National character?

Social scientist Geert Hofstede of the University of Maastricht has done cross cultural surveys concerning attitudes about egalitarianism, individualism, risk aversion, etc. The results are quite interesting and can be found here.

The characteristics are as follows:

Power Distance Index (PDI): the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. Higher means less egalitarian.

Individualism (IDV) (versus collectivism): Higher means more individualistic.

Masculinity (MAS): the distribution of roles between the genders. Higher means more chauvinistic.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI): tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. Higher score means more risk averse.

Long-Term Orientation (LTO) versus short-term orientation.


Here are two sample comparisons:





So, Americans are more egalitarian, more individualistic, more chauvinistic and less risk averse than their French cousins. They are also more egalitarian, more individualistic, similarly chauvinistic, more risk averse, and more short-term oriented than their Chinese counterparts. (Did I get all that right?)

It's just a small step to define a "metric on the space of national characters" :-)