Dr Kristine Marin Kawamura interviews Dr Triandis, PhD

Dr Kristine Marin Kawamura interviews Dr Triandis, PhD

Article Type:

Scholars’ Corner

From:

Cross Cultural Management, Volume 21, Issue 1

Preface

A personal note to readers: I wish to share something of my experience in interviewing Dr Triandis, as I think it gives testament to the principles by which he conducts his research and lives his life. In reading his work to prepare for the interview, I felt motivated, inspired, and challenged – both personally and professionally – by the breadth and depth of his powerful and important research. When it came to the task at hand, he answered numerous questions in a very efficient timeframe, pleasantly and with passion, going straight to the heart of the matter with each reply. Dr Triandis says what needs to be said and what our world needs to hear today as we all face seemingly infinite challenges. Great men and women with passion collaborate. They know themselves, and their work reflects their purpose. Dr Triandis is truly one of the great scholars and human beings in our midst. I was deeply honoured to be able to discuss his work with him.

Background

Harry C. Triandis, PhD

Dr Triandis is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A pioneer in the study of cross-cultural psychology, Dr Triandis has focused his research on the cognitive aspects of attitudes, norms, roles, and values across cultures.

Dr Triandis is the author of more than 200 papers and book chapters and numerous books, including Attitude and Attitude Change (1971), which became a Citation Classic; Analysis of Subjective Culture (1972), which included extensive empirical work done in Greece, India, and Japan; Interpersonal Behavior (1977); Variations in Black and White Perceptions of the Social Environment (1976); Culture and Social Behavior (1994), and Individualism and Collectivism (1995). In addition, he was the General Editor of the six-volume Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology and Co-Editor of the Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Volume 4 (1994).

Dr Triandis has received many honors around the world for his work in culture. He was a Ford Foundation Faculty Fellow (1964-1965), a Fellow at the Center for International Studies at Cornell University (1968-1969), a Guggenheim Fellow (1972-1973), a Fellow at the American Association for Advancement of Science (1984), an Honorary Fellow at the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology (1982), and an Honorary International Fellow of the Center for Applied Cross-Cultural Research at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand (2011). He was honored by the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Illinois (1972-1973, 1979-1980) and served as a Distinguished Fulbright Professor to India (1983).

Dr Triandis has received numerous honors for his work in the fields of psychology and cross-cultural psychology. He was honored "for significant contributions to the development of psychology" by the Interamerican Society of Psychology (1981) and received the Centennial Citation "for significant contribution to the establishment of cross-cultural psychology as a distinct discipline," American Psychological Association (1992). His numerous awards include Distinguished Scientist Lecturer, American Psychological Association (1994); the Otto Klineberg Award, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (1994); the Distinguished Contributions to International Psychology Award, the American Psychological Association (1995); the James M. Cattell Award, American Psychological Society (renamed Association for Psychological Science) (1996); the Distinguished International Psychologist of the Year, American Psychological Association’s Division 52 (International), (2002); and the Lifetime Contributions Award, Academy of Intercultural Research in Taiwan (2002). He has been named Eminent Scholar in the International Management Division of the Academy of Management (2009). He was also named to the "In honor […]" list (identified by the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences Foundation), which honors scientists who have made important and lasting contributions to the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior (2012). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Academy of Intercultural Research (2004) and received the best paper of the year award for "Extracting the Emics of Diversity" from the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (1994). His book Fooling Ourselves: Self-Deception in Politics, Religion, and Terrorism, published in 2009, received the William James Award of Division 1 of the American Psychological Association (2010).

Dr Triandis has served as president of several scientific societies, including the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology (1976), the Interamerican Society of Psychology (1987-1989), the Society for Comparative Research (1991-1992), and the International Association of Applied Psychology (1990-1994), as well as Divisions 8 (1977) and 9 (1976) of the American Psychological Association. Dr Triandis has served on the editorial boards of a plethora of journals and has conducted research under the support of the Office of Naval Research and ARPA (1961-1969), the Social and Rehabilitation Service, HEW (1968-1973), the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations (1973-1976), the Office of Naval Research (1980-1985), and the National Science Foundation (1993-1996).

Born in Greece in 1926, Dr Triandis moved to Canada while in his early twenties. He completed his bachelor’s degree in engineering at McGill University (1951) and his master’s degree in commerce at the University of Toronto (1954). He earned his PhD in social psychology in 1958 from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens, Greece (1987).

Summary

Dr Triandis, a pioneer in the study of cross-cultural psychology, highlights the motivation for his work on culture. Describing and critically examining the individualism-versus-collectivism construct, Dr Triandis draws out the close association between the four kinds of self and four types of national culture and further applies the construct to examine cultural transformation, health, family structure, and management effectiveness. He examines how cognitive simplicity and self-deception are universally human but culturally different practices, and examines their powerful impact on religion, terrorism, corporate life, and the human experience. Reflecting deeply on the need to create a peaceful and sustainable world, Dr Triandis meaningfully contemplates complex issues such as fundamentalism, religious conflicts, well-being, global warming, morality and values, death, and the purpose of life. His thoughts both challenge and inspire all scholars to conduct honest, courageous, and culturally aware research and all practitioners to create sustainable and healthy national and organizational systems.

Interview

Dr Kawamura: You are a pioneer in establishing cross-cultural psychology as a distinct discipline within psychology, and you have delivered groundbreaking scholarship in areas such as the construct of individualism and collectivism, cultural intelligence, and self-deception. What has motivated your work?

Dr Triandis: My motivation has been to move toward a world where people can be brothers in spite of their cultural differences. I want to see a world where people are healthy and happy and where they live a long time without destroying the environment. Of course, that is very difficult. There are immense differences in social class, culture, ecology, race, religion, nationality, and so forth. All of these create barriers toward achieving this goal.

Dr Kawamura: What has been the most meaningful impact of your work?

Dr Triandis: I think my 2009 book [Fooling Ourselves: Self-Deception in Politics, Religion, and Terrorism] is the most meaningful part of my work.

Dr Kawamura: What has been your most surprising discovery?

Dr Triandis: I was surprised by the fact that so many people can ignore culture in their work.

Dr Kawamura: How have your life experiences – your own heritage, your numerous cultural experiences, your personal reflection – served to guide, inform, or even challenge your scholarship?

Dr Triandis: My life experiences have included living through World War II in Greece. War destroys health and happiness, cuts lives short, and damages the environment.

Dr Kawamura: In your work, you have challenged the view that psychology is universal. You have provided evidence that there are culture-specific influences on people’s thoughts and actions that lead them to view their worlds through different lenses and attach different meanings to life events and experiences. Given so much variation in how we see and interpret events and each other, do you think it will ever be possible to create a peaceful, harmonious, and/or sustainable world? What needs to happen for this to occur?

Dr Triandis: I just hope that we can move toward a peaceful world. But the barriers [to doing this] are immense. The task is immense. Just to stop global warming is an immense task. And if we do not, we are going to have more and more droughts, floods, and hurricanes. The sea is going to flood our major cities, and more and more people will lose their homes.

Dr Kawamura: You have conducted in-depth research into the construct of individualism and collectivism, which is summarized in your book with that very title. How do you define these terms? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Dr Triandis: The best definition is the self-definition of individualists ("I am a unique entity and am independent of others") and collectivists ("I am part of groups – social class, religion, nationality, tribe, corporation, race, and so forth") Individualists are likely to be less healthy (experiencing loneliness and depression) but they often feel happier. Collectivists get a lot of social support, but they must do what others want them to do.

Dr Kawamura: In Individualism and Collectivism you state that "the conflicts of the future will be along cultural lines." What kind of conflicts do you see in the world (today and in the future) that are arising from the clash between these two opposing viewpoints?

Dr Triandis: One of the most serious cultural conflicts at this time comes from the view that "my religion is the only one that is valid." This perspective leads to all kinds of conflict. Religion, in fact, has been a source of conflict over the years.

Dr Kawamura: Let’s talk about religion a bit. In your work, you differentiate between external religion and internal religion. What is the difference between these?

Dr Triandis: The external religions assume the existence of supernatural entities. The internal ones, such as original Buddhism, are concerned with internal events, such as reaching enlightenment. Spirituality – the intention to help as many others as possible, including the environment, for example – can be associated with all religions.

Dr Kawamura: In your research, you associate external religion with self-deception. Could you describe this relationship?

Dr Triandis: You can think about external religion as "uncritical accepted cultural knowledge." The majority of humans accept the religion they got from their parents, teachers, peers, and religious authorities without asking many questions about its validity. The external religions are classic cases of self-deception, which can have terrible consequences. No self-deception is associated with depression, but large self-deceptions are often associated with psychopathology. An example of a large self-deception can be found in the book The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach. He found three people in a mental hospital who all thought they were Christ. When he put them together in a room, one of them said, "How can he be Christ when I am Christ? He is crazy." A correct diagnosis!

However, most people need some religion – they need traditions to guide their behavior. Humans wish to have a God who will protect and guide them and control uncertainty, so they invent gods that suit their needs. Even if this kind of religion is a self-deception, it helps people. It is comforting, for example, to be able to imagine one’s loved ones in heaven after they die. We know that we need to have some self-deceptions in order to be happy.

Dr Kawamura: Can you also tell us more about internal religion?

Dr Triandis: I think that internal religions, such as original Buddhism, are highly desirable. Everything changes. We need to change ourselves to adjust to this change. To be happy we need to reduce our desires – less consumption, a simpler life, no luxuries, for example. Moderation in everything we do. In my book Fooling Ourselves, I advocate internal religions, including the spirituality associated with any religion, and reject external religions, which are superstitious self-deceptions.

Dr Kawamura: In Individualism and Collectivism, you state that "all people are both individualists and collectivists." How (and under what circumstances) do people switch back and forth between these two tendencies?

Dr Triandis: We focus on individualist or collectivist elements in the same way we focus on the perception of any object. When we look at an object, we might see it as a boulder or as a bear. We are more likely to survive if we see it as a bear. We sample information all the time. The situation is the major determinant of what we sample.

Dr Kawamura: You also describe four kinds of self that can be combined to create four types of collectivist and individualist cultures. What are these four types of cultures? Can you give us some examples of these cultures?

Dr Triandis: The major typology of self is individualist (independent) or collectivist (interdependent), and horizontal (same) or vertical (different). You can have horizontal-individualist (HI), horizontal-collectivist (HC), vertical-individualist (VI), or vertical-collectivist (VC) cultures.

The best example of HC is the Israeli kibbutz, where all are equal, the collective is all-important, and decisions are group decisions. Good examples of HI are Sweden and Australia, where people are more or less equal and do not want to stand out. If they stand out, they are cut down.

The best example of VC is the tribal village. The elders have the power, and their decisions affect the whole group. The best example of VI is academia. We want to shine, to be unique and better than others. Competition is very common.

Dr Kawamura: How would people in these four types of cultures handle change?

Dr Triandis: It is difficult to specify how these four types will handle change, because it depends on the nature of the change.

Dr Kawamura: Okay, so, how would something like power play out in these different cultures?

Dr Triandis: I just heard a lecture by Sharon Shavitt [Walter H. Stellner Professor of Marketing at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign] in which she presented extensive data from ethnic groups, both within the US and across cultures, showing that the concept of power is different between Vertical Individualists and Horizontal Collectivists. The VIs see power as self-focused, an opportunity to stress their status. The HCs see power in other-focused ways, an opportunity to help others.

Dr Kawamura: What is the relationship between the "tightness" and "looseness" of cultures, cultural complexity, and the individualism-collectivism dimension?

Dr Triandis: Loose cultures are more individualist and complex. Tight cultures are more collectivist and simpler.

Dr Kawamura: Today’s world is affected by migration, globalization, and information/social media. How do these trends impact the construct of individualism and collectivism? Is the world becoming "smaller, flatter, and more connected," or are the chasms only growing wider or deeper?

Dr Triandis: I think the world is becoming more polarized between people who are simple, tight, and collectivist, and people who are complex, loose, and individualist.

Dr Kawamura: What is the link between individualism and modernism?

Dr Triandis: Modernity is related to individualism. Affluence, exposure to mass media, and modernization can contribute to a shift away from collectivism and toward individualism. Changes in ecology (how people make a living), mobility (both social and geographic), family size and structure, and the movement from rural to urban settings also contribute to this shift.

Dr Kawamura: What are the positive and negative impacts of modernism on people and societies? What situational factors cause dominant cultural patterns to shift?

Dr Triandis: To answer the impacts of modernism requires a book. I am in favor of it, but there are serious problems associated with it. After all, the environment has suffered because of it.

Dr Kawamura: Do childrearing and family structure affect cultural identity?

Dr Triandis: If the family is large, a certain amount of collectivism, or tightness, is needed to make life harmonious. The questions for this relationship are these: What is the cause and what is the consequence? Is collectivism associated with poverty and large families, or are large families the cause of collectivism and poverty?

Childrearing is different in collectivist and individualist cultures. It is sometimes very intrusive in collectivist cultures. Breaking the will of the child to make her totally obedient is sometimes in evidence; dependence on the parents is often encouraged. In individualistic cultures, independence is expected and valued, and self-actualization is encouraged. Mother and child are distinct, and the child is encouraged to leave the nest.

Parental controls, another aspect of this question, tend to have different meanings in different cultures. In collectivist cultures, they are often seen as "love" because they are part of the parents’ effort to make the child a useful member of the in-group, or society. In individualist cultures, parental controls are usually perceived as "overcontrol" and generate negative effects.

Dr Kawamura: Does the role of women affect economic development and cultural identity?

Dr Triandis: In societies where women are second-class citizens, there is less development. There are studies that show that the higher the position of women, the higher the percentage of literacy and hence economic development. Although I agree that the status of women is an important variable, I doubt that it is the one and only explanation of development.

Dr Kawamura: In Individualism and Collectivism you wrote that "it is not until we come into contact with people from other cultures that we realize that our assumptions are not universal." How can people working in cross-cultural organizations learn about other cultures? What is the value of cross-cultural competence to organizations?

Dr Triandis: When we are in a homogeneous culture, we do not pay attention to cultural differences. As organizations include more people from other cultures, individuals learn to pay attention to culture. It helps people learn that humans make different attributions about behavior, value things differently, and so on. When people start paying attention to culture, they learn about it. This process can be facilitated with culture assimilators.

Dr Kawamura: What are culture assimilators?

Dr Triandis: Culture assimilators are culture training programs that we first developed at the University of Illinois in the 1960s. The Office of Naval Research had asked a team in the psychology department to develop a training method that would "make every sailor an ambassador of the United States." The team included Fred Fiedler, whose research focused on leadership, Charles Osgood, whose major research was on interpersonal communication, Larry Stolurow, who computerized the material, and me, with my research focused on the relationship between culture and social behavior. We generated the idea of culture assimilators when we had breakfast one Sunday morning at Larry’s house.

Cultural assimilators are based on training material that is organized so the student reads an episode that reflects a cultural difference: for example, "The teacher is annoyed that the Spanish kid is not looking her in the eyes." The student is asked to select from four or five explanations of this cultural difference. If she selects the right answer ("The kid is showing respect for the teacher"), she is reinforced. Bravo! If she selects the wrong answer ("The kid is distracted"), she is told to try again. After going through a hundred such episodes, the student learns a bit about the other culture.

Dr Kawamura: How can managers who work in cross-cultural environments be most effective when dealing with people from different cultures – from handling conflicts and addressing prejudice to building teams and cooperative environments?

Dr Triandis: This question also requires a book. My former student Rabi Bhagat and I wrote one on this subject last year called Managing Global Organizations: A Cultural Perspective (2013).

Dr Kawamura: You’ve done extensive studies into the relationship between individualism/collectivism and health. Could you highlight some of your findings?

Dr Triandis: Individualism is related to depression. In fact, there is a study that has shown that when we compare the rate of depression before the industrial revolution and now, we currently have seven times more depression than at that time. The sixth volume of the Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology reviews many studies that show that both individualism and collectivism are related to poor health, under different circumstances.

Dr Kawamura: Now let’s talk in more depth about your book Fooling Ourselves: Self-Deception in Politics, Religion, and Terrorism. You wrote it in 2009, many years after having retired from forty years of teaching at the University of Illinois. What motivated the book? How does it relate to, or extend, your earlier work in individualism and collectivism?

Dr Triandis: The motivation for Fooling Ourselves was the September 11, 2001, events, when I saw that the terrorists believed they were "doing God’s work" when they killed three thousand people. There is no direct link to the cultural work except that I used the universality of health, happiness, longevity, and nondeterioration of the environment as key points in that book.

Dr Kawamura: In the book, you say that biased reasoning is very common among humans. How does biased reasoning affect the way people process information?

Dr Triandis: People have a tendency to see what they want to see. We all have a tendency to confirm our preconceptions, stereotypes, expectations, and theories when we look at the world. People also have the illusion that they see the world realistically, and when others see it differently it’s because they are uninformed, biased, or idiosyncratic. For example, people tend to see themselves as better than average. They confirm their point of view by selecting only the evidence that supports it. In a nutshell, victims of a tragedy may distort memories to exaggerate them, whereas offenders may minimize or even eliminate the memories of unpleasant events.

Dr Kawamura: You emphasize two aspects of defective information processing: cognitive simplicity and self-deception. Let’s start with cognitive simplicity. What is it? Does it differ across cultures?

Dr Triandis: Cognitive simplicity is a serious defect when a situation is complex, as it often leads to wrong decisions in these kinds of situations. When you think about any of the major problems of the world, you are necessarily dealing with a whole system of variables – sociocultural, economic, political, philosophic, religious, and aesthetic. If one examines only a single aspect of this system to solve a problem, one necessarily does not reach an optimal decision.

Cognitive simplicity-complexity is an individual-differences variable that corresponds to cultural simplicity-complexity. Cultures differ from simple (for example, hunters and gatherers) to complex (for example, information societies). Humans are cognitively simple when they are children but become more cognitively complex when they have more and more experiences throughout their life. Cognitive simplicity, for example, can be seen in the case of bin Laden and his vision of a world where everyone becomes a Muslim.

Dr Kawamura: You also state that cognitive simplicity is related to extremism and that cognitive complexity is both better and more associated with modernization. In what kind s of situations is simplicity or complexity an advantage? Why is cognitive complexity valuable?

Dr Triandis: Simplicity and complexity are good when they match the culture. There is research that shows that when a person is complex in a complex culture, the person is more effective; in a simple culture, the person is not effective. Similarly, a simple person needs a simple culture. There is similar research by Paul Schmitz that found that East Germans who were idiocentric [individualists] adjusted well to West Germany, but the allocentrics [collectivists] did not.

Dr Kawamura: Where do you see cognitive simplicity entering the management field? How do we help managers develop cognitive complexity?

Dr Triandis: Cognitively simple managers will tend toward collectivism and may be high in self-deception. One way to increase cognitive complexity is to present scenarios that require an answer, to which both a successful manager and an apprentice manager will react. The apprentice will note where his/her answers are not the answers of the more competent manager and will gradually learn to pay attention to more complex cues.

Dr Kawamura: Let’s now talk about self-deception. What is it, and how does it occur?

Dr Triandis: Self-deception is seeing the world according to our own needs, wishes, and hopes rather than the way it is. All humans have self-deception – some use it more frequently than others. In fact, it is so widespread that humans don’t even know they have it. Self-deception is like oxygen, which we breathe without any effort or thought.

After studying this for years, I believe that the most important point for understanding self-deception is to examine the percentage of information humans use from inside their bodies versus from outside their bodies when constructing the way they see the world. If most of it comes from inside their bodies, there is a high probability that they have a self-deception. The Buddha said, "Where truth is, self is not; where self is, truth is not." This reflects the idea that [the] self is what is inside and truth is what is outside the body.

Dr Kawamura: What kind of information do we get from inside the body versus outside?

Dr Triandis: The information from inside the body consists of emotions (such as hopes), needs (for example, hunger pangs), desires (such as imagined attractive objects), cognitive systems, (for example, prejudices, stereotypes, or in-group preferences), memories (for example, that we are descendants of heroes), theories, ideologies, and aspects of subjective culture we acquired during socialization. The information from outside our body is reality. It includes aspects of ecology – geography, climate – and the actions of others, occupations, and events in the world. We use both sources of information for different situations. If we are attacked, for example, we will focus on outside information. When we make judgments about things like politics, terrorism, religion, aesthetics, and the like, we often use inside information to shape our perceptions.

Dr Kawamura: How does self-deception differ in allocentric versus idiocentric cultures?

Dr Triandis: In allocentric cultures self-deception takes the form of "my group is glorious." In idiocentric cultures it takes the form "I am wonderful." However, self-deception is also universal to all humans. Sometimes there is "too-muchness" in reality – humans need blinders to protect themselves from fear, danger, and threats.

Dr Kawamura: You also say that self-deception is related to ethnocentrism, right?

Dr Triandis: Yes. All humans are ethnocentric, meaning that we all start life by knowing only our own culture. People put their own culture in the center of their world. They define the norms and traditions of their culture as "natural" and "correct" and those of other cultures as "unnatural" and "immoral." They consider other cultures "good" to the extent they are like their own culture.

Dr Kawamura: What do we need to do to avoid fooling ourselves?

Dr Triandis: To avoid fooling ourselves we should know ourselves. We should ask, "Is this belief coming from inside the body?" If so, it is probably a self-deception and should be tested with information from outside the body – with observations, experiments, and the like.

Dr Kawamura: You state that in some situations, fooling ourselves can create positive outcomes. Can you give us an example of a positive self-deception? How and why does this actually happen?

Dr Triandis: The best example of positive self-deception is feeling good about the death of a loved one because that person went to heaven. In difficult situations, people feel good about praying. While this is a self-deception, it is very good for the individual.

Dr Kawamura: Do you think that there is a relationship between denial or fear of death and self-deception? What would happen if people could look death straight in the face? How would it affect decision making?

Dr Triandis: I really do not know about fear of death. I do not fear death. I am convinced that after death it is like switching off the power. There is nothing after that. I am approaching death – I am eighty-seven – and welcome it. The world is getting too complex for my taste, and the sooner I go the better. My decision making has prepared me for death. I have a will, I have written my obituary, and I have given instructions about what should be done during a memorial for me – down to the musical passages to use.

Dr Kawamura: How does self-deception affect the development of morality and the practice of values?

Dr Triandis: I see morality as trying to help as many people as possible to be healthy and happy so they can live a long time without destroying the environment. Any act that causes people to be sick and unhappy is potentially immoral, though there are situations when an act can temporarily cause unhappiness and result in happiness in the long run (say, through a medical intervention). Religion can be very helpful when it increases self-control. Self-control is a great virtue.

Dr Kawamura: In Fooling Ourselves, you also said that there are four criteria for judging a good society: good mental and physical health, well-being, longevity, and degradation of the environment. How does the US rate according to these criteria?

Dr Triandis: In the paper "Shifts from horizontal collectivism to vertical individualism" [writing in progress] I mention that the United States is not doing well on these criteria. In the US overconsumption is a serious problem. We have created a civilization that requires consumption – without it, there would be a significant loss of economic activity. In the US more is spent on advertising than education – and advertising increases overconsumption and overutilizes the earth’s resources. The earth doesn’t have enough resources for every country to have a top economy – in fact, estimates indicate that five earths would be required for all cultures to have the American standard of living. Large sums of money are spent here on luxury goods, while one in six inhabitants of the earth go to bed hungry every night. The US and China are clearly the most polluting cultures. The WHO, in fact, has evaluated that France provides its population with the best health system. Studies show that the greatest happiness is found in Scandinavia, especially in Denmark.

Dr Kawamura: What can the US improve to meet these criteria?

Dr Triandis: In Fooling Ourselves, I describe how to maximize each criterion in separate sections. There is evidence suggesting that factors that contribute to subjective well-being also contribute to good health – social class, for example, is linked to health. Good health and longevity require that people be interconnected. People have a need to belong. The more social roles a person has, the longer that person is likely to live.

Dr Kawamura: It seems to me that well-being can be assessed on personal, organizational, and societal levels. What factors are associated with well-being on these different levels? How do cross-cultural managers and leaders lead in this process?

Dr Triandis: Yes, well-being can be studied at the personal level, the organizational level (that is, job satisfaction) and the cultural level. Ed Diener [Alumni Distinguished Professor of Psychology (Emeritus) of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign] has done a lot of work on well-being at both the personal and cultural level.

In "Shifts from horizontal collectivism to vertical individualism," I describe how Lincoln Electric was able to achieve remarkable results in the four criteria described above by maximizing employee well-being. They did this by implementing a system of management called welfare capitalism, which included attributes like an open-door policy, a piece-rate payment system, merit-based bonuses, guaranteed employment, and an employee-participant advisory board. Most firms today have implemented flexible capitalism systems, which have led to more unemployment, anxiety, and even suicidal ideations in workers. More firms could build welfare capitalism systems in new firms today to maximize well-being.

Dr Kawamura: You state that much of the conflict in the twenty-first century is the result of various self-deceptions. What kind of self-deception lies on both sides of terrorism? Where does fundamentalism come from?

Dr Triandis: Fundamentalism is the view that "my beliefs are the only correct ones." Fundamentalism is related to authoritarianism, tightness, and extreme ways of thinking. Uncertainty is linked to extremism. This topic is addressed in the most recent issue of the Journal of Social Issues.

A typical terrorist believes that what he is doing is God’s work, and, in fact, that God needs his help! Note the megalomania. In the West, people have the self-deception that the world requires vertical-individualist (VI) responses. There are self-deceptions from both sides. They are not necessarily mirror images of each other, however, though mirror images also create an important problem: "If I do X, that is good. If my opponent does X, that is bad." Both views are self-deceptions.

Dr Kawamura: You also state that "cognitively simple self-deception" may be a more important way to account for terrorism than is "religion." Can you explain this statement?

Dr Triandis: In the chapter on terrorism in Fooling Ourselves, I present a typology of terrorists. Some of them participate in terrorist organizations because that gives them money, power, and security. This rationale does not have anything to do with religion. Religion, however, is often used as a way to present themselves to others as virtuous. In fact, people who want power will not say they want power – that is not respectable – but they will say that they do something because "God wants it."

Dr Kawamura: You have said that cognitive simplicity is at the root of notions such as "the axis of evil." Could you help us understand this statement?

Dr Triandis: The axis of evil is a simple but incorrect idea. An axis includes the idea of cooperation, an alliance. Germany, Japan, and Italy did this during World War II. Iran and Iraq were placed into the same construct by George W. Bush because he disliked both countries. Iran and Iraq did not form an axis – they actually fought a war.

Dr Kawamura: What do you think your views on self-deception say about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? He puts physical need at the bottom level and the needs for groups and transcendence at higher levels. When terrorists kill to "do God’s work," doesn’t this indicate a whole other parallel hierarchy of spiritual needs?

Dr Triandis: The empirical evidence for the Maslow hierarchy is limited. It is true that when the most basic needs are not taken care of, the other needs do not emerge. But after we get into higher needs, culture plays a role. There is a paper by Kuo-Shu Yang [presented at the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation called "Cross-Cultural Differences in the Perspectives on the Self" (2001)] in which the highest need in collectivist cultures is not self-actualization but relationship with others.

Dr Kawamura: You’ve written extensively about self-deception in terms of terrorism, religion, and politics. How do we fool ourselves in corporate life?

Dr Triandis: I suspect that we fool ourselves in corporate life by being too sure about our opinions. We do not suspend judgment sufficiently – we do not try to "get into the other person’s shoes." We also give too much emphasis to money relative to the common good. I do not think that is good or bad for the corporation in the long run. In "Shifts from horizontal collectivism to vertical collectivism," I describe how Lincoln Electric was able to make money and grow in the long run while also providing steady work that resulted in high mental health and avoiding layoffs.

Dr Kawamura: How can we decrease cognitively simple self-deceptions, especially when we as a world population are facing many problems that will need to be solved with more cognitive complexity and less self-deception? What current problems stand out to you that will require more cognitive complexity to solve?

Dr Triandis: We need to be vigilant that we do not have too many cognitively simple self-deceptions. That is difficult, but possible. It requires constantly asking ourselves to determine if we are fooling ourselves. I do not think it is possible to identify problems requiring more cognitive complexity. I quoted a study in my book in which one needs to check only two factors to determine if one is having a heart attack. If one checks more, one gets confused. It depends very much on the topic.

Dr Kawamura: You say that "mankind’s most extreme self-deception is that we can stop global warming." Yet we are still facing a catastrophe. How do we generate enough will to make the drastic changes needed?

Dr Triandis: We need to change our lifestyle in order to stop global warming. I doubt that we are capable of that. Lifestyles will depend on ecology interacting with economics, technology, and the other factors. Can we stop driving cars that pollute? Producing power that pollutes? I doubt it. I suspect that in 2050 people will face such terrible circumstances that they will be forced to change their lifestyle.

Dr Kawamura: You state that for good mental health, humans need to be linked to each other. In your book, you argue that the purpose of life is to help as many humans as possible reach a good, happy, and long life. How do we motivate people to care, to do small helpful acts to increase subjective well-being?

Dr Triandis: We need to teach the new generation to do helpful things. Once they experience more happiness, they will continue doing them.

Dr Kawamura: You have obviously reflected deeply on the purpose of life. May I be so bold to ask what you have discovered in your own reflection on this question? Is there a universal journey?

Dr Triandis: The purpose of life is to help as many others as possible to be healthy and happy so they can live a long time without destroying the environment. If we all did this, it would be a better world. This could be a universal journey.

Dr Kawamura: What key questions require further research and study with respect to cross-cultural psychology?

Dr Triandis: Answering this question would, again, require a book!

Dr Kawamura: What’s next on your research and writing agenda?

Dr Triandis: I do not have a research agenda. At age 87, I have too little time to get anything worthwhile done. I am writing my autobiography, and at this time I am on page 235. I do not know if it can be published, but I am enjoying doing it.

Dr Kawamura: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the readers of "Cross Cultural Management?"

Dr Triandis: We are all ethnocentric. After all, the only culture we know well is our culture. If we are going to create good intercultural teams, we need to work on avoiding ethnocentrism, which requires that we use emic perspectives about any topic – that we take into account the point of view of team members from other cultures.

References

Bhagat, R.S., Triandis, H.C. and McDevitt, A.S. (2013), Managing Global Organizations: A Cultural Perspective, Edward Elger, Cheltenham

Levy, S. (Ed.) (2013), "Special issue: uncertainty and extremism", Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 69 No. 3

Triandis, H.C. (1995), Individualism and Collectivism, Westview Press, Boulder, CA

Triandis, H.C. (2009), Fooling Ourselves: Self-Deception in Politics, Religion, and Terrorism, Praeger, Westport, CT

Triandis, H.C. (2013a), "Self-deception: an introduction", speech presented at the 121st Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI, 31 July

Triandis, H.C. (2013b), "Shifts from horizontal collectivism to vertical individualism", writing in progress