Power distance

From Psychology Wiki

Community portal · Tasks to do · News · Help

Clinical · Educational · Ind&Org · Other fields · Professional · Transpersonal · World

Social Psychology: Add · Specialist · Topics · Here

Power distance is a cultural index derived by sociologist Geert Hofstede. It measures how much a culture has respect for authority. The Arabic-speaking nations, Latin America, Russia, and nearly all of Asia (especially India and China) are high in power distance. Most of Europe, Canada, Australia and Israel are low in power distance. Japan and Mediterranean-Europe fall in the middle range.

In a high power distance culture:

it's acceptable for a supervisor to display his authority
superiors rarely give their subordinates important work
if something goes wrong, the subordinates are usually blamed for not doing their proper job/role
managers rarely interact or socialize with workers
teachers are treated respectfully
local politics are prone to totalitarianism
class distinctions are emphasized
parents are more highly respected and corporal punishment is more common
revolutions are, or were, common

In a low power distance culture:

supervisors are expected to treat employees respectfully
subordinates may do important work, thus having the opportunity to get promoted quickly
if something goes wrong, the superior/authority figure is usually blamed for having unrealistic expectations or being too strict
managers socialize and interact with workers more often
teachers are simply employees and parents are merely people
totalitarianism and revolutions are rare

[edit] See also

_______

This page uses content from the English-language version of Wikipedia. The original article was at Power distance. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Psychology Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Facts about Power distanceRDF feed

Create a new article Upload a new image
Recent changes Help	Random page Special pages Recent changes Random page