Class 1
For animals, their genes overrule the social environment. For humans, the reverse is true,
our DNA gives way to the social environment. The take-home is that culture is much more
superior than DNA, and that’s why evolution has geared us to take guidance for life from
culture and not from our DNA. Culture is faster, richer, and much more dynamic of a
resource from which we can advance. Learning how to adapt to a new culture, as well as
how to change a culture is the best strategy we can have in order to successfully live and
work in an international context.
The first driver that contributes to the diversity of culture is geographic environment. Among
the theories, a famous one is called environmental determinism. Diamond proposed an idea
that a country is rich or poor, having different lifestyles because it happened to settle down in
a very specific environment that only allows it to do a certain thing. Based on this theory,
Hofstede – a very prominent researcher in our field – also suggested that hot and cold
climates lead to different cultural values.
A much more balanced hypothesis is cultural ecology, which proposed that both humans and
environment changed each other and should be an integral part of each other. It makes
sense, seeing the way we are alternating the landscape, climate, and ecosystems around
us.
The second driver of diversity is DNA. We have stopped somehow to take life guidance from
it, but it does not go away of course. Its new role is fascinating, as the theory of
Gene-Culture Coevolution suggests. Let’s imagine our ancestors many thousands of years
ago migrating from Africa to some tropical areas of the world where it was hot and humid,
which normally means there is a high load of pathogens – bacteria and viruses that could
cause fatal diseases. In this kind of environment, a good cultural strategy is to read each
other’s emotion quickly and correctly, to conform to the groups’ rules and to listen to the
authority. Those who could do that, survived and had more children. Now this is where DNA
comes in. There is an interesting hypothesis that the shorter version of the serotonin
transporter gene is associated with better emotional reading.So people with this gene had
some evolutionary advantages, and thus, it became dominant in the population. In turn, its
dominance then reinforced the cultural values of group’s conformity, being aware of each
other’ behaviors, emotion, and thinking.
High level of emotional sensitivity gene is associated with high level of group orientation. To
this day, up to 80% of East Asian population carry this gene, while is number is half among
European population. So, to a certain extent, we can say that culture is actually genetically
inherited.
The third driver of cultural diversity is inside each of us, our brain. You probably have heard
about brain plasticity. So put it this way, the brain is not completely fixed. Like a muscle, its
structures and functions can change with repeated thoughts and behaviors. This ability to
change allows us to do two things. One, we can adapt to a new culture, become a product of
this culture, taking resource and guidance from it to get our job done.
,The second thing brain plasticity allows us to do is, not adapting to a culture, but changing or
creating new cultures, so becoming the producer of the culture. For example, we used to be
someone who consumed a lot fast fashion. But we can change ourselves, and promote that
change in a wider community. Now when we pass by those stores with fast fashion, our
brain doesn’t give us anymore that burning desire to come in and check for sale. Its wiring
pathway has changed thanks to brain plasticity.
Brain plasticity also allows us to have a multicultural mind. This means you can hold
opposing values at the same time,and use them spontaneously. This is the case for many of
us who are global citizens, who have lived in many different countries, or who have a
culturally diverse lifestyle.
To understand the dynamic change of culture, first of all, we need to identify its main
components. So imagine a tree with three layers: the trunk, the branches and the canopy.
The trunk represents fundamental concerns. These are the building blocks of culture such as
religion, language, music and art. It also includes traits such as respect, love, hierarchy,
loyalty, at the base line level. These are the cultural elements that can jump from one head
to another, that can be learned and passed down generations, that provides us the immense
resources to survive, so we don’t have to rely on our DNA.
They are called fundamental concerns because all human societies are concerned about
them, for without them, no society can function and advance.
,The second layer of culture is value. This is the degree of importance we put on those
fundamental concerns, ranging from high to low. For example, religion is a building block, but
above the base line level, each society and individual may value it differently.
The top layer of culture is outward expression – which covers specific objects, symbols and
behaviors that we can see, touch, taste and feel. So to continue with our example of religion.
It is important at baseline level in all societies (so the trunk of the tree), it can be valued
highly or moderately in different context (so the branches), and it can be expressed with
differently rituals, books, traditions, etc. and that would be the outward expressions that we
see in the canopy.
In this field of cross-cultural study, there are two main schools of thought. One is the static
paradigm. It suggests that culture shapes our behaviors. If you are a typical Dutch, then you
would eat a lot of cheese and ride a bike. You can’t change your Dutch culture by your
behaviors. It’s one-way street.The other school of thought is the dynamic paradigm. It
suggests that the interaction is both ways. Ok, your Dutch culture can shape your behaviors
somehow, but collective behaviors can change a culture as well, as we see with how young
people are promoting a new culture of sustainability that we mentioned before.
For the static paradigm, a culture is fixed. Or more specifically, cultural values (that is the
branches of the tree) cannot change. This makes the ranking remain reliable and useful. In
any case, if cultural values do change, then this happens very slowly. And all countries in the
world would change more or less in the same speed. This means the gap between them
stay the same. And this also means the ranking remains reliable and useful, regardless of
time. While the values can’t change, the static paradigm does allow the outward
expressions to change, so the canopy of the tree. The main benefit of this approach is that
since values are fixed and they shape behaviors, if we know the values of a culture, we can
predict how people in that culture behave.
Here is a good study to understand this. China was famous for enforcing its one-child policy
in order tocontrol its big population. Most people were unhappy with it, since having many
children is an important value there. So they reluctantly changed their behavior. This
repeated behavior eventually changed their original value. Now the ban is lifted, butmany
people refused to have second child. The bottom line is, collective behavior can change a
culture, even when it’s forced.
For the dynamic paradigm, a country can have many cultures. And in each culture,
opposing values or contrasting values co-exist with each other. Second of all, for the
dynamic paradigm, a culture can change fast or slow, it can even change back to the
conservative side in the past. We can look at the revolution in Iran for a good example. Next,
the world is not changing evenly, but each community responds differently to its internal and
external events. Then change does not happens at the surface only, but it happens at all
levels of the tree metaphor of culture. And finally, culture and behaviors interact in a two-way
street. Culture shapes the behaviors, but repeated collective behaviors can change a
culture. We have mentioned at least two examples: how young people are changing a
culture towards sustainability and the One-child policy in China.
, So the question we have at the beginning is “What drives the diversity of culture?”.
By incorporating insight from many other disciplines, we know that there are at least
4 drivers. First of all, different environments lead to different ways of living. Second of all,
genes coevolve with culture and change it in the way the best cultural value for survival is
genetically supported. Third of all, the brain is flexible enough so we can adapt to a new
culture, but also can create a new culture by changing our own values and behaviors. Lastly,
behaviors can change a culture on both direct and indirect way, through how genes work,
and through collective behavior
Three main points: The cultural metaphor of a tree helps us to understand three major
components of culture: Fundamental concerns, values and outward expressions. The static
paradigm assumes that values do not change, only outward expressions do. The dynamic
paradigm proposes that all levels can change, albeit with different speeds and depending
on the context. Putting this tree on the Inverted Pyramid Model, then the collective level is
where we see dynamic paradigm plays out, with 4 different levels of analysis. So a country is
not a culture. A country can host many cultures,and a culture can host opposing or
contrastingvalues. Fo rinternational business, it’s crucial to remember that we may plan a
business locally, but we often do business individually, with a unique person. This person
can always be a surprise, so to speak, for (s)he can have a multicultural mind, or not at all a
perfect stereotype of her/his country. In any case, context is the most reliable resource to
understand cultural change. Contexts vary immensely, so we have to invest time and effort
to understand it.
