{"id":12968,"date":"2020-05-06T11:39:52","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T02:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/?p=12968"},"modified":"2020-05-06T11:39:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T02:39:52","slug":"power-distance-and-plane-crashes-the-gladwell-hypothesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2020\/05\/06\/power-distance-and-plane-crashes-the-gladwell-hypothesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Distance and Plane Crashes: The Gladwell Hypothesis"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent book “Outliers.”<\/a> In this book, Gladwell gives an interesting psychological explanation for why some countries have higher rates of plane crashes than others. The “Gladwell Hypothesis,” as it has come to be known, suggests that plane crashes can be explained by looking at cultural values. In particular, the cultural dimension of “power distance.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Power Distance<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Power distance refers to the extent to which people at the bottom of a culture’s hierarchy understand AND accept their position.<\/p><\/div>\n

Power distance is one of Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions (alongside individualism\/collectivism and others). Some cultures rank high in power distance, which means “…the order of inequality and hierarchy is well defined and one\u2019s place in society is known and accepted. In such a society individuals are deferential to their leaders and have a high regard for them.” (Enomoto and Geisler, 2017). In other words, they are cultures with very strict power hierarchies and the people at the bottom know and accept their place. If you think of Britain in the 17th-20th centuries especially, with monarchies, lords, noblemen all the way down to common peasants, this was the epitome of a high power distance culture because the peasants knew they could never be equals to the monarchy and they accepted this.<\/p>\n