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CULTURAL CONDITIONING 23

Sicilian friend of mine has not paid for a telephone call since 1948. His father
owns a vineyard.
Recently I tested mature Finnish executives on cross-cultural seminars with
the following exercise:

National Characteristics

heavy • humorous • excitable • laid back • risk taking • snobbish

• serious • diplomatic • talkative • slow • opportunistic • weak-willed
• humorless • honest • sly • emotional • reliable • true
• money-minded • collective • wise • literal • open • shy
• well-mannered • unreliable • direct • joking • sociable • hard working •
conservative • individualistic • loud • ill-mannered • caring
• extroverted • efficient • punctual • flexible • reserved • quick
• polite • time-dominated • vague • boring • polished • strong-willed •
old-fashioned

Study the characteristics above and select eight for each of the following
nationalities: German, British, Italian, Finnish, Swedish and American

The Finns invariably select the following qualities to describe themselves:

honest, slow, reliable, true, shy, direct, reserved, punctual

Six of these characteristics are clearly positive; even shy and slow do not have
negative connotations in Finnish ears.
Germans could be considered punctual, Swedes honest, Britons true and reli-
able, Americans direct, but the Finnish seminar participants had a natural ten-
dency to paint a positive picture of themselves. Swedes, Germans and Britons,
when tested in a similar manner, do the same, selecting positive adjectives to de-
scribe their own culture.
In another exercise, the same Finnish executives were asked to perform role
plays in which Finnish, Russian, American and Polynesian characters were
involved. The executives played the Finnish and Russian roles well but invari-
ably exaggerated the traits of Americans and Polynesians, magnifying and dis-
torting the brash and blustery nature of the former and the innocence and
chatter of the latter. This illustrated the Finnish tendency to resort to stereotype
categorizing when actual familiarity is lacking (Russian characteristics, on the
other hand, are well known by Finns).