Page 185 - Cultures and Organizations

He, She, and (S)he 161

Failing in school is a disaster in a masculine culture. In strongly mas-
culine countries such as Japan and Germany, the newspapers carry reports
each year about students who killed themselves after failing an examina-
tion. In a 1973 insider story, a Harvard Business School graduate reported
four suicides—one teacher, three students—during his time at this elite
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American institution. Failure in school in a feminine culture is a relatively
minor incident. When young people in these cultures take their lives, it
tends to be for reasons unrelated to performance.
Competitive sports play an important role in the curriculum in coun-
tries such as Britain and the United States. To a prominent U.S. sports
coach the dictum is attributed, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only
34
thing,” which doesn’t encourage friendly encounters in sports. In most
other European countries, sports are extracurricular and not a part of the
school’s main activities.
In an imaginative research project, ten- to fi fteen-year-old children

from five countries were shown a picture of one person sitting on the
ground, with another standing over him saying, “Go ahead and fi ght back
if you can!” They were asked to choose one of eight responses from a card.
Aggressive answers were: “You’ve hit me. Now I’m going to teach you a
lesson,” “I’ll tell the teacher,” “We are not friends anymore,” and “You’ll
get caught by the police!” Appeasing answers were: “We don’t have to

fight,” “Let’s talk it over,” “Let’s not fight. Let’s be friends,” “I’m sorry. I
35
was wrong,” and “What if somebody gets hurt by fi ghting?” An aggres-
sive answer was chosen by 38 percent of the children in Japan, 26 per-
cent in Britain, 22 percent in Korea, 18 percent in France, and 17 percent
in Thailand. This outcome almost exactly followed the countries’ MAS
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scores. It clearly shows the different socializing of children with regard
to aggression. Another study, this time among university students in six

countries, contained a question asking whether children in their country
were allowed to express aggression. The percentages of “yes” answers var-
ied from 61 in the United States to 5 in Thailand and again correlated
significantly with MAS. 37

The IBM research found Thailand to be the most feminine Asian
country. A book about Thai culture by a British-Thai couple notes: “The
Thai learns how to avoid aggression rather than how to defend himself

against it. If children fight, even in defense, they are usually punished. The
only way to stay out of trouble is to flee the scene.” 38

Following the story at the beginning of this chapter about Geert’s job
interview, we commented that U.S. applicants tend to oversell and Dutch