9 ms·
When I took a social psychology class long ago, they mentioned that the most significant cultural difference between Canadians and Americans was that Americans
by CoolGuySteve 7y ago
When I took a social psychology class long ago, they mentioned that the most significant cultural difference between Canadians and Americans was that Americans take overconfidence as a sign of competence whereas Canadians perceive it as an attempt to intimidate or take advantage of someone.
Seems to apply to this article as well. Maybe 'high-class' overconfident people become more convincing as wealth disparity widens due to the magic sauce they must obviously possess to be so rich in the first place. It's like Gob's bragging from Arrested Development: "The guy in the $4,000 suit is holding the elevator for a guy who doesn’t make that in three months. Come on!"
I'm having a hard time finding a paper about the US/Canada difference now though, so maybe I'm wrong.
- JohnFen 7y ago> the most significant cultural difference between Canadians and Americans was that Americans take overconfidence as a sign of competence whereas Canadians perceive it as an attempt to intimidate or take advantage of someone. Interesting... I'm an American, but apparently more Canadian in attitude about this. I've always taken overconfidence (or, worse, braggadocio) as a sign of incompetence.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoThe trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell
- cmuguythrow 7y agoAnecdote from when I was in China. My friend and I were walking down the street in Jinan (a big city though not one of the Major Chinese cities - think Pittsburgh in the US) when a yellow Ferrari fishtailed around the corner, squealing its tires and speeding away down the street. My immediate reaction - which I imagine to be the average American reaction - was "what an asshole". However, the Chinese around us on the street had quite a different reaction: "wow what a cool guy/car". Not really sure what this means about the perceptions of displays of status between the two cultures, but it's something that has stuck with me ever since.
- skookumchuck 7y agoAmericans tend to regard anyone driving a Ferrari as an asshole, regardless of how they drive.
- mtnGoat 7y agowe tend to think anyone sliding around corners and squealing tires to be one as well. this driver wad doubling down.
- skookumchuck 7y ago> we tend to think anyone sliding around corners and squealing tires to be one as well So why mention the type of car?
- EdwardDiego 7y agoOr struggling to drive their highly powerful car.
- GalacticDomin8r 7y agoDon't see many Ferrari's, but I can tell you a Prius driver is almost certainly an asshole. They are either Top Gear driving or Hypermiling, either way its at least a nuisance and sometimes a menace.
- leetcrew 7y ago
- tamalesfan 7y agoAnd then there is Trudeau... pure charisma, arrogantly certain of his establishment group-think and almost entirely incompetent.
- tychonoff 7y agoPresumably you mean Justin. His father, Pierre, was supremely confident and for good reason. He was in a class by himself as an intellectual and politician.
- tamalesfan 7y agoWhat I know if Pierre is that he was Left wing statesman, and like all Left wing leaders he has been sainted by the establishment and its media.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- otaviokz 7y agoMy anecdotal experience agrees with your point. I'm a Brazilian living in UK, and have worked for 2 different big American companies (Dell Computers and Ford Motors). It's very obvious that, comparing to both Brazilian and British cultures, Americans appear to value confidence far more, to the point of coming across as bullish when you're not familiar with it. Again, it's just my experience.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- simmanian 7y agoI can anecdotally confirm the American side. My manager values confidence to the point where he sees it as the number one signal for actual competence. I started acting more confident and aggressive to appease him, and realized that everyone else has already been doing it all along.
- yason 7y agoHow is that sustainable? Does the scheme lack a feedback loop of sorts or why doesn't he (or the stereotypical American people of similar attitude) realise that the overconfident-looking people aren't necessarily that competent? I mean, competence is a hard quality: you immediately know who's lacking it when you see someone who really, truly has competence. You can only fake it till so far.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- leetcrew 7y agounless you collect data points over a relatively long period of time, it's hard to assess the competence of a developer. you might have one person on a team who works on bugs in ascending order of difficulty and closes many tickets every day. you might have another who works on high-priority difficult bugs, but takes several days on each one. either person could be a valuable member of the team, but how do you say which one is more competent in a quick glance?
- Circuits 7y agoHonestly, most managers are not constantly evaluating their team. They have other work to do. I think employees tend to believe that the only thing on their managers mind is them when in reality it's the furthest thing from their mind.
- Circuits 7y agoIn my experience as an American (32 years) most Americans fight hard for the rich. If you tell someone: "Their rich because their parents were rich." you will almost always be met with resistance and it usually comes from an individual of a lower class. I don't know why it is but that's just how it is. It was amazing to see so many poor people voting for Trump and then when you tell them a few facts about Trump and how completely opposite his life has been to theirs they not only resist it but in some cases get very angry.
- bradknowles 7y agoIt's because they have hopes and dreams that one day, they'll be the rich guy that everyone is talking about. Which is precisely what the rich people want them to think.
- rosege 7y agoThere was a book written along these lines a few years ago [1]. We've had an election just here in Australia and there is definitely evidence of the same thing now occurring here. [1]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EEQ9BSW https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EEQ9BSW
- taneq 7y agoTemporarily embarrassed or not, millionaires still look out for other millionaires like themselves.
- ionised 7y agoSomeone might want to tell them that over half the wealth in the US is inherited.
- athroway 7y agoThis is certainly not unique to America but it's true the "poor people suck" vibe seems especially prevalent there.
- shados 7y agoConfirmation bias here, but I find this fascinating. I'm Canadian living in the US, and see these overconfident people who are incompetent in the industry and it drives me banana, but across several previous jobs (again, in the US), everyone seemed completely oblivious to it and thought these people were awesome (they were absolutely not). In one case, I watched a high executive tank a company into the ground (provably, with numbers to back it up that it was as a direct result of their own decisions) and got promoted 3 times for it. Eventually left their job and took an even higher position at another, bigger company. No one seems to notice this. Its insane.
- borkt 7y agoSeen this too, literally leaving a company's production in shambles then takes a promotion to work at a competitor.
- shados 7y agoyup, thats what happened...but even more is that before that, they got promoted...at the company in shambles. Multiple times.
- cannonedhamster 7y agoThis isn't uncommon... Sadly. This is what happens when politics in a company is more important than deliverables the customers pay for. It's generally a sign the company is in a death spiral.
- dorgo 7y agoWait, maybe it's not incompetence but strategy?