Cultural Psychology: the Power Distance Index and Asian Culture

By Lily | Saturday, January 23, 2010 | 4 Comments

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I read a lot of cultural psychology, and find that it is relevant to my experiences as an Asian American and explains a lot of the dynamics I see around me. I want to share some of these ideas and hope that they are relevant to others.

Most of these ideas come from Geert Hofstede, a cultural psychologist who surveyed the employees at the multinational company IBM and identified four dimensions or characteristics of cultures. The first of these is the power distance index (PDI).

Power Distance is the distance a person feels or keeps between themselves and a person in a position of power. Asian culture is high power distance, which means that subordinates maintain a distance from their superiors and have a sense of respect or even awe of them. On the other hand American culture is low power distance, which means that subordinates see their superiors as approachable and their superiors’ decisions as negotiable.

A person acquires their attitudes toward power from their upbringing. In British culture, for example, it is customary to treat children as “little adults.” They express their opinions, are allowed to contradict their parents and say what they want or don’t want. I think this explains what always seemed like a phenomenon to me– of very articulate children who are comfortable conversing with adults.

In a culture with higher power distance, a child does not speak as much with authority and is taught obedience. Disagreement may be taken as a sign of disrespect, and as a child you are expected to take what is given to you. Although countries are ranked along a gradient and it is all relative, Asian countries are generally high power distance.

The attitude a person acquired growing up transfers to the manager-subordinate relationship in the workplace. An Asian employee might not disagree with his or her manager because they do not want to “talk back” or disrespect him or her. They feel obligated to just accept whatever their superior says. This makes Western management techniques such as “Management by Objectives” ineffective because they presuppose that an employee would negotiate their objectives. However if the employee is uncomfortable saying “no,” they would simply agree to the projects and be stuck with an unreasonable workload.

Overall, management in high PDI cultures is more paternalistic — “the benevolent autocrat” or “good father,” whereas management in low PDI cultures is more “consultative.” In diverse workplaces the discrepancy between these styles can cause a lot of misunderstanding– a manager may increase the workload without considering or even remembering what the subordinate already has, and continue to do so as long as the subordinate doesn’t say anything to remind him of the situation. Meanwhile, the employee doesn’t say anything or make much of an attempt to reduce his workload. Instead he burns himself out accommodating the manager’s demands, even at the expense of his own health or well-being. He wonders at his manager’s appalling lack of consideration.

Does this strike a chord with anyone?

(source: Cultures and Organizations, Geert Hofstede and Gert Jan Hofstede)

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jing 5 pts

I worked in China for nine years and have been working in the USA for 5 years. From my experience and what I learned from the 'outliers', I strongly believe the culture difference in terms of power distance is a big issue for many American Asians including the 2nd generation. The question - is every American Asian aware of this problem?

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mmwang

The Comments in response to Lily's original post suggest that high Asian PDI might explain disparities in professional success in Western workplaces between Asians and non-Asians. However, I think that such conclusions underestimate the simple yet potent existence of discrimination.

I don't just mean "discrimination" in the racist KKK sense, which still exists, though in a less overt form. There are also less conspicuous forms of discrimination that exist prevalently today. Persons of Asian descent might not be promoted because Westerners cannot see Asians as leaders. Persons of Asian descent might not have as much access to professional networks because their company is not as valued (for a variety of possible reasons) as much as the company of a White person. Non-Asian subordinates might subconsciously accord less respect to the directives of Asian superiors than to White or Black superiors.

The breathtaking rise of China from a backward agrarian society to a modern superpower over the past 30 years proves that Asian PDI does not culturally predispose Asians to subservience. It is therefore unhelpful and dubious to conclude that the relative lack of success of Asians in Western societies is the product of PDI alone.

If the article about PDI teaches us anything, it should teach us that we need to stop blaming ourselves. Instead, we need to learn to demand more seats at the table in politics, industry and culture, and that we need to demand those seats even when those demands seem unreasonable.

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Lani

Hi Lilly, I'm an American living in Thailand and I have a couple of friends who are going to university here in Chiang Mai. One is an Australian and the other a fellow American. They both complain about how none of the Asian students speak their minds in class. A teacher's word is the final word. It's a very different classroom climate and my friends have been frustrated since they were raised to feel as though it is perfectly fine and normal to challenge a teacher.

Ironically, it is acceptable for students to arrive late (this is common among language schools too) and even talk amongst themselves while a teacher is talking. But I remember first hearing about Power Distances from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. He shares an extremely fascinating study on Korean Airlines that I would recommend reading.

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Tien V Nguyen

Great article. It's a big part of the reason there are so few Asian CEOs or even high level managers. You certainly want Asian workhorses around, but the culture, and the perception of Asians being subservients certainly hurts them in the workplace.

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