Cultural differences

Cultural differences

Having lived in 4 different countries (including Portugal where I was born and grew up), and being married to a German, I am aware of some cultural differences between countries. But I  think of these as “my perceived cultural differences”, and often end up wondering weather there is some real truth in them (meaning backed up by nice scientific data) or not.

In this website you can compare certain aspects of different countries: Power distance (“the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally”), Individualism (“the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members”), Masculinity (“what motivates people, wanting to be the best (Masculine) or liking what you do (Feminine)“), Uncertainty avoidance (“The extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these”), Long term orientation (“how every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future” ) and Indulgence (“the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses”).

I had to try comparing Portugal and Germany. Some results were really interesting (the power distance results were the ones that I was the most surprised about…).

I loved doing it and reading the differences and explanations.

I took it all with a grain of salt as this information is the result of questionnaires of a sample of 60 000 people (in each country) with, at least, high school level. And I am not sure how they distributed the questionnaires within the countries (I am sure they would be massive differences if the 60 000 people questioned in Portugal would be living around big cities or rural areas, and I guess it is the same for Germany. Or if they are in their 70s or in their 30s).

Still. Always love some food for thought.



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