Cultural Values
p> Value orientations only represent" good guesses" about why people act
the way they do. Statements made or scales constructed are only part of an
"as if" game. That is to say, people act as if they believed in a given set
of value. Because the individuals in any cultural group exhibit great
variation, any of the orientations suggested might well be found in nearly
every culture. It is the general pattern that is sought. Value orientations
are important to us as intercultural communicators because often whatever
one believes, values, and assumes are the crucial factors in communication. CONTRASTIVE ORIENTATlONS Let us take some American cultural patterns that have been identified
as crucial in cross-cultural communication and consider what assumptions,
values, and attitudes support them. Edward C. Stewart was a pioneer in
examining such American behavior in a cross-cultural perspective. His book
- American Cultural Patterns. This book describes dominant characteristics
of middle class Americans. Stewart distinguishes between cultural
assumptions and values and what he called cultural norms. Cultural norms
are explicit a repeatedly invoked by people to describe or justify their
actions. They represent instances in which the behavior and the value
attached to it seem at odds. Stewart writes, “Because cultural norms are
related to behavior as cliches, rituals or as cultural platitudes, they
provide inaccurate descriptions of behavior”. He points out that Americans
are devoted to the concept of self-reliance but accept social security,
borrow money, and expect a little help from their friends. Culture bearers
are usually more aware of their cultural norms than their systems of values
and assumptions. As Stewart explains, "being fundamental to the
individual's outlook, they [the assumptions and values] are likely to be
considered as a part of the real world and therefore remain unquestioned". Table 1, illustrates some of the general value orientations identified
with North Americans. The left-hand column indicates what the polar point
of the orientational axis might represent. The Contrast American column
does not describe any particular culture, but rather represents an opposite
orientation. Of course, the American profile is drawn in broad strokes and
describes the mainstream culture; ethnic diversity is of necessity blurred
in this sweeping treatment. Thus, with the reservations noted above, it can be said that in the
relationship of human beings and nature, Americans assume and thus value
and believe in doing something about environmental problems. Nature can and
should be changed. In addition, change is right and good and to be
encouraged. That toe pace of change has increased to a bewildering point in
the United States at the present time presents problems, but, as yet,
change has not been seen as particularly detrimental. Equality of opportunity is linked to individualism, lack of rigid
hierarchies informality, and other cultural givens. It is manifested in
American laws regarding social conduct, privacy, and opportunity. This
contrasts with an ascriptive social order in which class and birth provide
the bases for social control and interaction. The achievement orientation calls for assessment of personal
achievement, a latter-day Horatio Alger (Lee Iacocca) orientation. A future
orientation is joined to the positive value accorded change and action.
Directness and openness are contrasted to a more consensus-seeking approach
in which group harmony is placed above solving problems. Cause-and-effect logic joined to a problem-solving orientation and a
pragmatic approach to problems defines the much-vaunted scientific method.
Intuition and other approaches to evidence, fact, and "truth" are
associated with being orientations and philosophical approaches to
knowledge and knowing. Competition and a do-it-yourself approach to life
are well served by a future orientation, individualism, and the desire for
change. The statements above simply point out some very general orientations
that have driven and, to some degree, still guide North American society.
Change is always in the air. Many have pointed out, as Stewart himself
does, that these orientations represent white middle class American values.
They do. They serve the purpose, however, of providing a frame of reference
for cross-cultural comparison. Table 2 offers a contrastive look at some American and Japanese
values. Such culture-specific contrast alerts us to the need to examine our
cultural values and assumptions from the perspective of others. As one
studies the dimensions of contrast, one cannot help but marvel at the
communication that does take place despite such diversity. Okabe, in
drawing upon Japanese observations about some well-known American values,
reveals a new perspective to us. For example, the bamboo whisk and octopus
pot metaphors refer to a reaching out tendency in the United States as
opposed to the drawing inward of the Japanese. Omote means outside and omote / ura combines both the inside and
outside world. In the heterogeneous, egalitarian, sasara-type, doing,
pushing culture of the United States, there is no distinction between the
omote and the ura aspects of culture. In the hierarchical takotsubo-type,
being, pulling culture of Japan, a clear-cut distinction should always be
made between the omote and the ura dimensions of culture, the former being
public, formal, and conventional, and the latter private, informal, and
unconventional. The Japanese tend to conceive of the ura world as being
more real, more meaningful. Interpersonal relationships contrast on the basis of the role of the
individual and group interaction. Japanese patterns are characterized by
formality and complementary relationships that stress the value of
dependence or amae. Amae is the key to understanding Japanese society. The
concept of amae underlies the Japanese emphasis on the group over the
individual, the acceptance of constituted authority, and the stress on
particularistic rather than universalistic relationships. In the
homogenous, vertical society of Japan the dominant value is conformity to
or identity with the group. The Japanese insist upon the insignificance of
the individual. Symmetrical relationships focus on the similarities of
individuals; complementary relationships exploit differences in age, sex,
role and status. There are many ways in which the Japanese publicly
acknowledge a social hierarchy-in the use of language, in seating
arrangements at social gatherings, in bowing to one another and hundreds of
others. Watch Japanese each other and the principles will become quite
apparent. Notice who bows lower, who waits for the other to go first, who
apologizes more: (1) younger defers to older; (2) female defers to male;
(3) student defers to teacher; (4); the seller's bow is lower than the
buyer's; and (6) in a school club or organization where ranks are fixed,
the lower ranked is, of course, subordinate. These features of
interpersonal relationships lead to an emphasis on the public self in the
United States and on the private self in Japan, Americans being more open
in the demonstration of personal feelings and attitudes than the Japanese. Let us look to this question in detail. JAPANESE INTERPERSONAL NORMS Numerous studies by social scientists of national character or culture
have appeared in recent years, initially as a response to the need for
knowledge of enemy countries in World War II. Most of these studies have is
asked a substantive question: what is the nature of the behavior shared by
all, or a majority, of the members of a national society? Once this shared
behavior is "discovered," its written description becomes an outline of the
national culture of that country. This approach has been extensively
criticized on the grounds that the behavior of the members of any complex
society is so variable that any attempt to describe the shared items
results in superficial generalization. Critics have also pointed out that
descriptions of national cultures frequently consist of statements of norms
only, and do not denote actual behavior. At this point in the account of our own research it is necessary to
raise questions about the nature of national cultures. However, we shall
not attempt to claim that our answer to these will be valid for all members
of the Japanese nation. We do claim validity for our own subjects and are
also willing to guess that much of what we say will apply to the majority
of Japanese men who were socialized in prewar and wartime Japan in families
of the middle and upper income brackets. We shall not claim that our
subjects necessarily behaved in the manner suggested, for the description
itself pertains to norms or principles and not to behavior. In a subsequent
section we shall provide a description and analysis of the behavior of our
subjects with reference to these norms. This procedure implies the concept of a "cultural model": essentially
a highly generalized description of principles, shared by a large number of
people and maintained in the form of personal values. To some degree these
principles or norms constitute guides or rules for behavior: sometimes
followed literally, sometimes not, but always available as a generalized
protocol for use by the individual in finding his way through social
relationships and in judging the acts of others. The first half of the model we shall construct pertains to the
patterns of interpersonal relations in the two societies, Japan and
America. We recognize that as representatives of the class of modern
industrial nations, these two countries have cultures very similar in many
respects. The Japanese are, in fact, often called the "Americans of the
Orient," a phrase referring to their industrious orientation toward life
and nature; their interest in mass-cultural pursuits like baseball; and
their success with capitalist enterprise in a collectivist world.
Similarities in all these areas are a fact— but it is equally apparent that
some significant differences have existed in other aspects of social life
in the two countries. Among these differences the norms and patterns of
interpersonal behavior are probably the greatest. Thus, while a Japanese
and an American may share an interest in baseball which brings them closer
together that either one might be to a member of some other nation, the two
may differ so widely in their habits of behavior in social situations that
communication between them may be seriously impeded. Studies of Japanese social norms have revealed the following general
features: articulate codification of the norms; strong tendencies toward a
face-to-face, or "primary group" type of intimacy; an emphasis upon
hierarchical status positions; concern for the importance of status;
elative permanence of status once established; and "behavioral reserve" or
discipline. These will be discussed in order. articulate codification of rules During the long Tokugawa period of centralized feudalism, Japanese
patterns of interpersonal behavior underwent an elaborate
institutionalization. The Shogunate attempted to fix the position of each
class with respect to the others and established written rules of behavior
for its members. The family system had developed historically along
patrilineal lines, and during Tokugawa times such patterns of relations
between kin were proclaimed as an official social code. After the Meiji
Restoration, the samurai class in control of the nation maintained these
formalized rules and even elevated them to the status of an idealized
spiritual expression of the Japanese ethos. The reason for this enhancement
of the Tokugawa code after the Restoration lay in the need to preserve and
strengthen national discipline and unity as a practical policy in
industrialization and other aspects of modernization. Thus, Japan moved
into her modern era in possession of a system of rules of social behavior
based on feudal and familial principles. It is necessary to note that this system of codified rules was
consistently adhered to in actual behavior by only a minority of the
population: the samurai and nobility. The remainder of the population
followed the rules in part, or only in "public" situations where the
pressure for conformity was strong. In the decades subsequent to the
Restoration a generalized version of the code was adopted by the developing
business and official classes, and this is the situation which continues to
prevail in Japan today (although since the Occupation a considerable
liberalization of social behavior can be found in all classes and groups).
Since the student subjects of-the research project were persons from upper-
and middle-class groups socialized in prewar and wartime Japan, we can use
the gross aspects of this social code as a backdrop for the interpretation
of their behavior. The strength and the influence of this code were
enhanced further by the fact that up to the period of the Occupation, no
large migration to Japan of Westerners had occurred. In this situation
relatively few Japanese were presented with the need to learn the modes of
interaction of other societies—particularly the more "open" type of the
Western nations. This isolation was intensified during the militarist-
nationalist epoch of the 1930s and 1940s, in which the social code was
given renewed emphasis as a counter-measure against liberal trends. The
codified norms— on or ascribed obligation; giri or contractual obligation;
chu or loyalty to one's superior; ninjo or humane sensibility; and enryo or
modesty and reserve in the presence of the superior—were incorporated in
the school curriculum as ethical doctrine, and exemplified in a multitude
of cultural expressions. primary associative qualities An important aspect of Japanese social norms may be described in
Western sociological terms as that of "primary association." Emphasis upon
personal qualities, obligations between subordinate and superior, and
distinctions based on age or sibling birth-order are features suited to the
atmosphere of a small, highly interactive social group, like the family or
a feudal manor. It goes without saying that in the modern mass society of
Japan these rules have not always been observed, but the fact is that to an
extraordinary degree the Japanese have succeeded in organizing present-day
society into small, cell-like groupings, in which highly personalized
relationships are governed by an explicit code of behavior. Even in
impersonal situations, as in labor organizations, rules of primary
associative type have been used at least symbolically as models for
interaction and responsibility. hierarchy If Japanese social norms present an image of society in the character
of a primary group, it is at least a hierarchically organized primary
group—one in which there are explicit gradations of status from superior to
inferior. The family is ideally organized on patrilineal-patriarchal
principles, with the father as dominant, the eldest son superordinate to
the younger, and so on. Primogeniture was the law of the land until the
Occupation period, and, even though no longer so, it is still followed in a
great many cases. Japanese business firms, government bureaus, and many universities and
schools are organized in ways reminiscent of this familial model; or their
organization may be more closely related historically to feudal or lord-
vassal principles. In such cases the employee and the employer, chief and
underling, or teacher and pupil occupy positions which carry with them
defined and ascribed rights and duties, in which the superior generally
occupies a paternalistic and authoritarian role. The term sensei means
teacher, or mentor, but its wide application to people outside of the
teaching profession suggests its connotation of benevolent but stern
authority and superiority. Likewise the term oyabun ("parent-status" or
"parent-surrogate"), while strictly appropriate only for certain types of
economic groups, is often applied to any highly paternalistic superior. concern for status All this would imply, of course, very considerable preoccupation with
matters of social status. It is necessary or at least desirable for every
Japanese to know his own status in the interaction situation, since it is
in status that one finds the cues for reciprocal behavior. To put this in
sociological terms, there exists a very close tie between status and role:
the role behavior expected of one in a given status position is clearly
defined and there are relatively few permitted alternatives or variations
from the pattern (when alternatives are present, they, too, are often very
clearly defined). Thus the behavior of a person of a given status in a
social relationship, can constitute familiar and unmistakable cues for the
appropriate behavior of a person of another status.
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