access to Clockify, our time tracking app, and Plaky, our project management software.

Luka Kovac is a communication author and researcher at Pumble. His work is based on his knowledge of various communication methods, team-working ethics, and psychology. Since he is an experienced remote worker, his articles provide valuable insights into some vital strategies for successful communication and teamwork. When he’s not writing, he’s probably trying new interaction techniques and skills.

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