Exploring cultural differences of the United States and Australia

I’ve been curious about Australia for quite some time, and to be honest, I wasn’t certain how our cultures aligned.  “While Australians speak English as their first language, and seemed to behave much as do Americans, there are differences in language and culture” (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014, p. 380).  To my delight, there’s a plethora of information about the cultural differences between Australia and the United States, covering many topics such as gender differences in the socioeconomic factors associated with smoking, patient recovery expectations after knee surgery, prejudices towards immigrants and foreign workers, suicide rates and methods, alcohol consumption, differences in mandatory child abuse reporting legislation, and the use of firearms in terrorist attacks.  But what does all of this research really tell us?  It confirms that, though we are all human, we are often statistically different based on our cultures.

For example, Australian patients were “more likely than the patients in either the United Kingdom or the United States to expect to be able to walk and to be able to perform unlimited recreational activities” after having knee surgery (Lingard, Sledge, Learmonth & Kinemax Outcomes Group, 2006, p. 1204).  And when it comes to terrorist attacks, the United States had 329 attacks with 67 occurring with the use of firearms from 2002 to 2016, while Australia had 49 attacks with only 4 occurring with the use of firearms during the same period of time (Tessler, Mooney, Witt, O’Connell, Jenness, Vavilala & Rivara, 2017).

Since many of us are not in medical or law enforcement professions, looking at our differences in terms of norms and etiquette is probably more informative.  Bazerman and Moore (2013) said it best: “life is full of difficult choices that demand that we balance one value against another” (p. 152).  As a generality, Australians have a different value system than Americans, with a strong desire to enjoy life, preferring to “‘work to live,’ rather than to ‘live to work,’” which is often a struggle for many Americans (Moran et al., 2014, p. 380).   Not only do we approach life differently, we have some subtle and not-so-subtle differences in etiquette that can create misunderstandings and misinterpretations.  “If an individual operating in a foreign culture doesn’t understand its particular patterns of believing and behaving, the individual will interpret experience purely in terms of his or her own culture and will thus inevitably misinterpret and misunderstand” (Treviño & Nelson, 2107, p. 401).

Winking at a woman would be considered inappropriate in Australia, and it isn’t considered manly for men to express physical affection (Moran et al., 2014).  Hand gestures such as “OK” (thumb and forefinger touching with other fingers raised) and words such as “stuffed” or “rooting” (for your team) are considered rude or vulgar (Moran et al., 2014, p. 380).  Australians generally dislike class distinctions and pretension, as they are generally easygoing and informal (Moran et al., 2014).

When studying other cultures, consider the term cultural intelligence (CQ) which is “an individual’s ability to be effective in cross-cultural situations,” involving a knowledge component (such as researching the foreign culture), motivational component (adapting to a different culture), and an action component (putting knowledge and motivation into action) (Treviño & Nelson, 2107, p. 401).

 

References:

Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, D. (2013). Judgment in managerial decision making (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Lingard, E. A., Sledge, C. B., Learmonth, I. D., & Kinemax Outcomes Group. (2006). Patient expectations regarding total knee arthroplasty: Differences among the united states, united kingdom, and australia. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. American Volume, 88(6), 1201-1207. doi:10.2106/JBJS.E.00147

Mathews, B., & Kenny, M. C. (2008). Mandatory reporting legislation in the united states, canada, and australia: A cross-jurisdictional review of key features, differences, and issues. Child Maltreatment, 13(1), 50-63. doi:10.1177/1077559507310613

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences (9^th ed.). NY: Routledge.

Tessler, R. A., Mooney, S. J., Witt, C. E., O’Connell, K., Jenness, J., Vavilala, M. S., & Rivara, F. P. (2017). Use of firearms in terrorist attacks: Differences between the united states, canada, europe, australia, and new zealand. JAMA Internal Medicine, 177(12), 1865-1868. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.5723

Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2107). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right (7th ed.). Hoboken: Wiley.