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The Cultural Dimensions Theory was developed by Geert Hofstede and his colleagues to explain the way different cultures impact the people who live in them. The study started as an examination of Hofstede’s colleagues across IBM’s offices around the world. At the time, he only included four dimensions in his theory, which he published in 1980: Power Distance, Individualism versus Collectivism, Masculinity versus Femininity, and Uncertainty Avoidance.
Then, with the help of Michael Harris Bond, a Canadian social psychologist working in Hong Kong, he added Long-term Orientation versus Short-Term Orientation in the 1980s. And in 2010, through his work with Michael Minkov, a Bulgarian linguist, Indulgence versus Restraint was added.
Let's dive into the six dimensions that make up the theory, their significance in psychology, and take a look at some real world examples.
Geert Hofstede was a social psychologist who was born in 1928 in the Netherlands. World War II, a defining event in his life, began when he was 12. He became an engineer during the years the country struggled to rebuild but soon became fascinated by the human's role in the system, and, therefore, decided to turn his attention to psychology.
He did a PhD in organizational behavior and landed a job at IBM International where he first started conducting his research on the company’s culture in the late 1960s. That led to his first book, 1980’s Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, which was the beginning of cross-cultural psychology as a serious discipline.
Hofstede was named one of the 20 most influential business thinkers of the 20 th century by the Wall Street Journal and numerous universities have bestowed honorary doctorates on him. He died on February 12, 2020.
Hofstede’s research helps people understand the differences between world cultures along six dimensions. The dimensions are as follows:
This is the degree to which people in a society expect to be equal. Carl Nassar, PhD, LPC, a professional counselor in Denver, CO, had this to say about power distance. “There’s inequality in all cultures, but ask yourself: Are you in a culture where you’ve got a relatively equal distribution of power (a 'low power distance index') or a culture where the power is held by the few and dictated to the many (a 'high power distance index')?”
Low Power Distance cultures see inequality as needed sometimes, but their goal is for relationships to be as equal as possible. In High Power Distance cultures, on the other hand, inequality is the basis of society.
This is the degree to which people focus on their groups. Individualistic societies, like the United States, strongly value personal achievement and focus on individual needs, whereas in collectivist societies, achievements and decisions are made with the group in mind.
“How focused is the culture on ‘I’ instead of on ‘we?’” says Nassar. “Do individuals look out for themselves (‘it’s every person for themselves’), or do we look out for each other (‘we’ll rise together and we’ll fall together’.)”
This is the preference for masculine versus feminine traits in a society.
In Hofstede's theory, masculine traits include assertiveness, competitiveness, power, and material success, while feminine traits include nurturing relationships, a good quality of life, and caring for others.
As Nassar observes, “It’s no surprise to learn the [United States] has a low femininity score.” In masculine cultures, differences in gender roles are very dramatic, whereas in feminine cultures, the roles are fairly fluid.
This dimension deals with how much a society can cope with uncertainty of the future.
While every culture must deal with this, cultures with high uncertainty avoidance rely on their set rules and structures about the way things are done to deal with it, whereas those with low uncertainty avoidance are more relaxed.
As Nassar shares, this dimension boils down to, “Are you willing to take risks and deal with the anxiety this causes, or do you prefer to create structures that keep things organized but also reduce risk and opportunity?”
This dimension looks at the extent to which people are willing to forego short-term gains for future rewards, in particular, by emphasizing the virtues of persistence, saving, and thrift. On the opposite end of the spectrum is foregoing future rewards for short-term gains in the past or the present, with an emphasis on immediate gratification and quick results.
“The [United States], like its stock market,” Nassar says, “tends to be all about making it now and letting tomorrow take care of itself.” This makes the [United States] a culture with a short-term orientation.
This dimension deals with how much your culture satisfies human needs or desires versus how much you hold back on your desires to satisfy societal norms. As Nassar puts it, “How’s your impulse control? Do you tend to go for instant gratification, or do you hold off, in part through social norms, deferring gratification…”
For instance, indulgent cultures tend to focus more on individual well-being and personal freedom, whereas happiness and freedom are not given the same level of importance in restrained cultures.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Theory continues to be the go-to theory for understanding cultures around the globe. As Alyssa Roberts, a practicing psychologist, researcher, and writer at Practical Psychology shares, “Hofstede’s research is so incredibly relevant to this day that it continues to be the basis for assessing how a culture behaves and what kind of cultural adaptation people from different countries need to undergo in order to fully adapt [to a new country].”
Hofstede’s theory can tell you a lot about the different cultures of the world by dividing them along these six dimensions.
The significance of the theory comes down to this: “For most of humanity’s 200,000 year history on this planet, we grew up in villages. ” Nassar says. “But, beginning some 20,000 years ago, and accelerating over the past 500 years, the collective village cultures of the earth were overrun by a consumer culture, a culture that abandoned the security we found with each other and replaced it with the security of individual fiscal wealth.
Hofstede’s dimensions ask the questions: Did a modern culture retain its village values? Did it instead embrace the consumer culture? Or did it walk a middle road?
— CARL NASSAR, PHD, LPCRoberts has spent a lot of time in different places around the world, and that has driven home the value of Hofstede’s Six Cultural Dimensions. She’s provided examples of each dimension in action here:
While these dimensions are a popular tool for cross-cultural psychologists and businesses, it’s important to remember that these dimensions are generalizations. Therefore, they may not describe everyone from a specific culture.
Nonetheless, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory has stood the test of time to show the six dimensions that affect the ways people from different cultures interact.
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By Cynthia Vinney, PhD
Cynthia Vinney, PhD is an expert in media psychology and a published scholar whose work has been published in peer-reviewed psychology journals.
