A Case for Comparing Apples with Oranges Intemational Differences in Values

The Nature of Comparisons Across Nations "Comparisons are odorous" (Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, III, v, 18) Popular wisdom deems that one cannot compare apples with oranges. But what do we mean by 'compare'? Both the Oxford and Webster Dictionaries(1) give two meanings to the word: (1) liken, regard as similar; and (2) examine in order to observe similarities or differences. It is obvious that the general interpretation of the word refers to the first meaning, and that scientific inquiry involves the second. Scientifically speaking, apples and oranges come under the general category of 'fruits' and can be compared on many criteria such as availability, price, color, vitamin content or keeping quality. Comparing apples with oranges, cross-cultural psychologist Harry Triandis once said, is okay as long as we possess a fruitology, a theory of fruits. Any comparison of values and attitudes across nations is in some way a comparison of apples to oranges, and without its fruitology it risks being a fruitless effort. Three basic questions have to be resolved: (1) the nature of the criteria for comparison; (2) to what extent nations are a proper unit for such a comparison, and (3) the functional equivalence of the nations concerned with respect to the criteria considered. 1. The criteria for our comparison are values and attitudes, known as constructs. A construct is "not directly accessible to observation but inferable from verbal statements and other behaviors and useful in predicting still other observable and measurable verbal and nonverbal behavior" (Levitin, 1973: 492). Constructs do not 'exist' in an absolute sense: we define them into existence. Metaphorically I called them mental programs; like computer programs, we cannot observe them directly; we can only observe what they do. In the case of people we can observe their behavior, their words and deeds - including the way they respond to survey questions - from which we infer the presence of stable mental programs (Hofstede, 1980: 14). Inspired by Kluckhohn (1951: 395) and Rokeach (1972:159ff) I defined a value as "a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others. " The term values is generally reserved for mental programs that are relatively unspecific; attitudes and beliefs refer to more specific mental programs (Hofstede, 1980: 15). I treated values as part of culture, the latter defined as "the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another. " This is not a complete definition of culture, which as a construct has been notoriously difficult to define, but it covers what I was able to measure in my research (Op. cit.: 25). At the level of nations, values that distinguish between nations are a component of 'national cultures. ' National culture is more or less synonymous to what a generation ago used to be called national character, a term that infers psychologizing. Culture allows more emphasis on the environment in which people function. (2) 2. The use of nations as units for comparing mental programs is debatable. Most anthropologists shy away from nations as units for studying culture. They are basically right, as nations can host many cultures in the anthropological sense, and cultures can bridge more than one nation. If data are collected by field observation as anthropologists tend to do, the student of culture can choose more relevant units. If data are partly collected from secondary sources, as in most comparative research, one can hardly escape from using the nation level. Many potentially culturally relevant data are only available at that level, so the nation becomes a surrogate for more suitable units. Fortunately, quite a few nations are culturally reasonably homogeneous. Older nations have in the 20th century been subject to a process of homogenization through national media (such as TV) and national institutions (e.g., the army and the soccer league). …