> With their plethora of strictly enforced rules
> governing various minutiae of daily existence,
> I would be surprised if they are not low on UAI.

Be sure you're using the terminology correctly. "UAI" is short for
Uncertainty Avoidance (and we think the "I" is for "Inventory"). If
the Amish have strict regulations to govern possibly uncertain
situations, then they are likely to be HIGH in Uncertainty Avoidance,
not low. Therefore, based on your arguments, you should be surprised
if they are not *high* on UAI.

That stated, I agree that you have a point. They don't have a very
high UAI profile in the sense that I'm used to seeing, but it's
obvious that they live highly regulated lives. If someone could
administer Hofstede's tests to the Amish, it would be very
interesting to see how they would score.


> So do Catholics! (And the similarity here is no
> coincidence--it was Puritans who created the emphasis
> on "assurance of salvation," but they had little or
> no effect on RC's or anabaptist sects who retained
> the Catholic view.  So does this show that Catholics
> are lower on  UA than evangelicals who emphasize the
> importance of "knowing you're saved?" You've already
> agreed that it is the other way around.

Interesting point. I can only say once again that this is an issue
which I approach with a strong degree of humility, because I don't
think I fully understand these cultural dimensions.


> > I think that's increasing IND and decreasing PDI much
> > more than decreasing UAI.
>
> ams: Yet you did say that UAI correlates postively
> with xenophobia, did you not? Doesn't increased openness
> to Blacks (internal aliens) and, via changes in
> immigration rules, foreigners (external aliens) signify
> less xenophobia and, logically, less UA?

Hofstede *described* high UAI cultures as xenophobic and
superstitious. So far as I understand it from snooping through his
books on Amazon.com, that was merely his own observation. I'm
inclined to trust his description as it seems to fit in very nicely
with everything I understand, but I don't think there's any hard data.


> I would think it's possible, but not Bush.  He's too
> supportive of multiculturalism, alien immigration, and,
> in the area of religion, ecumenism.   And then there's
> his  Mestizo nephew  whom he dreams of becoming the
> next Bush in the White House.  Ignorant, arrogant,
> and callous, yes; xenophobic, no.

Doesn't his mestizo nephew speak English? I think Bush sees the
nonChristian, non-American hordes in the middle East with a great
deal of xenophobia. (In other words, I think he is xenophobic in the
way many bioegalitarians are xenophobic - they don't really fear
different genetic groups, which they disbelieve in anyway, but
different cultural forms give them the heebie jeebies.)


> ams: Yet high MAS Jap babies behave the opposite
> of Jewish babies (with Euro babies in between)

Do they? Can you provide a source? If true, this helps us to pinpoint
the nature of Jewish crying as being Low-A (provided that you believe
Jews are low-A and Asians are high-A).

As a personal anecdote, my sister, who tests about as low as I do on
Agreeableness, which is extremely low, was absolutely petrified of
strangers as an infant. Her earliest memories are of crawling under
the table when strangers came into the house. Yet she also scores
(like I do) very low on Neuroticism. This is just one example, of
course, but information is scarce enough that it seemed worth
bringing up.


> --if this is evidence that Jewish
> culture is low A, it must also be evidence that high MAS
> Japanese culture is high A.  Not a tidy picture.

Perhaps UAI is a result of the personality of its constituents, while
the personality of its constituents is the result of MAS?


> How does the low A USA score on MAS?

About average, near 60 I believe. I'm offline right now but check the
links I gave previously; there are plenty of lists of country scores
on the internet.


> MH: I can only say that I think you're grossly
> misunderstanding UAI.

> ams: Isn't a society governed by lots of rules
> regarding social propriety typical of UAI societies?
> If so, that's what I have described: those rules of
> propriety have decreased greatly since the '60's.
> It's much more socially laissez-faire now, except
> for certain matters that infringe on political
> sensibilities.

But these rules were generally *unwritten.* They were understood to
be part of a grey area of culture which everyone took for granted.



> > I don't know much about Greece or Portugal,
> > but do Belgians have traditionalist attitudes?
> > Spanyards? The French? Have you seen the stuff
> > they show on TV in Japan?
>
> ams: Mark, you're changing the subject.  What do
> traditionalist attitudes have to do with our topic?

Every single example of "decreasing UAI" which you gave involved
decreasing traditional values. Look:

___________

"in many ways things are laxer now--sexual and reproductive
behavior are much more laissez-faire,  movies and television and
music and advertising all show things they wouldn't dare in
the '50's, the old social prohibitions on racial mingling are
relaxed; eg, it's no longer scandalous if you invite a visiting black
into your house rather than  just on the front porch. Homosexuals
generally weren't even spoken of, and sex roles were much more
defined in both custom and law.  No more shot-gun weddings or,
otherwise, get the disgraceful girl out of town for awhile and put
the baby up for adoption. Divorce has lost virtually all its stigma.
And in the '50's, peecee stigma was
simply directed against Commies and socialists rather than "racists,
sexists, and homophobes."
___________

With the exception of a few anti-miscegination laws, all of
these "regulations" you describe were just the way everybody behaved.
There were no laws against discussing homosexuals, no laws enforcing
shotgun weddings, no laws preventing divorce, just, as you
said, "stigma." This is all evidence for increasing IND over the last
century, not decreasing UAI.


> Well, you're not talking about the Empire
> anymore.  You're discussing the barbarians.
> I tend to agree that their Christianization
> was not as deep.  Many of the Empire's
> converts were the result of a mass movement.

This is essentially what I was saying (or regurgitating - this is
just Stark's idea, though I agree with it). Genuine conversions take
place through friendly social networks, rather than being imposed by
autocratic demands from above.


> > ...paranoid, suspicious, undisclosing, and
> > assertive, and these are all hallmarks of
> > disagreeableness.
>
> ams: Or perhaps of low O, low O, low O, and high
> E? A may not be the only trait involved here.

I agree that A may not be the only trait involved. But look at the
way the facets of A are described:


Agreeableness Facets

Trust. A person with high trust assumes that most people are fair,
honest, and have good intentions. Persons low in trust see others as
selfish, devious, and potentially dangerous.

Morality. (Some inventories name this "straightforwardness") High
scorers on this scale see no need for pretense or manipulation when
dealing with others and are therefore candid, frank, and sincere. Low
scorers believe that a certain amount of deception in social
relationships is necessary. People find it relatively easy to relate
to the straightforward high-scorers on this scale. They generally
find it more difficult to relate to the unstraightforward low-scorers
on this scale. It should be made clear that low scorers are not
unprincipled or immoral; they are simply more guarded and less
willing to openly reveal the whole truth.

Altruism. Altruistic people find helping other people genuinely
rewarding. Consequently, they are generally willing to assist those
who are in need. Altruistic people find that doing things for others
is a form of self-fulfillment rather than self-sacrifice. Low scorers
on this scale do not particularly like helping those in need.
Requests for help feel like an imposition rather than an opportunity
for self-fulfillment.

Cooperation. Individuals who score high on this scale dislike
confrontations. They are perfectly willing to compromise or to deny
their own needs in order to get along with others. Those who score
low on this scale are more likely to intimidate others to get their
way.

Modesty. High scorers on this scale do not like to claim that they
are better than other people. In some cases this attitude may derive
from low self-confidence or self-esteem. Nonetheless, some people
with high self-esteem find immodesty unseemly. Those who are willing
to describe themselves as superior tend to be seen as disagreeably
arrogant by other people.

Sympathy / Tender-Mindedness. People who score high on this scale are
tenderhearted and compassionate. They feel the pain of others
vicariously and are easily moved to pity. Low scorers are not
affected strongly by human suffering. They pride themselves on making
objective judgments based on reason. They are more concerned with
truth and impartial justice than with mercy.


> I do think you make a strong case here, but I'm not
> as ready to conclude it as you are.  They do seem to
> be very altruistic toward fellow Jews (a component of A);
> they co-ordinate their actions very well together,
> which should also indicate high A.  Likewise, there
> seems to be strong conformity of opinion within their
> ranks--a high A trait.

How frequently do they experience religious schisms?


> OTOH, you seem to have a point
> that the crying is more likely explained by A than N,
> because East Asians should not be lower N than whites.
> The picture still looks very mixed to me.

This actually gives us a good basis for comparison - Jews and
E.Asians are quite "K-selected." They have high intelligence, high
rates of myopia, low fertility, high parental investment, are
financially successful, etc. So they should show similar behaviors.
Yet, their personalities and strategies do seem different on simple
observation. The Japanese seem far more self-effacing, submissive,
quiet, and friendly, while the Jews are more religious (or used to
be, anyway), more domineering, and more warlike. It sounds like a
difference in both E and A. Perhaps this is the difference between
diasporic city-living and insular agricultural living? People who
live in cities tend to be higher on O and lower on A, if I remember
correctly, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a difference in E as
well. Perhaps long city life has bred certain of these traits into
the Jewish people, or, perhaps the traits traditionally associated
with them are transient characteristics imposed on them and everyone
else who lives in the city.


> With one notable exception, the Jews I have known
> have not struck me as especially disagreeable, but
> that may be a lucky accident.

You know, that may be because Jews are intelligent. Personal
experience suggests that smart disagreeable people easily fool others
into thinking they're nice, friendly, team players. This is probably
how politicians do it! The only thing that bothers me about this line
of reasoning is that it smacks of rationalization - if the data
doesn't fit the theory, let's re-interpret it to fit the theory. I'd
like to have some actual hard data on Ashkenazi Jews, or at least on
Semites in general; it would be better than going on conjecture and
personal experiences.


--Mark

Forming a united front is collectivism, the inverse of IND. Fearing outsiders is xenophobia and a function of UAI.

 I don’t think the two are the same. Look at this quote from the article:
"The Amish see the force of law as contrary to the Christian spirit."
Remember also in The Riddle of Amish Culture how the Amish are disgusted by the standard American Protestant berlief in "getting saved?" The Amish think it's ridiculous to claim knowledge of where God will send you. They live with uncertainty about the afterlife; 

mainstream American Christians avoid that uncertainty by claiming salvation. This is highly suggestive of low Amish UAI.

Meanwhile, the Gelassenheit of the Amish suggests high PDI:

But does UA lead to rules or do rules lead to UA? Did RC's,
compared to Prots, become less UA after Vatican II?

I think they were always higher UA, as does McCrae.

ams: I don't think you understood my question.

I do understand it, and I see why you asked it, but I don't have an answer. I do, however, believe that they were always higher in UAI.

I think that's increasing IND and decreasing PDI much more
than decreasing UAI. 

ams: Yet you did say that UAI correlates postively with
xenophobia, did you not? Doesn't increased openness to Blacks
(internal aliens) and, via changes in immigration rules,
foreigners (external aliens) signify less xenophobia and,
logically, less UA?

Xenophobia is only one aspect of high UAI cultures. Also, I don't think you're properly differentiating between collectivism and xenophobia, which I think are very different things. It's possible to be individualistic yet xenophobic - George Bush Jr is probably an example of this,

ams: Perhaps, but not in this case. I'm just trying to
explain xenophobia, not everything I'm interested in.

But what you're talking about has, in my opinion, more than one piece, and furthermore, these pieces are all influenced by more than one scale. For instance, it seems intuitively reasonable to suggest that a high MAS culture will probably behave with greater xenophobia than a low MAS culture, and it's also true that A is lower and N are higher in high MAS cultures, as under high UAI cultures.

ams: "Confucian orientation???"

My opinion: It's lame.

MH: Maybe this means that a society begins to feel uncomfortable with insufficient UAI for its constituents' needs, but this doesn't seem right, given that UAI is positively correlated with Neuroticism. (Wouldn't high UAI cultures be more likely to give their citizens enough or even more regulation than they needed?) If anything, I get the impression that UAI has been increasing - there seemed to be much less bureaucratic strictness and general uptightness back in the 50's than today.

ams: Bureaucracy is certainly far more intrusive than ever before, but in part the
bureaucracy is this way because it seeks to disrupt the old social rules. So does
pee-cee--it's trying to effect or reinforce the great reversal of social norms that took
place in the '60's. But in many ways things are laxer now--sexual and reproductive
behavior are much more laissez-faire, movies and television and music and
advertising all show things they wouldn't dare in the '50's, the old social
prohibitions on racial mingling are relaxed; eg, it's no longer scandalous if you
invite a visiting black into your house rather than just on the front porch.
Homosexuals generally weren't even spoken of, and sex roles were much more
defined in both custom and law. No more shot-gun weddings or, otherwise, get
the disgraceful girl out of town for awhile and put the baby up for adoption.
Divorce has lost virtually all its stigma. And in the '50's, peecee stigma was
simply directed against Commies and socialists rather than "racists, sexists, and
homophobes." No, I think UA has definitely increased.

(I’m assuming you mean "decreased.")

Maybe this change had
already started in the '50's. Isn't that when people started going to sporting events
like baseball, football, etc., without dressing up in coats and ties for the men and good dresses for the ladies?

MH: I can only say that I think you’re grossly misunderstanding UAI.

MH: My opinion may not be all that meaningful - after all, I don’t think I understand it, and I don’t think Hofstede does, either. But look at the high UAI cultures at this list:
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/intercultural/play/cards.php
Greece 112
Portugal 104
Japan 95
Belgium 94
Argentina 86
France 86
Spain 86
I don’t know much about Greece or Portugal, but do Belgians have traditionalist attitudes? Spanyards? The French? Have you seen the stuff they show on TV in Japan?

one theme of Dean Kelley's _Why Conservative Churches Are Growing_
was that social strictness, once lost, was very difficult to regain.

Why do you think that is?

Now I think the prevailing climate of opinion among elites within
a group determine the direction of the group or society more than
rank and file preferences.

I don’t think so, especially in light of Stark’s evidence that the conversion of Constantine nixed the spread of Christianity; once Christianity became the state religion with tons of state funding, 

MH: it became a religion of the elite

 with church appointments going to the highest bidder.

 The leaders then converted other nations by converting the leaders and expecting them to convert the masses, but this never happened. 

MH: Church attendance in northwestern Europe has actually been *increasing* over past centuries to its current low levels. I realize this summary is missing a lot, but check out Stark's recent book, One True God, if you have a chance.

MH: I will grant you, however, that the mass media may have changed all of this dramatically. Perhaps the television has allowed the elites to control the masses, when they couldn’t achieve this before?

MacDonald views Jews generally as being high A, and Jews seem to concur.

I think that’s as wrong as the day is long. (Marian Van Court also seems quite sure that they are disagreeable, you may remember.) Jews as a group are paranoid, suspicious, undisclosing, and assertive, and these are all hallmarks of disagreeableness.

 Then, too, Jews I know personally all seem quite low A, and this makes them tough to get along with as they are also usually high N. Further, there are plenty of historical Jews, like Freud or Einstein, who display the same traits quite clearly. Most of all, remember how Jewish infants cry uncontrollably around strangers - they don’t trust people very well at all. I’m pretty sure they’re low-A, Alypius, and not just low-A, but genetically low-A.

The Haredim view themselves, perhaps correctly, as humanity's most
altruistic people, although it is mostly directed to their own group. It just doesn't look like McCrae's explanation works at the
culture-group level. 

You may be right; unfortunately, I don’t know much about the Haredim, and I’ve definitely never met one. The Jews I know are all secular, but most seem highly disagreeable.

> > Based on what I've *read*, I'd draw the line on the Amish. The
> > Amish seem collectivistic but friendly; I think being impenetrable to
> > outsiders is a result of their extremely low IND.
>
> But part of the story at the link below shows that the
> Amish are certainly capable of posing a united front against
> the outside world in order to protect their own from justice:
> http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-
> 2005/feature_labi_janfeb05.html

Forming a united front is collectivism, the inverse of IND. Fearing outsiders is
xenophobia and a function of UAI. I don’t think the two are the same. Look at
this quote from the article:

"The Amish see the force of law as contrary to the Christian spirit."

Remember also in The Riddle of Amish Culture how the Amish are disgusted by the
standard American Protestant berlief in "getting saved?" The Amish think it's
ridiculous to claim knowledge of where God will send you. They live with
uncertainty about the afterlife; mainstream American Christians avoid that
uncertainty by claiming salvation. This is highly suggestive of low Amish UAI.

Meanwhile, the Gelassenheit of the Amish suggests high PDI: "Church members
abide by their clergymen; children obey their parents; sisters mind their
brothers; and wives defer to their husbands (divorce is taboo). With each act of
submission, the Amish follow the lesson of Jesus when he died on the cross
rather than resist his adversaries."


> > Interestingly, I'll bet that they would score quite high on
> > PDI, even though their society is rather egalitarian in actual
> > practice.
>
> ams: Interesting.  You think high PDI can be compatible with
> social egalitarianism.  If so, you should not be too surprised
> to see other anomalies too.

It's because PDI is not the same as, inequality by itself. PDI is actually the
degree to which power differences are *sanctioned* by the lower class, since
it’s measured by self report. A society can be strongly vertical but still have
huge scale unrest in the lower classes. As I understand it, Amish society is
relatively equal, with even church leaders having to live the same basic
lifestyle as everyone else, but the Amish readily accept the rulings of their
elders.


> > > But does UA lead to rules or do rules lead to UA? Did RC's,
> > > compared to Prots, become less UA after Vatican II?
>
> > I think they were always higher UA, as does McCrae.
>
> ams: I don't think you understood my question.

I do understand it, and I see why you asked it, but I don't have an answer. I
do, however, believe that they were always higher in UAI.


> (I'm guessing the I in UAI stands for "Inventory.")

That's my guess, too. I'm just using the abbreviations Hofstede uses: IND, PDI,
UAI, and MAS.


> > I think that's increasing IND and decreasing PDI much more
> > than decreasing UAI.
>
> ams: Yet you did say that UAI correlates postively with
> xenophobia, did you not? Doesn't increased openness to Blacks
> (internal aliens) and, via changes in immigration rules,
> foreigners (external aliens) signify less xenophobia and,
> logically, less UA?

Xenophobia is only one aspect of high UAI cultures. Also, I don't think you're
properly differentiating between collectivism and xenophobia, which I think are
very different things. It's possible to be individualistic yet xenophobic -
George Bush Jr is probably an example of this, if one person can be used to
demonstrate large scale cultural systems.


> > MH: As a relevant aside, one of the things I've noticed about myself
> > and everyone else who ever discusses these things is that we have the
> > tendency to zero in one one factor to try to explain everything we're
> > interested in.

> ams: Perhaps, but not in this case.  I'm just trying to
> explain xenophobia, not everything I'm interested in.

But what you're talking about has, in my opinion, more than one piece, and
furthermore, these pieces are all influenced by more than one scale. For
instance, it seems intuitively reasonable to suggest that a high MAS culture
will probably behave with greater xenophobia than a low MAS culture, and it's
also true that A is lower and N are higher in high MAS cultures, as under high
UAI cultures.


> ams: "Confucian orientation???"

My opinion: It's lame.

"In the 1980s, a fifth dimension was added to the four, long-term versus
short-term orientation. This dimension was based on a study among students in 23
countries around the world, using a questionnaire designed by Chinese scholars
(Hofstede & Bond, 1988). Values associated with long-term orientation are thrift
and perseverance; values associated with short-term orientation are respect for
tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one’s "face." To date,
scores on the fifth dimension are only avail-able for part of the countries
covered by the first four. In the present article, it will play no role."

"long-term orientation was strongly cor-related with individualism, r = 0.72, p
< .001. Its only correlation
with personality was with extraversion, r = 0.56, p <.01, but the correlation
between extraversion and individualism was stronger. Long-term orientation,
therefore, added nothing to our analysis."

--Hofstede & McCrae

As I understand it, "Long Term (Confucian) Orientation" was something Hofstede
cooked up to explain growth rates in Asian nations. It never showed up in the
original factor analysus, and all you need to explain rising Asian success is
IQ. It correlated very highly with IND and is really just another facet thereof,
in my opinion. Frankly, I'm not even sure that it's justified to separate IND
and PDI - until you control for GNP, they're one factor, but it’s true that once
you control for GNP, they completely diverge. PDI does seem to differentiate
very well between Latin and Germanic cultures, with Latin cultures having high
IND yet also high PDI. Yet the correlations with big 5 traits are still similar;
IND correles positively with E and also nonsignificantly with O and IQ and
negatively with C. Likewise PDI shows the exact same set of correlations, though
in reverse and all significant.

In short, I'm not sure, but I think I may prefer a three factor solution, where
PDI and IND are subsumed into one larger factor, and UAI and MAS explain the
rest.


> MH: Maybe this means that a society begins to feel uncomfortable with
> insufficient UAI for its constituents' needs, but this doesn't seem
> right, given that UAI is positively correlated with Neuroticism.
> (Wouldn't high UAI cultures be more likely to give their citizens
> enough or even more regulation than they needed?) If anything, I get
> the impression that UAI has been increasing - there seemed to be much
> less bureaucratic strictness and general uptightness back in the 50's
> than today.

> ams:  Bureaucracy is certainly far more intrusive than ever before, but in
part the
> bureaucracy is this way because it seeks to disrupt the old social rules.  So
does
> pee-cee--it's trying to effect or reinforce the great reversal of social norms
that took
> place in the '60's.  But in many ways things are laxer now--sexual and
reproductive
> behavior are much more laissez-faire,  movies and television and music and
> advertising all show things they wouldn't dare in the '50's, the old social
> prohibitions on racial mingling are relaxed; eg, it's no longer scandalous if
you
> invite a visiting black into your house rather than  just on the front porch.
> Homosexuals generally weren't even spoken of, and sex roles were much more
> defined in both custom and law.  No more shot-gun weddings or, otherwise, get
> the disgraceful girl out of town for awhile and put the baby up for adoption.
> Divorce has lost virtually all its stigma.  And in the '50's, peecee stigma
was
> simply directed against Commies and socialists rather than "racists, sexists,
and
> homophobes."  No, I think UA has definitely increased.

(I’m assuming you mean "decreased.")

> Maybe this change had
> already started in the '50's.  Isn't that when people started going to
sporting events
> like baseball, football, etc., without
> dressing up in coats and ties for the men and good dresses for the ladies?

I can only say that I think you’re grossly misunderstanding UAI. My opinion may
not be all that meaningful - after all, I don’t think I understand it, and I
don’t think Hofstede does, either. But look at the high UAI cultures at this
list:

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/intercultural/play/cards.php

Greece 112
Portugal 104
Japan 95
Belgium 94
Argentina 86
France 86
Spain 86

I don’t know much about Greece or Portugal, but do Belgians have traditionalist
attitudes? Spanyards? The French? Have you seen the stuff they show on TV in
Japan?


> > > one theme of  Dean Kelley's _Why Conservative Churches Are Growing_
> > > was that social strictness, once lost, was very difficult to regain.
>
> > Why do you think that is?
>
> Now I think the prevailing climate of opinion among elites within
> a group determine the direction of the group or society more than
> rank and file  preferences.

I don’t think so, especially in light of Stark’s evidence that the conversion of
Constantine nixed the spread of Christianity; once Christianity became the state
religion with tons of state funding, it became a religion of the elite with
church appointments going to the highest bidder. The leaders then converted
other nations by converting the leaders and expecting them to convert the
masses, but this never happened. Church attendance in northwestern Europe has
actually been *increasing* over past centuries to its current low levels. I
realize this summary is missing a lot, but check out Stark's recent book, One
True God, if you have a chance.

I will grant you, however, that the mass media may have changed all of this
dramatically. Perhaps the television has allowed the elites to control the
masses, when they couldn’t achieve this before?


> ams: I'm not sure "solid" is a good substitute for "heritable."

It isn’t. It's explained earlier on in the book that "Solid" traits have a more
strongly unitary factor combined with greater heritability. This doesn’t mean
that they are fixed, merely that they are good for explaining long term trends.
Tha's all I meant by the term.

Psychometric g is extremely solid. E and N are quite unitary, but less
heritable; by contrast, O is less solid, even if it’s quite heritable, because
it doesn’t *always* appear under factor analysis. C and A are probably the least
solid factor analytic constructs, taking into account both their unitary nature
and heritability.


> > Thus, it seems more likely that intelligent societies tend to be
> > naturally more egalitarian to some degree.
>
> ams: In your opinion, are East Asian societies like Japan and China a little
more egalitarian than those in western Europe and its offshoots?

No, although East Asian societies are only slightly smarter, while being
substantially poorer, less extroverted, more conscientious, and less open.
Remember, IQ isn’t the only correlate of PDI.


> MacDonald views Jews generally as being high A, and Jews seem to concur.

I think that’s as wrong as the day is long. (Marian Van Court also seems quite
sure that they are disagreeable, you may remember.) Jews as a group are
paranoid, suspicious, undisclosing, and assertive, and these are all hallmarks
of disagreeableness. Then, too, Jews I know personally all seem quite low A, and
this makes them tough to get along with as they are also usually high N.
Further, there are plenty of historical Jews, like Freud or Einstein, who
display the same traits quite clearly. Most of all, remember how Jewish infants
cry uncontrollably around strangers - they don’t trust people very well at all.
I’m pretty sure they’re low-A, Alypius, and not just low-A, but genetically
low-A.


> The Haredim view themselves, perhaps correctly, as humanity's most
> altruistic people, although it is mostly directed to their own group.
> It just doesn't look like McCrae's explanation works at the
> culture-group level.

You may be right; unfortunately, I don’t know much about the Haredim, and I’ve
definitely never met one. The Jews I know are all secular, but most seem highly
disagreeable.


--Mark

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>
> Mark William Henshaw wrote:
>
>
> > Amish and Old Order
> > Mennonites also have very regulated societies.  They don't blindly
> > reject new technology, but are highly selective, following
> > agreed upon
> > written regulations for what innovations may used, where, and when;
> > and the Amish have a reputation for being highly impenetrable to
> > outsiders, including law enforcement.
>
> Based on what I've *read*, I'd draw the line on the Amish. The Amish
> seem collectivistic but friendly; I think being impenetrable to
> outsiders is a result of their extremely low IND.

ams: Possibly.  I've only known one Amishman, but he had adapted to
urban life.  But part of the story at the link below shows that the
Amish are certainly capable of posing a united front against the outside
world in order to protect their own from justice:

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2005/feature_labi_janfeb05.h\
tml

> Interestingly, I'll bet that they would score quite high on PDI, even
> though their society is rather egalitarian in actual practice.

ams: Interesting.  You think high PDI can be compatible with social
egalitarianism.  If so, you should not be too surprised to see other
anomalies too.

>
>
> > But does UA lead to rules or do rules lead to UA? Did RC's,
> > compared to Prots, become less UA after Vatican II?
>
> I think they were always higher UA, as does McCrae.

ams: I don't think you understood my question. When compared to a
control group, do you think RC's *after* V2 (huge relaxation in the
strictness of religious regulations) have become more, less, or no
different in UA than RC's *before* V2?  I'm suggesting a comparison of
RC's with RC's, not RC's with Prots; the Prots are just there to act as
a control group.  The whole society may have changed during this time,
but did RC's change more?

(I'm guessing the I in UAI stands for "Inventory.")

>
>
> > Do people accustomed to living by detailed social regulations
> > simply feel uncomfortable without them? (For that matter, how
> > does a low UA individual feel when inserted into a high UA
> > culture with whose rules and expectations he is unfamiliar?
> > If he seeks to avoid such situations, is this reverse-uncertainty
> > avoidance?)  Can the imposition of a common code of regulations
> > for everyday life make a society more xenophobic? Can reducing
> > or abandoning these rules make it less xenophobic? In the 1960's,
> > the Boomers coined phrases like "Do your own thing," and "Let it
> > all hang out." That was also the decade that gave us the civil
> > rights movemnent and a new, easy-going immigration law based on
> > family reunification rather than the half century old
> > country-of-origin/racial balance ideal.
>
> I think that's increasing IND and decreasing PDI much more than
> decreasing UAI.

ams: Yet you did say that UAI correlates postively with xenophobia, did
you not? Doesn't increased openness to Blacks (internal aliens) and, via
changes in immigration rules,  foreigners (external aliens) signify less
xenophobia and, logically, less UA?

> MH: As a relevant aside, one of the things I've noticed about myself
> and everyone else who ever discusses these things is that we have the
> tendency to zero in one one factor to try to explain everything we're
> interested in.

ams: Perhaps, but not in this case.  I'm just trying to explain
xenophobia, not everything I'm interested in.

> In my experience, that usually turns out to be wrong, and I think this
> is one of those instances - UAI is only one of the four general
> factors of culture (not counting the fifth, "confucian orientation,"
> which I disregard as being basically just "Individualism part II").

ams: "Confucian orientation???"

>
> MH: Neuroticism is known to have been increasing during precisely the
> time when you suggest that UAI was falling.

ams: Perhaps other factors, such as social isolation and increased
competition, were boosting N even though UA was falling.

> MH: Maybe this means that a society begins to feel uncomfortable with
> insufficient UAI for its constituents' needs, but this doesn't seem
> right, given that UAI is positively correlated with Neuroticism.
> (Wouldn't high UAI cultures be more likely to give their citizens
> enough or even more regulation than they needed?) If anything, I get
> the impression that UAI has been increasing - there seemed to be much
> less bureaucratic strictness and general uptightness back in the 50's
> than today.

ams:  Bureaucracy is certainly far more intrusive than ever before, but
in part the bureaucracy is this way because it seeks to disrupt the old
social rules.  So does pee-cee--it's trying to effect or reinforce the
great reversal of social norms that took place in the '60's.  But in
many ways things are laxer now--sexual and reproductive behavior are
much more laissez-faire,  movies and television and music and
advertising all show things they wouldn't dare in the '50's, the old
social prohibitions on racial mingling are relaxed; eg, it's no longer
scandalous if you invite a visiting black into your house rather than
just on the front porch.  Homosexuals generally weren't even spoken of,
and sex roles were much more defined in both custom and law.  No more
shot-gun weddings or, otherwise, get the disgraceful girl out of town
for awhile and put the baby up for adoption.  Divorce has lost virtually
all its stigma.  And in the '50's, peecee stigma was simply directed
against Commies and socialists rather than "racists, sexists, and
homophobes."  No, I think UA has definitely increased.  Maybe this
change had already started in the '50's.  Isn't that when people started
going to sporting events like baseball, football, etc., without dressing
up in coats and ties for the men and good dresses for the ladies?

>
>
> > one theme of  Dean Kelley's _Why Conservative Churches Are Growing_
> > was that social strictness, once lost, was very difficult to regain.
>
> Why do you think that is?

ams: I used to assume that people simply reacted less adversely to
relaxation of norms than to renewed enforcement of norms.  But now I
think this is too simple.  Now I think the prevailing climate of opinion
among elites within a group determine the direction of the group or
society more than rank and file  preferences.  Every human group is a
deference pyramid.  The views of a relatively small number of high
status figures tend to be followed by most people.  It almost requires a
parallel society with parallel status figures to resist this, and even
then there is the risk the elite in the weaker group will gravitate to
the views of the elite of the stronger, higher status group over time.
Thus, the current president of arch-fundamentalist Bob Jones University,
President Bob Jones III (I might be wrong about the number), wants to
abandon the word "Fundamentalist" and adopt other policies that deviate
from the tradition of the hard-core Fundamentalism of the Old South.  I
think it was in the late 1980's that the Mormons' president, who is also
regarded as a prophet, claimed to have a revelation that Blacks could
now be admitted for the first time to the Mormon priesthood.  V2 was the
work of the RC elite (including their new Pope!), but a disaster for
their religion.  (See the stats in Kelley's book.)  There was no hue and
cry among the faithful for those changes.  The agitation was all from
liberal intellectuals and various bishops they had accepted  their
trendy, fashionable views. When the Tzar abdicated during the Great War
in favor of a short-lived democracy, that too was to appease the
intelligentsia and "respectable opinion," not the average Russian who
still viewed the Tzar as a national father.  ("If only the Tzar knew!")
The social and political  liberalization of the Weimar Republic was
imposed by the conquerors and the new German elite who sympathized with
their conquerors.  The Nazi's created a new, anti-establishment elite
and displaced them.  Their renewed social strictness, reversing the
laxity of the Weimar years, did not seem to make them less popular.
What ordinary people really want is bread, butter, and security.  For
most people, freedom is negotiable.  That's why there hasn't been a
second American Revolution.

~Alypius

>When considering interactions between traits and culture, it is consistent with
the evidence to say that highly solid traits are more likely to drive culture,
while less solid traits are more likely to be influenced by culture.
>
ams: I'm not sure "solid" is a good substitute for "heritable." True,
such traits are more resitant to environmental effects, but only because
the genes for them have not gone as far toward fixation, true?

>mh: The high heritability of psychometric g makes it unlikely that egalitarian
(low power distance) societies boost intelligence. This is certainly a
possibility (remember the Flynn Effect), but g is strongly heritable, and
different cultures are known to differ on g for heritable reasons. Thus, it
seems more likely that intelligent societies tend to be naturally more
egalitarian to some degree.
>
>
ams: In your opinion, are East Asian societies like Japan and China a
little more egalitarian than those in western Europe and its offshoots?

>mh: It seems that wealth and prosperity (both powerful correlates of a
culture’s individualism) allow a high focus on materialism, personal
gratification, and freedom from the necessity for strong social bonds, which
simply cannot exist in poorer societies; these poorer societies must then focus
on collectivist values: expertise, security, and duty. Furthermore, the noble
classes of any given society throughout history appear to have been rather
individualistic even when surrounded by more collectivistic lower classes—are
the nobles really going to be much more innately extroverted than their
subjects? Then we also have the case of Japan, once a famously collectivistic
nation, now scoring 46 on Individualism after strong economic successes and
heavy interaction with the Western world.
>
>
ams: Yes, I agree that individualism is a luxury for wealthy societies
or classes. But I suspect the current period is a historical anomaly,
not a permanent change. I think to extrapolate from the last few
centuries requires that one surrender historical and prehistorical
perspective. Libertarians spend too much time reading economists and
utopian futurists and not enough time learning from geneticists,
geologists, and paleoclimatologists. A longer time frame would dampen
their optimism.

>quoting McCrae:
>
>…higher neuroticism and lower agreeableness predict higher uncertainty
avoidance. Consider a group of people who are temperamentally prone to these
personality characteristics. They will, in general, be tense and irritable, and
interpersonal interactions will be difficult. Each new decision will be a
potential source of distressing conflict. Such people may find that they can
coexist only if they adopt a rigid set of rules and screen out new situations
that would require new decisions—in other words, they would develop the values
and institutions that typify high uncertainly avoidance countries. Hofstede
(2001) hypothesized that Latin countries are high in power distance because they
inherited the stress on laws that characterized the Roman Empire, but it is
possible that Latin peoples have, since antiquity, been high in neuroticism and
low in agreeableness, and these collective traits themselves necessitated the
Roman emphasis on law and order.
>
>
ams: Possible, but is it true? Given that language and religion, not
ancestral distinctness, are their common traits, McCrae's guess seems
unlikely. And as logical as this explanation for UA sounds, are
Confucian cultures really lower in A than Euros? Most observers seem to
think they're higher. Maybe individuals who are higher on UAI than
others within their own culture tend to be high N/low A, but does this
pattern hold when comparing whole cultures with one another? For
example, Haredim culture is surely high UA, and very possibly high N;
but MacDonald views Jews generally as being high A, and Jews seem to
concur. The Haredim view themselves, perhaps correctly, as humanity's
most altruistic people, although it is mostly directed to their own
group. It just doesn't look like McCrae's explanation works at the
culture-group level.

>======
>
>By contrast, the culture drives traits model offers no convincing explanation
for why life in an uncertainty-avoiding society will boost N and depress A.
>
ams: But do we know that it does when comparing society with society
rather than individual with individual?

> ~Alypius
>
>

Beyondism: Religion from Science, by Raymond B. Cattell, 1987

Here you will find a concise summary of the principles discussed
in the book: http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/beyond01.html

from http://www.prometheism.net/articles/review.html

"Beyondism! Whatever is it? It is a new system of ethics designed to bring about
the improvement of the human species. We need a new system of ethics, Cattell
begins by telling us, because the old ethics based on religion is so clearly
breaking down throughout the world. The new ethics of Beyondism is based
not on religion but on science. Its objective is the improvement of the human
beings and society: a better world. The means of brining about this lie in the
application of Darwin's law of evolution."
...

"Now evolution takes place where there is a variety of different types who
compete
against one another, and in this competition the fittest survive and the unfit
become
extinct. This, therefore, should be the first principle in the design of human
society.
The requirement of diverse competing types applies both to societies and to
individuals. Among societies the unit should be the nation and there should be
the
widest variety of different cultures. Some will be capitalist, some socialist,
and
some mixed economies. Some will be democracies, others oligarchies, and yet
other dictatorships. They will have different religions, or none; and they will
have
different kinds and distributions of intelligence and personality qualities. The
nations will compete, and in the competitive struggle the fittest will survive."

"If the evolutionary process is to bring its benefits, it has to be allowed to
operate
effectively. This means that incompetent societies have to be allowed to go to
the
wall. This is something we in advanced societies do not at present face up to
and
the reason for this, according to Cattell, is that we have become too
soft-hearted.
For instance, the foreign aid which we give to the under-developed world is a
mistake, akin to keeping going incompetent species like the dinosaurs which are
not fit for the competitive struggle for existence. What is called for  here is
not
genocide, the killing off of the populations of incompetent cultures. But we do
need to think realistically in terms of "phasing out" of such peoples. If the
world
is to evolve more better humans, then obviously someone has to make way for
them otherwise we shall all be overcrowded. After all, ninety-eight per cent of
the of the species known to zoologists are extinct. Evolutionary progress means
the extinction of the less competent. To think otherwise is mere
sentimentality."

"As a general rule it would be best for national cultures to keep themselves to
themselves and not to admit immigrants. There are several reasons for this.
Isolation would give rise to societies with greater diversity and individuality,
both culturally and genetically. Indeed, it would be desirable if the human race
could evolve several different non-interbreeding species, since this would
increase the options for evolution to work on."
...

"Tough speaking, you may say. No doubt, but then Cattell is saying that this is
a tough world. It is the law of evolution which is tough, and you cannot fight
against the laws of nature. You have instead to work with them, working with
the grain and not against it. Ignoring the laws of nature brings its own
nemesis.
Thus a society which has grown too soft towards its incompetents, encouraging
them to multiply unduly, and places too great handicaps on its more efficient
and enterprising, will itself become an incompetent society and will in time
fall
victim to a more vigorous nation. Moral defects within societies are thereby
corrected in the competitive struggle between societies. The law of evolution
cannot be fought or circumvented. We can ignore it, at our peril, or we can
recognize it and work with it. But if all this -- nature red in tooth and claw
--
seems harsh, we have to remember that this is the mechanism through which
evolutionary progress takes place, through which man himself has evolved from
more primitive forms of life, and through which future progress will occur."

"And so for Cattell the basic principles for a scientific ethics are these:
diverse societies and types; competition between societies and between
individuals; survival of the fittest, extinction of the unfit. This is the way
to a better world."

You can read the full review at:
http://www.prometheism.net/articles/review.html

From the rough draft of my book, These Hidden Truths, page 122.

--Mark

_______________

A Quick Review: Culture and Personality Revisited

But before reviewing the answers, it will be important for the reader to have
some basic model for understanding the underlying interactions behind traits and
culture. The reader is advised to consider the correlations discussed here and
come to his own conclusions about what direction they most naturally flow in,
and under what circumstances—do traits usually drive culture, or does culture
usually drive traits? What are the exceptions? The reasons for this will become
clear as the various answers to our Last Question are given; all are necessarily
tentative, while some are more feasible from one standpoint than from another.

Now, remember from previous sections that that factors differ in their
heritability—that is, in the degree to which genetic factors affect phenotypic
variance within a population. When considering interactions between traits and
culture, it is consistent with the evidence to say that highly solid traits are
more likely to drive culture, while less solid traits are more likely to be
influenced by culture. The high heritability of psychometric g makes it unlikely
that egalitarian (low power distance) societies boost intelligence. This is
certainly a possibility (remember the Flynn Effect), but g is strongly
heritable, and different cultures are known to differ on g for heritable
reasons. Thus, it seems more likely that intelligent societies tend to be
naturally more egalitarian to some degree.

The other relationships between culture and average personality are much more
difficult to explain. In their paper discussing the issue, Hofstede and McCrae
discuss the correlations they were able to uncover between Big Five traits and
cultural forms, Hofstede arguing for an environmentalist "culture drives traits"
view while McCrae argues for a hereditarian "traits drive culture" view. While
it is refreshing to see the hereditarian position actually considered (a great
deal of research completely ignores the possibility of genetic differences
between groups, which nullifies much of the value of their work) my personal
opinion is that Hofstede’s model is closer to the mark in most cases. To
minimize page-flipping, here is their correlation matrix once again:


PDI and...
IQ: –44%... E: –57%... C: 52%... O: –39%

UAI and...
N: 58%... A: –55%

IND and...
E: 64%

MAS and...
N: 57%... A: –36%... O: 40%


McCrae is unable to explain the trends in masculinity with hereditarian
reasoning; indeed, what possible reason could be given for neurotic, open
societies to focus on masculine pursuits such as money and work rather than
people and comfort? Men are lower on N than women, not more, and there is no
measurable difference in O between men and women. There are also historical
reasons to wonder about how trait-oriented this cultural form may be. One ethnic
group commonly brought up here is the Scandinavians—the same ethnic group which
gave us the Vikings now sports the lowest-rated masculine societies we know of.
Recall also from the discussion on changing political values that one’s personal
views on gender roles have a minimal genetic component. This seems to suggest
that some unknown environmental and cultural variables drive masculinity, which
indicates that living in a masculine society tends to make people more Neurotic,
less Agreeable, and more Open. Of course, it may be that innate disagreeableness
drives masculinity, since low-A is a classic trait differentiating men from
women, but the correlations with Openness and Neuroticism are a very poor fit
with the "genes drive culture" proposition.

How exactly this happens is unclear, but Hostede suggests that masculine
societies (which focus on work, ego, and the acquisition of things, rather than
relationships and quality of life) are poorly arranged to assuage anxieties, but
encourage conflict and self assertion. The relationship between Openness and
masculinity is difficult to explain, but he suggests that masculine societies
encourage higher self-report bias, so perhaps people in masculine societies are
not as Open as they claim to be.

Individualism is also an interesting case. Here, it seems just as feasible that
an individualist society will encourage Extroversion as it does that a society
of extroverts will naturally generate an individualistic culture. I would like
to suggest, based on a broad review of the evidence, that it is individualism
which drives Extroversion more than the reverse. It seems that wealth and
prosperity (both powerful correlates of a culture’s individualism) allow a high
focus on materialism, personal gratification, and freedom from the necessity for
strong social bonds, which simply cannot exist in poorer societies; these poorer
societies must then focus on collectivist values: expertise, security, and duty.
Furthermore, the noble classes of any given society throughout history appear to
have been rather individualistic even when surrounded by more collectivistic
lower classes—are the nobles really going to be much more innately extroverted
than their subjects? Then we also have the case of Japan, once a famously
collectivistic nation, now scoring 46 on Individualism after strong economic
successes and heavy interaction with the Western world.

It seems quite clear, then, that individualism is strongly affected by a variety
of factors which have little or nothing to do with the Extroversion of its
people. While there may indeed be some sort of feedback loop here where
Extroversion does drive individualism, the author’s opinion is that the cultural
and especially economic influence on individualism seems more important overall
(remember that individualism correlates strongly with the per capita GNP in a
society). Of course, genetics are still vital in determining the individualism
of a given society, since g drives wealth to a great degree, but I believe
wealth drives individualism and that individualism drives Extroversion more than
the reverse; the reader is invited to draw his own conclusion.

Lest this should give the idea that culture appears largely to drive national
differences in the Big Five scores, the case of uncertainty avoidance seems very
different. McCrae’s arguments seem quite lucid, so I will quote them directly:

=====

…higher neuroticism and lower agreeableness predict higher uncertainty
avoidance. Consider a group of people who are temperamentally prone to these
personality characteristics. They will, in general, be tense and irritable, and
interpersonal interactions will be difficult. Each new decision will be a
potential source of distressing conflict. Such people may find that they can
coexist only if they adopt a rigid set of rules and screen out new situations
that would require new decisions—in other words, they would develop the values
and institutions that typify high uncertainly avoidance countries. Hofstede
(2001) hypothesized that Latin countries are high in power distance because they
inherited the stress on laws that characterized the Roman Empire, but it is
possible that Latin peoples have, since antiquity, been high in neuroticism and
low in agreeableness, and these collective traits themselves necessitated the
Roman emphasis on law and order.

======

By contrast, the culture drives traits model offers no convincing explanation
for why life in an uncertainty-avoiding society will boost N and depress A. So
by this interpretation, societies with high levels of uncertainty avoidance are
likely to be innately high-N, low-A, or possibly both.

Lastly, we come to the issue of Power Distance. In this case, both the culture
drives traits model and traits drive culture model make sense. Since it is
impossible to reject either one, it seems most likely that both are in effect,
although once again, the reader is invited to draw his own conclusion.

_____________



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Mark William Henshaw wrote:

> Mark wrote:

> 6. Uncertainty Avoidance in a culture; high Uncertainty Avoiding
> cultures being described as Xenophobic, emotionally expressive, and
> highly regulated, with feelings of stress and confusion in ambiguous
> situations. Uncertainty Avoidance also correlates strongly with the
> percentage of its citizenry which is Catholic; Protestants are less
> Uncertainty Avoiding.
>
> ams: Wow, this certainly leads to a chicken-or-egg question.

Yes.


> I'd
> *really* like to see a h^2 estimate for Uncertainty Avoidance.

Again, that's not a very easy question to answer. A bunch of individuals who
were all uncertainty avoiding might not create a society high on uncertainty
avoidance. Case in point - African societies are relatively collectivistic, yet
they're generally extroverted. For another example, perhaps people who live
their lives in tolerant and even reckless ways need to make up for this as a
society by creating strict rules? Culture is not simply the aggregated
personality characteristics of the people in the culture.


> The
> world's most UA culture may be the Haredim (fundamentalist Jews).

Judging by their strict, legalistic religion, that seems quite likely. I've
noticed from Kevin MacDoland's chart on the differences between gentile and
Jewish societies that Jewish cultural origins smack of collectivism,
masculinity, power distance, and especially uncertainty avoidance.


> It
> seems as though every detail of their existence, private as well as
> public, is highly regulated.  The Talmud regulates them more tightly
> than the Mosaic Law does, and that's saying quite a bit.  Of course
> they are (in)famous for their xenophobia/ethnocentrism.  Another high
> UA culture was Confucianist China.  The Confucianists were very
> concerned with precise rules of social propriety, and China is
> another
> culture famous for its xenophobia.  Ditto Japan.

Japan has the highest UAI and MAS ratings I can think of - both are in the 90's.
(Note that individual Japanese do not seem very masculine at all - though they
do seem quite uncertainty avoiding...)

> Amish and Old Order
> Mennonites also have very regulated societies.  They don't blindly
> reject new technology, but are highly selective, following
> agreed upon
> written regulations for what innovations may used, where, and when;
> and the Amish have a reputation for being highly impenetrable to
> outsiders, including law enforcement.

Based on what I've *read*, I'd draw the line on the Amish. The Amish seem
collectivistic but friendly; I think being impenetrable to outsiders is a result
of their extremely low IND. Interestingly, I'll bet that they would score quite
high on PDI, even though their society is rather egalitarian in actual practice.


> But does UA lead to rules or do rules lead to UA? Did RC's,
> compared to Prots, become less UA after Vatican II?

I think they were always higher UA, as does McCrae.


> Do people accustomed to living by detailed social regulations
> simply feel uncomfortable without them? (For that matter, how
> does a low UA individual feel when inserted into a high UA
> culture with whose rules and expectations he is unfamiliar?
> If he seeks to avoid such situations, is this reverse-uncertainty
> avoidance?)  Can the imposition of a common code of regulations
> for everyday life make a society more xenophobic? Can reducing
> or abandoning these rules make it less xenophobic? In the 1960's,
> the Boomers coined phrases like "Do your own thing," and "Let it
> all hang out." That was also the decade that gave us the civil
> rights movemnent and a new, easy-going immigration law based on
> family reunification rather than the half century old
> country-of-origin/racial balance ideal.

I think that's increasing IND and decreasing PDI much more than decreasing UAI.
As a relevant aside, one of the things I've noticed about myself and everyone
else who ever discusses these things is that we have the tendency to zero in one
one factor to try to explain everything we're interested in. In my experience,
that usually turns out to be wrong, and I think this is one of those instances -
UAI is only one of the four general factors of culture (not counting the fifth,
"confucian orientation," which I disregard as being basically just
"Individualism part II").

Neuroticism is known to have been increasing during precisely the time when you
suggest that UAI was falling. Maybe this means that a society begins to feel
uncomfortable with insufficient UAI for its constituents' needs, but this
doesn't seem right, given that UAI is positively correlated with Neuroticism.
(Wouldn't high UAI cultures be more likely to give their citizens enough or even
more regulation than they needed?) If anything, I get the impression that UAI
has been increasing - there seemed to be much less bureaucratic strictness and
general uptightness back in the 50's than today.


> one theme of  Dean Kelley's _Why Conservative Churches Are Growing_
> was that social strictness, once lost, was very difficult to regain.

Why do you think that is?


--Mark

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Mark William Henshaw wrote:

> Mark wrote:

> But looking through the research, Neuroticism seems to fit quite well
> with subjective impressions of what a Field Dependent individual
> should look like. Look at what psychometric N is predictive of:
>
>
> 6. Uncertainty Avoidance in a culture; high Uncertainty Avoiding
> cultures being described as Xenophobic, emotionally expressive, and
> highly regulated, with feelings of stress and confusion in ambiguous
> situations. Uncertainty Avoidance also correlates strongly with the
> percentage of its citizenry which is Catholic; Protestants are less
> Uncertainty Avoiding.
>
> ams: Wow, this certainly leads to a chicken-or-egg question.  I'd
> *really* like to see a h^2 estimate for Uncertainty Avoidance.  The
> world's most UA culture may be the Haredim (fundamentalist Jews).  It
> seems as though every detail of their existence, private as well as
> public, is highly regulated.  The Talmud regulates them more tightly
> than the Mosaic Law does, and that's saying quite a bit.  Of course
> they are (in)famous for their xenophobia/ethnocentrism.  Another high
> UA culture was Confucianist China.  The Confucianists were very
> concerned with precise rules of social propriety, and China is another
> culture famous for its xenophobia.  Ditto Japan.  Amish and Old Order
> Mennonites also have very regulated societies.  They don't blindly
> reject new technology, but are highly selective, following agreed upon
> written regulations for what innovations may used, where, and when;
> and  the Amish have a reputation for being highly impenetrable to
> outsiders, including law enforcement.

But does UA lead to rules or do rules lead to UA? Did RC's, compared to
Prots, become less UA after Vatican II? Do people accustomed to living
by detailed social regulations simply feel uncomfortable without them?
(For that matter, how does a low UA individual feel when inserted into a
high UA culture with whose rules and expectations he is unfamiliar? If
he seeks to avoid such situations, is this reverse-uncertainty
avoidance?)  Can the imposition of a common code of regulations for
everyday life make a society more xenophobic? Can reducing or abandoning
these rules make it less xenophobic? In the 1960's, the Boomers coined
phrases like "Do your own thing," and "Let it all hang out."  (Not
really sure what that second one means, but  my guess is: "let go of
your inhibitions.")  That was also the decade that gave us the civil
rights movemnent and a new, easy-going immigration law based on family
reunification rather than the half century old country-of-origin/racial
balance ideal.

Can xenophobia be socially engineered? (Not that it would be easy even
if the anwer is yes; one  theme of  Dean Kelley's _Why Conservative
Churches Are Growing_ was that social strictness, once lost, was very
difficult to regain. Although he focused only on religious sects, he
mentioned that the idea might also be applicable to other institutions.)

~Alypius

I have some time at work to kill, so I thought I'd make a post
regarding Psychometric Neuroticism and our impressions involving Field
Dependence.

The actual research into Field Dependence tends to return results out
of alignment with what Field Dependence is "supposed to be." For
example, women don't test much more FD than men, and even though
obsessive-compulsives are clearly personality disordered, they score
as Field Independent. Additionally, the results from the GEFT
correlate positively with Extroversion, (probably because the test is
timed, and timed tests favor extroverts) and load at almost 50% on g.
Meanwhile, the RFT seems to be loaded on Openness (and is also
positively loaded on the Intuition subscale of the MBTI, which
correlates with Openness at around 50%), yet high-O thinkers are
described as better with "seeing the big picture" than with detail.

In other words, Field Dependence isn't really "Field Dependence."

But looking through the research, Neuroticism seems to fit quite well
with subjective impressions of what a Field Dependent individual
should look like. Look at what psychometric N is predictive of:

1. Sex, with females scoring consistently higher

2. Drug use, and with those who try to quit and fail scoring higher;
immoderation (addictiveness) is a subscale of Neuroticism

3. Anger/Frustration is also a subscale in N

4. Self consciousness (worrying obsessively about what others think of
you) is also a subscale of N

5. Superstition

6. Uncertainty Avoidance in a culture; high Uncertainty Avoiding
cultures being described as Xenophobic, emotionally expressive, and
highly regulated, with feelings of stress and confusion in ambiguous
situations. Uncertainty Avoidance also correlates strongly with the
percentage of its citizenry which is Catholic; Protestants are less
Uncertainty Avoiding.

7. Success in "people oriented professions" like flight attendant.

8. Divorce

9. Generalized Dysfunctionality (Personality Disorder)

10. Immaturity—N decreases throughout the lifespan


--Mark

Section 5.2, By What Secondary Rules Can Man Aid
Competitive Group Evolution?, has been added:
http://www.efn.org/~callen/ToC.htm
http://www.efn.org/~callen/anmfshtml/section5.2.htm


-Chris

----- Original Message -----

From: Chris Allen

To: beyondismscience@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 11:55 AM

Subject: [beyondismscience] Section 5.1 added to online Beyondism

Section 5.1, The Nature of Groups and the Primary Role
of their Competition, has been added:
http://www.efn.org/~callen/ToC.htm
http://www.efn.org/~callen/anmfshtml/section5.1.htm


-Chris

Section 5.1, The Nature of Groups and the Primary Role
of their Competition, has been added:
http://www.efn.org/~callen/ToC.htm
http://www.efn.org/~callen/anmfshtml/section5.1.htm


-Chris

test - ignore

--- In beyondismscience message 25, harkenbane wrote:
> I linked to your page from the Articles sectiuon of Millennium:
> http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/philosophy/articles_main.htm

Thanks. Here is a Children of Millennium link from here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beyondismscience/links


-Chris

I forgot to tell you, I linked to your page from the Articles sectiuon of
Millennium:

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/philosophy/articles_main.htm

________________________________________________________________
Juno Platinum $9.95. Juno SpeedBand $14.95.
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--- In beyondismscience message 23, Chris Allen wrote:
> The HTML version of the text of Cattell's A New Morality
> from Science has been updated, and footnote links have
> been activated:
> http://www.efn.org/~callen/ToC.htm
>
> Upcoming exnhancements will include the text of the
> summary of Chapter 5, and the entire text of Chapter 8.

These two latter enhancements have now been completed. Enjoy:
http://www.efn.org/~callen/ToC.htm


-Chris

The HTML version of the text of Cattell's A New Morality
from Science has been updated, and footnote links have
been activated:
http://www.efn.org/~callen/ToC.htm

Upcoming exnhancements will include the text of the
summary of Chapter 5, and the entire text of Chapter 8.


-Chris

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A new table of contents for Cattell's 1972 (he wrote two; the second
one was published in 1987) Beyondism book "A New Morality from
Science" has been put up at:
http://www.efn.org/~callen/ANewMoralityFromScience.htm

It is in HTML for easy reading, easy cut-and-pasting, and easy web
navigating. Right now only chapter 1 has live links. More will be
added later.


-Chris

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