Post 386: How Different Cultures handle Change and Stress

How Different Cultures Handle Change and Stress

Low Uncertainty Avoidance Societies

In American culture, it is all about what's new, all about the future, all about the change for the better. Americans as I wrote in my previous blog, embrace change. It is all about breaking the rules of tradition to try something new, something better.  Because the United States embraces change, the US is considered low uncertainty avoidance need.

Samovar states, "Countries like Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Norway and the US, Finland, and  The Netherlands have a low uncertainty avoidence--that is they easily accept the uncertainty inherent in life and are not threatened by deviant people and ideas, so they tolerate the unusual. They prize initiative, dislike structure associated with hierarchy and are more willing to take risks." (Samovar, 69)

American culture thrives on change, competition and novelty. Iphones become old hat just after 2 years.  I bought my Iphone 5 about 5 years ago and now my iphone is considered ancient and obsolete as everyone is now using Iphone 11 with more bells and whistles on it.

Because Americans thrive on change, Americans like to make business deals quickly. The American would sit down at a business dinner and expect to close the deal during that very same meal. There is less emphasis on getting to know the business person or on relationships, more emphasis is on getting the deal sealed to make as much money for the next financial quarter.

Impact on the classroom

This means that in an American classroom, it is all about what the students think and how students form new ideas as they learn. The teacher or authority on the subject steps back to let the students experience hands on learning where the focus is on student group activities, peer to peer interaction, peer to peer socialization and less focus on a teacher centered passive lecture style.  Instead, each student constructs his own knowledge and adds these new concepts to his/her unique knowledge base.

Students take charge of their learning and slowly synthesize what they learn through early states of understanding, some memorization of difficult jargon, then move on to analysis, encoding and synthesis through class activities geared towards cementing or reinforcing core concepts of the class. Teachers use lectures as little as possible and keep students busy through active discussions where students participate and actively construct their knowledge.

High Uncertainty Avoidance cultures

"In High Uncertainty Avoidance cultures try to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity by providing stability for their member establishing more formal rules, not tolerating deviant ideas and behaviors, seeking consensus, and believing in absolute truths and the attainment of expertise. They are also characterized by a high level of anxiety and stress: people think of uncertainty inherent in life as a continuous hazard to be avoided.... There is a strong need for structure to life." (Samovar, 69)

Asian nations and some European nations like Portugal, Greece, Peru,  and Belgium are examples of high uncertainty cultures.  Samovar states this means in high uncertainty avoidance countries, business negotiations take a long time because the members of high uncertainty avoidance countries want to do a lot of planning and thinking, reach a consensus, approach something new cautiously to promote stability and harmony.

Impact on the classroom

In the classroom, this means a more teacher-centered classroom where the teacher is the authority figure who pours information into the passive empty vessels of her students. The students respect the teacher as the subject matter expert.  The purpose of learning is an attainment of that expertise in order to be just like the teacher someday.

Teachers give lectures, students memorize what the teachers says, teacher assesses students through exams and students are expected to demonstrate rote memory knowledge mastery on their exams. Students take a passive role in their learning with the teacher doing all the heavy lifting.

As a result, students from high uncertainty avoidance cultures raised to be passive vessels of knowledge have a hard time participating in active conversations and need to be taught that it is okay to have an opinion.

Also, I have found that many Asian students think that if the teacher lets the students do all the talking, they think that the teacher lacks expertise and that is why the teacher is letting the students do all the work of learning new concepts. When a teacher does not lecture as often, they see the teacher as incompetent.

When we teach students from other cultures and when we design our classes for international students, we have to factor in cultural classroom differences in behavior and expectations between Asian classrooms and American ones.

Sanovar, Larry A, Potter, Richard E., Stefani, Lisa A.  Communication Between Cultures. Watsworth Publishing. 3rd Edition.