Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Wellbeing and Culture
Recently, at the Wellbeing at Work conference in Paris, I was intrigued by the ways in which national culture seemed to factor into discussions of wellbeing-related policies and programs. The system developed by Geert Hofstede to describe national cultures seems particularly useful for distinguishing differences between the approaches observed. One of the factors he outlines as differentiating national cultures is how masculine or feminine a culture seems to be. His definition of masculinity and femininity indicates that in feminine cultures “relationships and quality of life are important” while in masculine ones “challenge, earnings, recognition, and advancement are important.” Countries such as Japan, China, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States are relatively more masculine while countries that are relatively more feminine include Scandinavian ones, such as Sweden. (All quotes and statistics are from Cultures and Organizations, by Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, and Michael Minkov, published by McGraw Hill in …
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