Work Stress and CultureHofstede (19

Work Stress and Culture
Hofstede (1981, p. 24) defines culture as “the collective programming of the human mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from those of another. Culture in this sense is a system of collectively held values.” Growing attention has been given to the study of culture in
organizational psychology, particularly since Hofstede introduced the construct of individualism/collectivism in 1980. Individualists tend to see themselves as their “own person,” and they value personal achievement and competition, while collectivists mostly consider themselves members of groups and value family and workgroup goals. According to Triandis (1995), individualists consider themselves independent of the groups to which they belong, and they consider personal objectives more important than those of their ingroups. Behaviors are driven by their own attitudes rather than the group’s normative behaviors. On the other hand, collectivists consider themselves interdependent on their ingroups and value the priorities of the group more highly than their own. A collectivist behaves in accordance with ingroup expectations. For example, the United States and Western Europe are considered individualistic
cultures, whereas China, Korea, and Japan are considered collectivistic cultures. Hofstede (2001) defined five cultural dimensions: individualism/collectivism, masculinity/
femininity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, long-term/short-term orientation. Minkov (2007) subsequently developed two other dimensions named indulgence versus restraint and monumentalism versus self-effacement, which are included in Hofstede’s 2008 value survey
module (Hofstede, Hofstede, Minkov, & Vinken, 2008).