Page 186 - Cultures and Organizations

162 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

applicants to undersell themselves. There is confirming evidence for this
observation from two studies in a school or learning context.
In the fi rst study, some eight hundred U.S. and eight hundred Dutch
youngsters, aged eleven to eighteen, completed questionnaires about their
personal competencies and problems. The Americans reported many more
problems and competencies than the Dutch. Some items on which Ameri-
cans scored higher were “argues a lot,” “can do things better than most
kids,” “stores up unneeded things,” and “acts without thinking.” The only
item on which the Dutch scored higher was “takes life easy.” Reports by
parents and teachers showed no difference in problem behavior by these
children, but U.S. parents rated their children’s competencies higher than
39
Dutch parents did. Young people in U.S. society have been socialized to
boost their egos: they take both their problems and their competencies
40
seriously. Young people in the Netherlands are socialized rather to efface
the ego. An earlier comparison between the U.S. and (masculine) Germany
had not found such differences.
The second study compared levels of literacy across seven countries. In
1994 representative samples comprising between two thousand and more
than four thousand younger and older adults (aged sixteen to sixty-fi ve) all
took the same tests to measure their literacy based on three skills: read-
ing, writing, and using numbers. From those with the best results (literacy
levels 4 and 5 out of 5), 79 percent of the Americans rated their own skills
41
“excellent,” but only 31 percent of the Dutch did so —this in spite of the
fact that the tests had shown both groups to be equally good.
Criteria for evaluating both teachers and students differ between mas-
culine and feminine cultures. On the masculine side, teachers’ brilliance
and academic reputation and students’ academic performance are the domi-
nant factors. On the feminine side, teachers’ friendliness and social skills
and students’ social adaptation play a bigger role.

Interviews with teachers suggest that in masculine countries, job
choices by students are strongly guided by perceived career opportunities,
while in feminine countries, students’ intrinsic interest in the subject plays
a bigger role.
In feminine countries, men and women more often follow the same
academic curricula, at least if the country is wealthy. In poor countries,
boys almost always get priority in educational opportunities. 42
Different job choices by women and men can be partly explained by
differences in perceptual abilities. Psychologists studying human percep-