Two-Dimensional Models of Cultural Differences: Statistical and Theoretical Analysis

Abstract

This study finds a common statistical pattern in all major quantitative studies of cultural differences, and discusses theories that explain this pattern. 92 cultural variables from 33 published cross-cultural studies including 125 countries are analyzed with an advanced factor analysis method. The study confirms previous findings that two factors can account for a large part of the variation in all major published cultural variables. While many previously published cultural variables represent arbitrarily rotated factor analysis results, the present study is improving the explanatory power by un-rotating the factors and by incorporating new theories that link cultural values to conditions in the physical and social environment. The first factor, accounting for 34% of the total variance, reflects general effects of development and welfare. This factor is explained by theories of development, modernization, emancipation, and secularization. This includes psychological effects of collective security that are explained by evolutionary psychology. The dimension formed by the first factor has one end in poor and war-torn countries, and the opposite end in North European welfare states. The second factor, accounting for 15% of the total variance, reflects relational mobility, long-term versus short-term orientation, differences in self-construal, and various other effects. Theoretical explanations of these effects are based on differences in subsistence economy, colonial history, ethnic diversity, and religion. The second factor has one end in East Asian countries, and the opposite end in Latin American countries. Analysis of business culture reveals the same two-factor pattern as national culture.

The Impact of Values on National Reconstruction: Is the Case of South Korea Appropriate for Ukraine?

“…As points out Agner Fog, "Many cultural variables are related to development, modernization, emancipation, and secularization. These factors are often strongly correlated with each other" (Fog, 2022).…”

“…In the latter people place a relatively high value on individual freedom and self-expression, and have activist political orientations. These are just the traits that the political culture literature characterizes as crucial to democracy (Fog, 2022).…”

Moralities, cultural fit and life satisfaction

“…Emancipation values are chosen because they stand for socially liberal values, which are associated with the importance attached to freedom of choice, freedom of expression and equality (Diener et al, 2013) over a strict societal order (Alexander & Welzel, 2015). It has been shown that emancipation values correlate positively with secularism (Fog, 2022) and negatively with significance attached to religious faith (Minkov et al, 2020; Figure 1).…”

Elements of Schwartz’s Model in the WVS: How Do They Relate to Other Cultural Models?

“…As an alternative method, to further validate our results, we also applied factor analysis (principal component method, varimax rotation). We present the results of our factor analyses in the same way as for example Inglehart (1997, p. 82) and Fog (2022, p. 37): as figures mapping the analysed items in the set of axes presenting two factors and factor loadings determining the placement of items. Again, for better comparability, the results are rotated to align them with the background framework presented on Figure 1.…”

“…Although Schwartz always presented two-dimensional solutions, we were inspired by one of our reviewers and run the analyses with different numbers of dimensions. It has been shown (Fog, 2021(Fog, , 2022Kaasa & Minkov, 2022) that in the case of factor analysis two dimensions are sufficient to cover the main cultural differences. However, Schwartz and his colleagues have not discussed the number of dimensions in the case of MDS.…”