Chile Forum

Quite frankly the average chilean lives in a "me first" culture here in Santiago Ive noticed,´if they walk into you, open a door in your face, or try run you over through a red light, its your fault for being there. This is why you see all this rioting and protesting, its completely selfish. However I am comparing this to a more rural English culture I am used to. So is it different in rural chile? I do get the occasional person who says thankyou when you hold a door for them. Not had anyone apologies yet though. :p

Quite frankly the average chilean lives in a "me first" culture here in Santiago Ive noticed,´if they walk into you, open a door in your face, or try run you over through a red light, its your fault for being there. This is why you see all this rioting and protesting, its completely selfish. However I am comparing this to a more rural English culture I am used to. So is it different in rural chile? I do get the occasional person who says thankyou when you hold a door for them. Not had anyone apologies yet though. :p

Noticed the exact same behavior in Venezuela - a predominant unawareness of others, and if you happen to move into their sphere, a surprised annoyance. Fascinating to examine and attempt to understand. Not so fascinating when you are t-boned when proceeding on the green light and many run the red.

Seabee, a homerun! This Cultural Dimensions tool is as much fun as Earthquake 3D.

His tendency to dismiss absolutes illustrates his readiness for paradigm shift, which = more objective research. Hofstede is one cool anthropologist. I swear his thesis was the basis of management for a previous corporate employer of mine.

Excerpts from "Dimensions do not exist: A reply to Brendan McSweeney":

In the first session of a new student class, I used to write big: CULTURE DOESN’T EXIST. In the same way values don’t exist, dimensions don’t exist. They are constructs, which have to prove their usefulness by their ability to explain and predict behavior. The moment they stop doing that we should be prepared to drop them, or trade them for something better. I never claim that culture is the only thing we should pay attention to. In many practical cases it is redundant, and economic, political or institutional factors provide better explanations. But sometimes they don’t, and then we need the construct of culture.

Five standard criticisms of my approach were:

1. Surveys are not a suitable way of measuring cultural differences (my answer: They should not be the only way).

2. Nations are not the best units for studying cultures (my answer: True, but they are usually the only kind of units available for comparison and better than nothing).

3. A study of the subsidiaries of one company cannot provide information about entire national cultures (my answer: What was
measured were differences between national cultures. Any set of functionally equivalent samples from national populations can
supply information about such differences. The IBM set consisted of unusually well matched samples for an unusually large number of countries. The extensive validation in the following chapters will show that the country scores obtained correlated highly with all kinds of other data, including results obtained from representative samples of entire national populations).

4. The IBM data are old and therefore obsolete (my answer: The dimensions found are assumed to have centuries-old roots; only
data which remained stable across two subsequent surveys were maintained; and they have since been validated against all kinds of external measurements; recent replications show no loss of validity).

5. Four or five dimensions are not enough (my answer: Additional dimensions should be both conceptually and statistically independent from the five dimensions already defined and they should be validated by significant correlations with conceptually related external measures; candidates are welcome to apply).

Ah read a little of the dissertation, the point that chileans will not assume responsibility for things was raised right from the beginning. What a crucial character floor, although my girlfriend does say sorry and thankyou naturally like a good girly after living with me for a while she still fails to understand the responsibilities that come attatched with things such as her pets, hehe nevermind, i guess every nations peoples have its pros and cons.

Seabee wrote:

California South wrote:I look forward to your commentary when finished, as well as thoughts from El Patio. How much different would this read if entitled "Cross-Cultural Issues Between the Americans and the Chileans" ?
Lets give it up for anthropologists! (or would that be another "quick conversation killer" Ryanar?)

Humm... this could be interesting then:

http://www.davidkbarker.com/papers/US_v ... gement.pdf

If my students presented those horrible 3d pyramid bar charts, I'd beat the snot out of them!

Dosedmonkey wrote:Quite frankly the average chilean lives in a "me first" culture here in Santiago Ive noticed,´if they walk into you, open a door in your face, or try run you over through a red light, its your fault for being there. This is why you see all this rioting and protesting, its completely selfish. However I am comparing this to a more rural English culture I am used to. So is it different in rural chile? I do get the occasional person who says thankyou when you hold a door for them. Not had anyone apologies yet though. :p

Someone thanked me for letting them out at an intersection today... I'm still in shock.

Seabee wrote:the Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory in which Geert Hofstede can compare two national cultures

This is fantastic stuff. Though it is not intended to assess individuals, I can see how it can be used to assess the differences and compabilities of attitudes and actions between two people.

It explains why several women have been put off by, "I'm planning to go to Chile in late 2013, but I don't know what I'll be doing (or where) when I get there."

Fishboy wrote:

Dosedmonkey wrote:Quite frankly the average chilean lives in a "me first" culture here in Santiago Ive noticed,´if they walk into you, open a door in your face, or try run you over through a red light, its your fault for being there. This is why you see all this rioting and protesting, its completely selfish. However I am comparing this to a more rural English culture I am used to. So is it different in rural chile? I do get the occasional person who says thankyou when you hold a door for them. Not had anyone apologies yet though. :p

Someone thanked me for letting them out at an intersection today... I'm still in shock.

Must of been an expat!!

I keep confusing cars by thanking them for letting me cross the road in some places when its not necasary, they think i'm telling them to stop oops. Also had some construction guys thank me for letting them back up their cement truck into their work site, errr, yeah i wasn't going to take the chance of being crushed by a massive truck, especailly as those things can easily tip over if they clip the curb bad, so top heavy when rotating and full.

Just last night I was commenting with a Chilean friend what the best way was to be friendly.

Chilean said: It has to be in person impossible to know what someone is like by the written word
MercyMe: The written word is more thoughtful thereby giving you a deeper examination of that person.

Interesting articles, thank you for sharing! I've finished the Hofstede article and am still working through the UCh article, and have already learned that before uttering a word I'd already be considered rude because of my hands, as I generally either talk with my hands or else put them in my pockets. Good to know!

Fascinating!

It is interesting how similar the Latin American countries are.

Surprises to me: Australia and the Netherlands rate high on Individualism.

Seems to be a divide not so much between English and Chilean as between north European and South European (much of whose culture, in attenuated and refracted form, can be found in the Latin American countries).