Culture
SDO is typically measured as an individual personality construct. However, cultural forms of SDO have been discovered on the macro level of society Discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping can occur at various levels of institutions in society, such as transnational corporations, government agencies, schools and criminal justice systems. The basis of this theory of societal level SDO is rooted in evolutionary psychology, which states that humans have an evolved predisposition to express social dominance that is heightened under certain social conditions (such as group status) and is also mediated by factors such as individual personality and temperament. Democratic societies are lower in SDO measures The more that a society encourages citizens to cooperate with others and feel concern for the welfare of others, the lower the SDO in that culture. High levels of national income and empowerment of women are also associated with low national SDO, whereas more traditional societies with lower income, male domination and more closed institutional systems are associated with a higher SDO. Individuals who are socialized within these traditional societies are more likely to internalize gender hierarchies and are less likely to challenge them. In terms of Social Dominance Theory, it can be interpreted that in evolutionary terms, humans have evolved preferences for group-based hierarchies.
Read more about this topic: Social Dominance Orientation
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing culture in our land.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)