Page 223 - Cultures and Organizations

196 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

suicide death rate, alcoholism (measured by the death rate due to liver cir-
rhosis), the accident death rate, and the rate of prisoners per ten thousand
population. These together formed a factor that he labeled anxiety or neuroti-
cism. Some other indicators were negatively related with the anxiety factor:
the consumption of caffeine (in coffee and tea), the average daily intake of
calories of food, the death rate due to coronary heart disease, and the occur-
rence of chronic psychosis (measured through the number of patients per
one thousand population). Lynn calculated scores for the strength of the
anxiety factor of each of his eighteen countries, based on data from 1960. He
found Austria, Japan, and France to score highest, and New Zealand, Great
Britain, and the Republic of Ireland lowest. There is a strong correlation
between Lynn’s country anxiety scores and the UAI scores found in the
5
IBM studies and listed in Table 6.1. Because the two studies use completely
different sources of data, the agreement between their results is supportive
of the solidity of their conclusions: anxiety levels differ from one country to
another. Some cultures are more anxious than others.
Anxious cultures tend to be expressive cultures. They are the places
where people talk with their hands and where it is socially acceptable to
raise one’s voice, to show one’s emotions, and to pound the table. Japan may
seem to be an exception in this respect; as with other Asians, the Japanese
generally behave unemotionally in Western eyes. In Japan, however, and to
some extent also in Korea and Taiwan, there is the outlet of getting drunk
among colleagues after working hours. During these parties men release
their pent-up aggression, even toward superiors, but the next day business
continues as usual. Such drinking bouts represent one of the major institu-
tionalized places and times for anxiety release.
In weak uncertainty-avoidance countries, anxiety levels are relatively
low. According to Lynn’s study, more people in these countries die from

coronary heart disease. This statistic can be explained by the lower expres-
siveness of these cultures. Aggression and emotions are not supposed to be
shown: people who behave emotionally or noisily meet with social disap-
proval. This means that stress cannot be released in activity; it has to be
internalized. If this happens again and again, it may cause cardiovascular
damage.
Lynn explains the larger number of chronic psychosis patients in low
anxiety countries by a lack of mental stimuli in such societies, a certain
gloom or dullness. Coffee and tea are stimulating drugs, and these societies
show a high consumption of such caffeine carriers. Alcohol has the opposite
effect; that is, it releases stress. Weak uncertainty-avoidance societies tend