Page 224 - Cultures and Organizations

What Is Different Is Dangerous 197

to have low average alcohol consumption figures as manifested by their fre-
quency of liver sclerosis deaths. Many people in the Scandinavian countries
show a particular pattern of periodic excessive drinking—in which case
the alcohol does act as a stimulus, but for a short period only—followed
by longer periods of abstention; the average alcohol consumption in the
Scandinavian countries is low compared with the rest of Europe. 6
A comparison across thirty-three countries of UAI with national
norms for the Big Five personality test showed that in more uncertainty-
avoiding cultures, respondents scored themselves higher on neuroticism
and lower on agreeableness. Neuroticism scores increased further if the
culture was also masculine. Neuroticism (the opposite of emotional stabil-
7
ity) combines the following set of self-scored personality facets: anxiety,
angry hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness, and vulner-
ability. Agreeableness combines trust, straight forward ness, altruism, com-
pliance, modesty, and tender-mindedness.
These correlations explain why people from strong uncertainty-
avoidance cultures may come across to others as busy, fi dgety, emotional,
aggressive, or suspicious and why people from weak uncertainty avoidance
countries to others may give the impression of being dull, quiet, easygo-
ing, indolent, controlled, or lazy. These impressions are in the eye of the
beholder: they show the difference with the level of emotionality in the
observer’s own culture.

Uncertainty Avoidance Is Not the Same as
Risk Avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance should not be confused with risk avoidance. Uncer-
tainty is to risk as anxiety is to fear. Fear and risk are both focused on

something specific: an object in the case of fear, and an event in the case of

risk. Risk is often expressed as a percentage of probability that a particu-
lar event will happen. Anxiety and uncertainty are both diffuse feelings.
Anxiety, it was argued earlier, has no object. Uncertainty has no prob-
ability attached to it. It is a situation in which anything can happen and we
have no idea what. As soon as uncertainty is expressed as risk, it ceases to
be a source of anxiety. It may become a source of fear, but it may also be
accepted as routine, like the risks of driving a car or practicing a sport.
Rather than leading to reducing risk, uncertainty avoidance leads to
a reduction of ambiguity. Uncertainty- avoiding cultures shun ambiguous
situations. People in such cultures look for structure in their organiza-