Implicit Cultural Norms

“Culture is a dynamic system of rules, explicit and implicit, established by groups to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms and behaviours.” (Matsumoto) However culture is also a dynamic system of rules. And artifacts. And collective internal programming. In essence, culture varies from definition to definition. It is so broad and complex it cannot fit into one singular denotation, hence today, there are more than 100 definitions of culture available to us. In addition, cultural norms are rules within groups or societies, used to establish guidelines as to what is considered appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and highlight a group 's’ values, beliefs as well as attitudes. These rules aid in maintaining order,

They’re a mechanism by which people may measure what is “normal” and acceptable in a specific context or situation. Such norms are not defined by outside factors; rather, they emerge directly from the activities, traditions, and goals of the group itself. Cultural norms can be divided into two groups; explicit and implicit. Explicit norms are formal written documents and legal codes which outline the purpose and expectations of the group. Implicit norms, by contrast, are not formally structured, but instead emerge socially through the day to day interactions of the group. The cultural norm of reciprocity, for example, performed by anthropologist, Ting-Toomey in 1986, compared the forms of reciprocity in 3 individualistic societies (USA, Australia, France) with two collectivistic societies (Japan and China) to find that the rule of reciprocity which states that; we should treat others the way they treat us, is universal. The difference however, was found in the way reciprocity was displayed in the two types of

Geerb Hofstede in the 1970s, states that certain cultures have characteristics which are solely specific to them. He believed that culture was a "mental programming". In order to put his model to the test, Hofstede, conducted a massive, longitudinal, cross cultural study in 1973, which included up to 50 countries, and was focused around the employees of the multinational company IBM. His observed findings led to his discovery of the four distinct cultural dimensions, as well as the fifth which was added later on. His five dimensions of culture are; power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance and long term