Ways of Manifesting Collectivism: an Analysis of Iranian and African Cultures
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Technical Details Ways of Manifesting Collectivism: An Analysis of Iranian and African Cultures Nina G. Hamedani, MS,* Tristan M. Purvis, PhD,* Sharon Glazer, PhD, & Joseph Dien, PhD March 2012 1 CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3 Culture ............................................................................................................................................... 3 Relational models theory: a Recap .................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 2: Iranian Culture ...................................................................................................................... 7 Strategic Significance of Iran ............................................................................................................. 7 Religion, Tradition, and Change ........................................................................................................ 8 “Persian” or “Iranian” ......................................................................................................................... 9 Identity and Nationalism .................................................................................................................. 10 Historical Perspective ............................................................................................................... 11 Iranian Collectivism ......................................................................................................................... 12 Iranian Culture: Civil Society............................................................................................................ 14 Communal Sharing ................................................................................................................... 14 Authority Ranking ..................................................................................................................... 15 Equality Matching ..................................................................................................................... 16 Market Pricing .......................................................................................................................... 17 Iranian Culture: Political Society ...................................................................................................... 17 Authority Ranking ..................................................................................................................... 19 Market Pricing .......................................................................................................................... 20 Equality Matching ..................................................................................................................... 20 Communal Sharing ................................................................................................................... 21 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 3: African Cultures ................................................................................................................. 23 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 23 A pan-African cultural model? .................................................................................................. 24 Problems with the generalized cultural model .......................................................................... 25 Survey of select African cultures ..................................................................................................... 26 Somali ............................................................................................................................................. 27 Communal Sharing ................................................................................................................... 28 Market Pricing .......................................................................................................................... 29 Authority Ranking ..................................................................................................................... 29 Tuareg ............................................................................................................................................. 30 Authority Ranking ..................................................................................................................... 31 Communal Sharing ................................................................................................................... 31 Market Pricing .......................................................................................................................... 32 Equality Matching ..................................................................................................................... 32 Hausa .............................................................................................................................................. 33 Communal Sharing ................................................................................................................... 34 Authority Ranking ..................................................................................................................... 35 Market Pricing .......................................................................................................................... 35 Equality Matching ..................................................................................................................... 36 Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 36 March 2012 2 Ways of Manifesting Collectivism: An Analysis of Iranian and African Cultures Chapter 1: Introduction ntelligence analysts might easily misinterpret their observations made in a society other than their own, since their understanding may be filtered through the lens of the shared values, norms, and beliefs of their own Iculture. For example, given the information that farmers in Kandahar regularly pay the Taliban 50% of their earnings, an analyst might conclude that the farmers are paying extortion money, whereas an alternative probable conclusion might be that they are paying for protection against a corrupt national government. The latter interpretation could lead to a more culturally appropriate policy of working with the village elders to restore their influence as a substitute for that of the Taliban (Flynn et al., 2010). In an initial report, Dien, Blok, & Glazer (2011) presented a cultural framework by which to analyze human influence situations in collectivistic cultures. Cultural case studies of Afghanistan/Pakistan, China, and Japan were evaluated within the framework. The present supplemental report extends this cultural analysis to Iranian culture and to three African cultures, specifically Somali, Tuareg, and Hausa. CULTURE A popular dimension of cultural differences has been dubbed “individualism vs. collectivism”. It has become a catchall way of characterizing cultures (Schwartz, 2009). “Individualism” implies social pattern of distinguishing an individual from a collective (e.g., family, work, tribe, nation), with individuals encouraged by society to perceive the self as independent and unique from others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, p. 226). “Collectivism” implies that individuals are closely linked with others in a collective (Hofstede, 2001). In “collectivist” societies, individuals are “primarily motivated by the norms of, and duties imposed by, those collectives; are willing to give priority to the goals of these collectives over their own personal goals; and emphasize their connectedness to members of these collectives” (Triandis, 1995, p. 2). In the Kandahar farmer example above, an individualistic lens focuses on the presumed motivations (greed) of the individual members of the Taliban whereas a collectivistic lens focuses on the social context (the disrupted social order and the resulting need of the farmers for protection). Collectivism may, however, not be a unidimensional construct. So called collectivistic cultures might be diverse; then it makes little sense to treat the hierarchical Confucian societies of China and Japan as being equivalent to the tribalistic societies of Afghanistan and Pakistan, despite their both being nominally collectivistic. Cross-cultural psychologists are quite cognizant of this issue and many models have been formulated regarding the many different aspects of collectivism, including: relationality of individuals to one another, feelings of group belonging, a sense of duty and obligation, the importance of harmony, social support systems that induce advice-seeking behavior, contextualization required for understanding indirect communication, hierarchy in terms of status, roles, and power, and preference for group interaction (Oyserman, March 2012 3 Coon, & Kemmemlmeier, 2002). Different collectivistic cultures are marked by different combinations of these characteristics. Given the complexity of these different kinds of collectivism, this research team offers an alternative framework with which to categorize and understand collectivistic cultures. RELATIONAL MODELS THEORY: