Understanding Uncertainty Avoidance in Cultures
Uncertainty Avoidance Index
Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance dimension reflects the extent to which a society willingly embraces or avoids the unknown. Uncertainty Avoidance deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. It can be defined as the degree to which people feel threatened by uncertainty and try to avoid those situations. Culture possesses either weak (low) or strong (high) Uncertainty Avoidance (UA).
Hofstede stated that this feeling is expressed through nervous stress and in a need for predictability and for rules. UA indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. These situations may be novel, unknown, surprising, and different from usual. Cultures with strong uncertainty avoidance (SUA) try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures. In cultures with weak uncertainty avoidance (WUA), uncertainty is seen as a common part of life. Communication in these cultures is more informal. In schools, students are more comfortable to talk, to decide, to share opinions, to discuss. In cultures with SUA students are more comfortable with structured environments. The teachers in these cultures are supposed to know all the answers, while in WUA cultures a teacher can easily say “I don’t know”. In WUA cultures, students can answer to a question even when they are not sure about the answer. In SUA cultures they would never answer to a question when they don’t know.
SUA cultures sense that uncertainty in life is a continuous threat that must be fought. They live with the belief that what is different is dangerous. They value structure, predictability and order. People from SUA cultures tend to have low tolerance for conflict and value security over risk. In WUA cultures uncertainty is seen as a normal life issue. They accept every day as it comes. People are comfortable with ambiguity and live by the belief that what is different is curious. WUA members usually do not show their emotions, or at least try not to, while in SUA cultures people build up tension and have a higher level of anxiety and the show of emotions is accepted. SUA cultures usually do better with more laws and regulations, and cultures with WUA expect more freedom and space.
In SUA cultures one can encounter lots of so called ‘bads’ (It is bad, don’t do that, don’t behave like that, etc.). New ideas are not encouraged. And they always try to stick to the structure. Interestingly though, the rate of car accidents and the number of smokers are high in these cultures. Whereas in WUA cultures, risk-taking ability is highly valued and it is considered to be the quality of a successful person. And people from these cultures have a feel-good (optimistic) factor. For them small is beautiful. On the contrary, in SUA cultures, big is considered to be beautiful (big cars, houses, etc.).
SUA cultures tend to have low interest in politics and protests and demonstrations occur rarely. This is because they are afraid they will not be comfortable with the new changes. Citizens are cynical of their government. Whereas in WUA cultures citizens are usually very interested in politics as it serves as a tool for change.
Uncertainty Avoidance affects the family life too. Cultures with SUA have concrete gender roles, while in WUA cultures these roles are more flexible and more varied. In India (SUA) they have a system of ‘arranged’ marriages. Parents choose their daughter’s/son’s spouse. This is the best way for the parents to avoid uncertainty and to ensure a secure future for their children. This, of course, may not be seen in the West (WUA) where people have their own personal freedom.
Countries like Greece, Portugal, Guatemala, Uruguay, Belgium, Poland, Japan, France have the highest uncertainty avoidance scores according to Hofstede’s scale, and countries like Singapore, Denmark, Sweden, Hong Kong, UK, Ireland have the lowest scores.