PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 1 Protestant Relational Ideology: The Cognitive Underpinnings and Organizational Implications of an American Anomaly

Cross-national comparisons of relational work styles suggest that the United States is an anomaly in its low relational focus. This article describes Protestant Relational Ideology (PRI), a cultural construct that explains the origins and nature of this anomaly. This construct refers to a deepseated belief that affective and relational concerns are considered inappropriate in work settings and, therefore, are to be given less attention than in social, non-work settings. Akin to an institutional imprinting perspective, a review of sociological and historical research links PRI to the beliefs and practices of the founding communities of American society. A social cognition perspective is used to explain the mechanisms through which PRI influences American relational workways. The article also describes a program of research that uses PRI to address a wider set of organizational behavior issues that include: antecedents of prejudice and discrimination in diverse organizations; sources of intercultural miscommunication; beliefs about team conflict; mental models of “professionalism” and its effect on organizational recruitment and selection. PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 3 Protestant Relational Ideology: The Cognitive Underpinnings and Organizational Implications of an American Anomaly [Our] practices and beliefs appear to us natural, permanent, and inevitable, whereas the particular conditions that make them possible often remain invisible. Asch (1952) In the corridors of American organizations, “Focus on the task” and “Don’t take things personally” are familiar words of advice, clichés repeated as subtle reminders about what it means to act “professionally.” The message is sometimes stated more bluntly. James Clifton, CEO of The Gallup Organization, tells of how frequently managers raise concerns about one particular item in Gallup’s popular ‘Q12 Survey’ on employee engagement: the one that asks, “Do you have a best friend at work?” As one manager states, “We discourage friendships in the workplace.” These directions for appropriate work behavior reflect a deep-seated sentiment that affective and relational concerns ought to be put aside at work in order to direct one’s attention to the task at hand. To be productive and efficient is prima facie to leave personal issues and emotional sensitivity at the office door. Exceptions to this organizational preference in the United States for maintaining a polite but impersonal work style have been found, primarily in countries outside North America and Northern Europe. In these societies researchers have documented several unique cultural imperatives that specifically encourage people to closely monitor social–emotional cues in virtually all interpersonal situations (Ayman & Chemers, 1983; Diaz-Guerrero, 1967; Earley, 1997; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, Marin, Liansky & Betancourt, 1984). The traditional path taken to account for these exceptions has been to generate theory grounded in values and traditions indigenous to their respective cultures. For example, the emphasis on expressive social PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 4 emotionality and harmony in Mexican culture has been traced to the indigenous cultural value of simpatia in Mexican society (Diaz-Guerreo, 1967; Triandis, et al., 1984). Chinese preferences to conduct business through a web of loyal interpersonal networks are described as a manifestation of quanxi in Chinese society (Bond, 1986; Tsui & Farh, 1997). Familial characteristics of business relations in many Korean organizations are conceptualized with respect to the Korean tradition of chaebol (Kim, 1988). Heightened sensitivity among the Japanese to the needs and concerns of others is argued to stem from the central role of amae in Japanese society (Doi, 1962). Such cultural studies offer rich theoretical accounts of relational styles abroad that deviate from the impersonal ideal workway of North America and Northern Europe. What is an exception versus what is the modal tendency, however, is more clearly revealed in comparative research designed to differentiate cultures along broad relational dimensions. This literature shows that in contrast to American patterns, heightened attention to relational concerns is in fact common across a large and diverse set of societies. For example, independent American self-construals contrast with more relationally sensitive, interdependent Japanese self-construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). American individualism also stands out from the harmony-focused Chinese collectivism (Bond, 1986; Earley & Gibson, 1998) or the Italian and French emphasis on team goals over an individual’s goals (Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1993). American preferences for task-focused leaders over social-emotional leaders vary from Indian preferences for leaders high in both domains (Kool & Saksena, 1988; Sinha, 1979, 1980). Lack of attention to contextual details and relational cues in communication distinguish American social interactions from high-context Latin American, Chinese and Korean exchanges (Earley, 1997; Hall, 1983; Sanchez-Burks, et al., 2003; Ting-Toomey, 1991). The pattern that emerges suggests that mainstream American society is a cultural anomaly in its low PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 5 degree of relational focus. Across East Asia, Latin America, India, the Middle East and parts of Europe, social-emotional concerns are carefully monitored in virtually all interpersonal situations. One shortcoming of this literature, however, is that a different explanation is offered for every deviation from mainstream American patterns when it appears that it is in fact the American patterns that deviate from the norm. Anomalies beg to be explained. Moreover, the possibility of an American anomaly in relational work style has important implications for the field given the reliance on primarily American samples to generate and validate theory. What then can explain the origin and psychological nature of what appears to be a peculiar relational work style? This article describes a cultural construct called Protestant Relational Ideology, or PRI (Sanchez-Burks, et al., 2003). This construct will be used to address these questions and to explore several organizational behavior dynamics influenced by an attention to affective and relational concerns in the workplace. The next section reviews research on interpersonal patterns across cultures to further examine the extent to which mainstream American society appears as a cultural anomaly in its low degree of relational focus. The PRI construct is introduced next, followed by a review of sociological and historical research that links its origins to the ideology and practices of the founding communities of American society. A social cognition perspective is used to explain the mechanisms through which PRI influences workplace perceptions, decisions and behavior. After reviewing experimental evidence validating PRI’s main propositions, a program of research is described that uses PRI to address a wider set of issues that include: (1) antecedents of prejudice and discrimination in diverse organizations; (2) sources of intercultural difficulties in communication; (3) cultural variation in beliefs about team conflict and its implications; and (4) PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 6 implicit mental models of “professionalism” and its effect on organizational recruitment and selection. Relational Styles across Cultures There has been a long-standing interest within the social sciences in mapping out variation in how cultures define and structure the nature of interpersonal relations. The definitions of culture that underlie many of these formulations resonate with what the cognitive anthropologist Sperber (1996) describes as community-specific ideas about what is true, good and efficient. As Sumner (1906/1979) argued, these unique folkways have a directive and historical force and as such are part of the fundamental building blocks for a society. In short, culture in this area of inquiry refers to “shared understandings made manifest in act and artifact,” (Redfield, 1947). The constructs most often studied by psychologists to capture this variation in relational style include independence–interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Singelis, 1994), individualism–collectivism (Hofstede, 1980; Hsu, 1981; Triandis, 1995; Triandis, Malpass & Davidson, 1972) and high context–low context cultures (Hall, 1976). The construct of independence–interdependence focuses specifically on the nature of the relationship between self and other (Singelis, 1994). Markus and Kitayama (1991) argue that members of interdependent cultures, for example the Japanese and Koreans, place importance on maintaining interpersonal harmony and remain highly attentive to the needs, desires and goals of others in social interactions. In contrast, members of independent cultures such as in the U.S., emphasize individual happiness and focus on how relationships can serve their own needs, desires and goals. Ambady and colleagues (1996) show that whereas Korean managers structure the way they convey information based on the relationship between self and other, Americans are less PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 7 influenced by the relationship than by the content of the information being conveyed. Research within the individualism–collectivism tradition makes similar distinctions between self and other but focuses more on the relationship between the individual and the group. Ting-Toomey and colleagues (Ting-Toomey, 1988; Ting-Toomey et al., 1991) have argued that collectivists, more often than individualists, make a large relational investment in ingroup members. The collectivism of the Chinese is reflected in their use of language that maintains “face” for self and other—a strategy that reaffirms interpersonal bonds (Earley, 1993, 1997; Hu, 1944). Americans instead rely on language that is geared more toward conveying information than toward lubricating social emotional relations within the group. The Japanese focus on accomplishments that enhance their ‘group-self-esteem’ whereas Americans prefer work that affords opportunities to enhance their personal self-esteem (Heine, Lehman & Markus, 1999). Collectivists more generally are less likely to succumb to diffusion of responsibility effects in group work whereas individualism in the U.S. is associated with greater social loafing (Earley, 1989). A recent review by Wagner (2002) shows the wide range of organizational dynamics that differ across the individualism–collectivism divide. The majority of these studies juxtapose American patterns with those from a variety of countries. As suggested by Tocqueville over a century and half ago, Americans are individualists par excellence. As such, they frequently appear at or near the end of the distribution for phenomena shaped by relational sensitivity. Finally, distinctions between high-context cultures and low-context cultures focus on how much information a person attends to about the other during social interaction and how broadly elements from one social context permeate other social contexts. As the label would suggest, in high-context cultures such as Mexico, people carefully attend to others’ emotional PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 8 expressions, eye contact and tone of voice (Carroll, 1990; Hall, 1976). Moreover, relationships in these cultures are slow to develop, difficult to break and permeate many facets of life (Collier, Ribeau & Hecht, 1986; Condon, 1985). The heightened attentiveness to contextual cues inside and outside the workplace in high-context cultures is likely related to the fact that coworkers and close family friends often overlap. Recreational and important personal events are shared with the same folks from the workplace lunchroom. In contrast, relationships in low-context cultures are forged for a specific purpose in a particular context, often for a limited duration. Social cliques vary across activities (tennis friends, church friends) and more rarely bridge the work/non-work divide. Thus, there are fewer relational elements in any particular social context that have implications for other contexts and thus would require attention. Within specific social interactions, people in low-context cultures attend to what is said more than to how it is said (Ambady, Koo, Lee & Rosenthal, 1996; Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1993). The potential for serious misunderstanding is illustrated in a story retold by Triandis (1995) where a foreign diplomat did not take an American’s threat seriously because at the time the person did not appear emotional! Culture-Specific Workways Departing from these cross-cultural comparisons along broad dimensions, another research tradition focuses on culture-specific folkways concerning the proper nature of work relations (i.e., workways). This research shows that cultural meanings ascribed to work-centered relations often entail guidelines about appropriate levels of attention to social emotional ties. Within South Korea, for example, work relations are modeled after the tradition of chaebol, or “company familism,” (Kim, 1988). In a typical South Korean organization, work relationships PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 9 consist of tightly-knit personal bonds; managers play a paternal role in relation to their subordinates (Hui & Luk, 1997). Similarly, people within Japanese and Indian organizations place great importance on the creation and maintenance of highly personal relationships (Hui, Eastman & Yee, 1995; Hui & Luk, 1997; Kanungo, 1990; Kool & Saksena, 1988; Sinha, 1980). Managers in these cultures take care to know a lot about the personal lives of their subordinates and will even attend important personal events such as the funeral of an employee’s relative (Triandis, et al., 1994; Trompenaars, 1993). In Chinese organizations, many important tasks are accomplished through meticulous attention to developing you-yi or deep friendships based on mutual obligation (Solomon 1999; Wall, 1990). Indeed, one of the defining features of business in China is the emphasis on interconnected relationships or guanxi (Li, Tsui & Weldon, 2000; Tsui & Farh, 1997). Theorists have argued that for many Asians, establishing a highly personal connection is a necessary precondition to working with others (Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1993). This may also apply to the Indian sub-continent as suggested by data showing that the preferred leadership style among Indian managers involves a strong social emotional focus (Kool & Saksena, 1988; Sinha, 1979). Research on Mexican work styles likewise describes an emphasis on attention to social emotional relations (Condon, 1985; Lindsley & Braithwaite, 1996; Raeff, Greenfield & Quiroz, 1999; Roll, Millen & Martinez, 1980). In Mexico, work relations, like most other relationships, are guided by the cultural tradition of simpatía (Diaz-Guerrero, 1967; Triandis, Marin, Lisansky & Betancourt, 1984). This highly valued relational style resembles the search for social harmony, that is characteristic of many East Asian cultures, but emphasizes the expressive displays of personal charm, graciousness and hospitality more common in Latin cultures (Diaz-Guerrero, 1967; Lindsley & Braithwaite, 1996; Sanchez-Burks, Nisbett & Ybarra, 2000). In Italy, for PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 10 example, simpatía has been found to be a necessary (though not sufficient) prerequisite to leadership (Dechert, 1961). Simpatía in daily workplace interactions highlights the importance of respecting and understanding others’ feelings (Markus & Lin, 1999). Taken together, this cross-cultural research shows that relational styles in organizations reflect the cultures in which they are embedded. Moreover it demonstrates that there is tremendous diversity in the mental models people use to navigate the relational dimension of the workplace. In most cultures, sensitivity to affective and relational concerns is tightly woven into the social fabric of virtually all relations, and some evidence suggests these concerns become more, not less, important within the workplace. Throughout this literature, however, in contrast to many cultures around the world, it is within mainstream American society that affective and relational concerns are less carefully monitored and given diminished importance in the workplace. American culture is depicted as having the prototypical independent, individualistic and low-context relational styles. Despite what appears to be an anomaly in the cross-cultural distribution of relational sensitivity, most theoretical formulations have focused on explaining ‘the other’ leaving a gap in the field’s understanding of the nature and origin of the American anomaly. The next section describes a theoretical account that addresses this lacuna and provides a framework in which to understand this American exceptionalism (Baker 2004; Lipsett, 1996). Protestant Relational Ideology Protestant Relational Ideology (PRI) refers to a deep-seated belief that affective and relational concerns are considered inappropriate in work settings and, therefore, are to be given less attention than in social, non-work settings (Sanchez-Burks, 2002). PRI can be traced to the beliefs and social practices of the founding communities in the U.S., the ascetic Protestants, who introduced a unique worldview concerning the proper role of relational concerns in work versus PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 11 non-work settings. The influence of ascetic Protestantism on contemporary American culture was first noted by Alexis de Tocqueville (1840/1990) and later expanded by Max Weber (1904/1930, 1947), both of whom saw the cultural beliefs and practices of the early ascetic Calvinists reflected in the nature of modern work relations. Since then, sociologists (Bellah, et al., 1996; Huntington, 2004; Inglehart & Baker, 2000; Lenski, 1963; Lipsett, 1996), psychologists (McClelland, 1961; Winterbottom, 1953) and management theorists (Baker, 2004; Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1993) have continued to trace current American workways to those of the culture’s founding communities. This research tradition, as with theories on institutional imprinting (Baron, Hannan & Burton, 1999; Stinchcombe, 1965) are premised on the observations that prior social–historical conditions such as traditional religious values, have an enduring influence on social institutions long after the original conditions have faded (Baker 2004; Lipset, 1996). Weber’s (1904/1930) seminal thesis on Protestant ideology is most widely known for its analysis of how the meaning of work was transformed from a necessary evil to one’s calling in life based on the beliefs advocated by the early Protestant sects (Bendix, 1977). During the initial stages of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther introduced the notion that one’s duty in life was hard work in every activity. In so doing, he elevated workplace activities to a level of religious significance afforded to prayer and other religious ceremonies (McGrath, 1993; McNeill, 1954). This was a radical departure from the then mainstream sentiment that earthly work was a necessary but “debasing, demeaning activity, best left to one’s social—and spiritual inferiors,” (McGrath, 1993, p. 223). One of the hallmarks of the Protestant Reformation, according to Weber, was the creation of an ethic in which daily work was to be performed with all the fervor and moral imperatives as PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 12 other activities done for the glory of God. This worldview, described by Weber as the “Protestant Ethic,” framed work as having a central role in life and meaningful in itself. Indeed, subsequent empirical studies have operationalized the Protestant Ethic as beliefs about the value of work in its own right, and its corollaries which emphasize the importance of self-reliance and limiting personal indulgences (Bendix, 1977; Buchholz, 1978; Furnham, 1990; Giorgi & Marsh, 1990; Mirels & Garrett, 1971; Quinn & Crocker, 1999). Among the early American Protestants, however, these work ethic beliefs were intertwined with another ideology steeped in the teaching of John Calvin who articulated the proper nature of conduct in one’s calling. Calvin argued that in daily work and other duties pertinent to one’s calling, individuals ought to maintain an unsentimental impersonality in their conduct with one another (Weber, 1904/1930). Calvin’s justification for these limits on affective and relational attentiveness was that “to use time in idle talk, in sociability [while working] is evil because it detracts from the active performance of God’s will in a calling,” (Bendix, 1977, p 62). The social consequence of Calvinism according to Weber was the “entirely negative attitude of Puritanism to all the sensuous and emotional elements in culture and in religion,” (1904/1390, p. 105). These teachings on restricting attention to relational concerns by Calvin and his doctrine of predestination were among the defining characteristics of the early American Protestant sects (McGrath, 1993; McNeill, 1954). Appropriate Exceptions for Relational Sensitivity For the American Puritans, however, there were sanctioned exceptions to the official dogma restricting relational sensitivity. Despite these sharp prohibitions against attending to social emotional concerns, Weber (1947) along with contemporary cultural historians (Daniels, PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 13 1995; Fischer, 1989) have noted several exceptions outside of work and religious activities in which Puritan societies allowed and even encouraged social-emotionality. In contrast to the ever stoic Puritan stereotype, communities permitted social emotional relations among young people within certain contexts so that they could discover if they loved one another. Surprisingly, the ascetic Puritans “cherished true love, and insisted that it was a prerequisite of a happy marriage,” (Fischer, 1989, p. 79). In another example, people were actively encouraged to participate in collective recreational activities where people throughout the town would regularly gather. In settings such as taverns, common in most Puritan towns, people would engage in lively, expressive exchanges (Daniels, 1995). Such exceptions for relational sensitivity it appears were woven into the social fabric of early American communities, in stark contrast to the taboos against them within the workplace. Weber (1947) argued this emergence of a sharp distinction between appropriate work and nonwork relational sensitivity exemplified Tonnies’ (1887/2002) distinction between gesellschaft and gemeinschaft—two fundamental types of social relations. Gesellschaft refers to nonaffective, rational, pragmatic relations, whereas gemeinschaft refers to social emotional-oriented relations. The relational ideology put in practice by the early American communities created a divide (illustrated in Figure 1) in the social world between settings for gemeinschaft where attentiveness to affective and relational concerns is appropriate and settings for gesellschaft where only a task focus is appropriate. As characterized by Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (1993, p. 133), the “world [became] split between the machine and the suburban garden, producing and consuming. No intimacy, affection, brotherhood, or rootedness is supposed to sully the world of work.” This break from a sensitivity to relational concerns in work and nonwork settings alike—a practice that remains common in much of the world—suggests that the PROTESTANT RELATIONAL IDEOLOGY 14 early American protestants gave birth to a culturally unique impersonal and emotionally detached ideal relational work style (Lenski, 1961). Over time these beliefs about restricting attentiveness to relational and affective concerns in work settings were secularized and incorporated into the contemporary ethos of American culture (Fischer, 1989; Weber, 1930, 1947); they define PRI. Task-Focused Relationships Social-Emotional Relationships Work Family Business Partners Friends Customers Business Partners Colleagues Family Friends Significant-Others Task-Focused Relationships Social-Emotional Relationships Influence of Calvinism