Let me delve into the speculation about culture a bit more: Back in the day of the emperors/kings, titles and medals were were an extremely cheap way of rewardi

Let me delve into the speculation about culture a bit more: Back in the day of the emperors/kings, titles and medals were were an extremely cheap way of rewarding somebody without actually paying them. What this incentive system needed to work was a society that respected those titles, so you were and and even today are allowed to use those titles (examples: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichtakademischer_Titel http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichtakademischer_Titel). This attitude was probably transferred to academic titles at some point. In Austria, which has even more artifacts of its imperial time, this title-mania was followed so diligently that even the wife of the doctor was called Frau Doctor until a few decades ago. Also, every academic title at least equivalent to a master's degree is still used with your name in any formal dealings (they will call somebody up as Frau Magister Maier in a waiting room etc.). In Germany, they do this only with PhDs, so there is Herr Doktor but not Herr Diplom Psychologe. Judging from the mini-bios of authors on books, though, the Germans seem as title-crazy as Austrians. The guy who cannot call himself "Diplom Psychologe Hans Maier" on the title page of the book will almost certainly start his bio with "Hans Maier is Diplom Psychologe ..." because this way, he is only describing academic achievement (OK) and not using it as a title (not OK). So people who worry about status love titles but can only actually use anything from a PhD upwards with their names. Go figure...