People from different cultures have different understanding of their self and others. Human understanding, as Makus and Kitiyama (1991) mentions, can influence individuals’
experiences, emotions, and motivations. For example, many Asian cultures insist on the individual’s relatedness with others and emphasize the importance of maintaining individual’s independence.
In an attempt to analyse cultural phenomena researchers have proposed cultural categories, which can in some way measure culture. One of the earliest attempts for this is developed by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961) who proposed six cultural dimensions, namely the
nature of people, the person's relationship to nature, the person's relationship to others, the modality of human activity, temporal focus of human activity and conception of space.
There are many ways that are conducted in several researches in classifying different cultures. Following are some of the classification processes as they were adopted by several researchers.
First: Hofstede framework
In his study that was conducted in IBM (the international computers company), there were four different cultural dimensions identified in order to classify different culture, those were:
1) Power distance: which is the way relations are formed on when different powers are perceived. In large power distance cultures, people consider themselves to be unequal by nature and there is more dependence on the boss. In small power distance cultures, people see themselves as being more equal; some come from cultures which are strict vertical relations such as the French, while others have greater equality and informality.
2) Uncertainty avoidance: is the degree where people feel threatened by vague circumstances. High uncertainty avoidance cultures tend to be more emotional than those with low uncertainty avoidance, while the latter have lower anxiety levels.
3) Masculinity/Femininity: the level of sex roles in some societies is clearly outlined and each gender’s tasks are previously determined by the society. The aggressive, tough, and materialistic behaviours of the culture represent the masculine culture, while the sensitivity and caring represent the feminine culture.
4) Individualism /collectivism: is the extent to which the welfare of individuals versus that of the group. Individualist cultures emphasize on personal goals while collectivist cultures concentrate on group goals. In individualist cultures, people perceive themselves as independent, while in collectivist cultures people depend on the in-group that they belong to.
Second: the model that was provided by Trompenaars and Woolliams (2004)
1) Universalism versus particularism: universal cultures tend to feel that rules and regulations are the primary source of moral reference and they obey the rules and consider their behaviours and standards as ideal upon those rules also they try to change others’ attitudes. On the other hand particular cultures are where particular circumstances are more important than rules. Here, friendship and family relations are stronger than rules, and the responses can change according to circumstances and the individuals involved in a particular incident.
2) Individualism versus communitarianism: the individualist culture sees the individuals as the end and regard improvements to collective arrangement as necessary to achieve that end. A communitarian culture on the other hand sees the group as its end and improvements to individual capacities as a means to that end.
3) Specific versus diffuse: the specific culture is where individuals engage others in specific areas of life and single levels of personality, while diffuse cultures engage individuals diffusely in multiple areas of their lives and on several levels at the same time.
4) Neutral versus affective: the neutral cultures tend to hide their emotions and not expose them, while affective cultures display their feelings and expect emotional feedback in response.
5) Achievement versus ascription: achievement cultures give higher status and attention to certain individuals that have distinguished achievements and focus on their activities, while ascription cultures concentrate on the personal issues such as gender, virtue, age and class.
6) Internal versus External control: the internal control cultures have mechanistic view of nature; therefore they believe that man can dominate the environment and control it, while external control cultures believe that nature is dominated individuals and they direct their actions towards others, they also focus on the environment rather than themselves.
7) Sequential versus synchronic: sequential cultures see time as a passing event where one part succeeds the other; it is merely an objective measure of passing increments, while synchronic cultures view ideas about the future and memories of the past which both shape the present, and these cultures like to get their things done on time.
Following that, Cannon and Newman (2001) identified more additional dimensions which they referred to as cultural syndromes. These basically included the complex and simple, the tight and loose, and the vertical and horizontal dimensions. The first one entails that complex cultures include subcultures, which have different beliefs, values and attitudes ...
etc., whereas in simple cultures, individuals are similar in terms of their beliefs and attitudes. The tight and loose dimension entails that some cultures have many rules, norms and ideas, but others have less norms and rules. Tight cultures are where people get upset when rules are not followed, while loose cultures tend to be less involved in norms and more tolerant towards breaking the rules. Whereas the last dimension, vertical and horizontal, entails that vertical cultures accept the idea of hierarchy and that people are different, thus individuals at the top of the hierarchy enjoy more privileges than individuals at the bottom of it, while horizontal cultures believe in equality in terms or rights and resources.