Page 324 - Cultures and Organizations

Light or Dark? 289

people usually suffer losses,” “Old people are usually stubborn and biased,”
and “People will stop working after they secure a comfortable life.” It also

reflects a view that powerful people are arrogant exploiters of less powerful
individuals. According to the available data, societal cynicism is strongest
in Eastern Europe, East Asia (Korea, Taiwan), Pakistan, and Thailand. It
is weakest in Norway, the United States, and Canada. Societal cynicism
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is significantly and negatively correlated with IVR. This suggests that
members of less indulgent and more restrained societies tend to have a
more cynical outlook. Societal restriction not only makes people less happy
but also seems to foster various forms of negativism. Cynicism is only one
of them. Other forms will be discussed in the following sections.
Finally, indulgence is correlated with national norms for two of the

five personality dimensions in the Big Five model of personality traits,
described in Chapter 2 and referred to in several other chapters: positively
26
with extraversion and negatively with neuroticism. Since extraversion is

associated with positive affect, whereas neuroticism reflects a tendency

to experience negative feelings, this finding is consistent with the nature
of the indulgence versus restraint dimension. Indulgent societies are
likely to host more extroverted individuals and fewer persons manifesting
neuroticism.

Indulgence Versus Restraint, Subjective Health,
Optimism, and Birthrates

Societies with higher scores on indulgence have higher percentages of
respondents who in the WVS described their personal health as “very
good.” This correlation is especially high across the wealthy countries. 27
The Pew Research Center, a public opinion survey agency located in

the United States, collects data from some fifty countries, using mostly

nationally representative samples. One of the questions in its cross-national
surveys asks respondents how optimistic they are about the future. The
percentages of respondents who expressed high optimism are signifi cantly
28
correlated with the indulgence scores. More indulgent societies have
more optimistic people, and vice versa.
Happiness, subjective health, and optimism about the future all play a
role in the number of children born in a society.