# Cultural psychological quirks by nation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889 "2013-03-14T04:03:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/1 "2013-03-14T04:03:17Z")
I assume this thread will be too specialized to get much good discussion, but I was interested in anyone has something like an in depth psychological profile of different nation’s cultures etc? I mean like beyond stuff like French people are rude, American’s are lazy, surface superficiality like that. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/2 "2013-03-14T14:56:08Z")
Need more info, prior to comment. Can you give us and example of the sort of thing you ARE looking for. I think that would prove more helpful than what you’re not looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/3 "2013-03-14T15:03:26Z")
Irish people are all devastatingly attractive, incredibly intelligent, smart, witty, charming and downright fantastic human beings. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/4 "2013-03-14T15:38:38Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Irish people are all devastatingly attractive, incredibly intelligent, smart, witty, charming and downright fantastic human beings. When sober. 😉 I’m not sure if this fits the OP’s question, but I’ve heard that in Mexico if you say that you’ve seen or were talked to by Saint Mary, you are considerably blessed. Say it in the states, and you’re likely to get a psych evaluation. I also read a story about an Italian man in the states who stated that a woman was “witching” him, prompting a psych evaluation. But in Italy it’s not uncommom for people to claim that. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/5 "2013-03-14T15:46:22Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > When sober. 😉 Well you know what they say, “God invented alcohol so the Irish wouldn’t take over the world.” Though if you count the diaspora we haven’t done too bad. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/6 "2013-03-14T15:55:21Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > When sober. 😉 So, never? ---
**Author:** ![SurrenderDorothy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/surrenderdorothy/32/1221_2.png) [@SurrenderDorothy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SurrenderDorothy)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/7 "2013-03-14T19:14:21Z")
Bulgarians leave chewed chewing gum stuck to their plates in restaurants. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/8 "2013-03-14T19:30:00Z")
> [@grude](#): > > I assume this thread will be too specialized to get much good discussion, but I was interested in anyone has something like an in depth psychological profile of different nation’s cultures etc? You seem to be mixing up two things here. Sure, cultures differ, which means people from different places have different customs, expectations, etc., but that is a matter for anthropology, not psychology. You are not going to find any psychologists (or other social scientists) these days who take seriously the notion that there are different “national psyches”. The very idea smacks far too much of racism. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/9 "2013-03-14T19:35:41Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > You are not going to find any psychologists (or other social scientists) these days who take seriously the notion that there are different “national psyches”. The very idea smacks far too much of racism. I’m not entirely sure about that. I used to date a psychologist who was fascinated with the idea that an entire nation could suffer a giant group dissociation. Last I heard, she didn’t have time or grant money to do a study on it. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/10 "2013-03-14T19:36:19Z")
> [@grude](#): > > I mean like beyond stuff like French people are rude, American’s are lazy, surface superficiality like that. I’ve never understood where the idea that French people are rude comes from. As a nation I think they are rather excessively polite. The language itself has a level of politeness you don’t see in English (“I beg you to accept, sir, the expression of my distinguished salutations…”). Plus, if you walk into a shop, the shopkeeper will always greet you. That very rarely happens in England. They can be a bit frosty if you fail to acknowledge the greeting, but that hardly counts as rude IMHO. **njtt** , I disagree to some extent. Language has quite a powerful psychological effect. If you have formal vs informal pronouns, or different inflections depending on the status of the person you are talking to, that has to affect the way you interact with other people. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/11 "2013-03-14T19:44:43Z")
This is an interesting topic for me; I’m somewhat convinced that Canadians have some particular psychological traits in common from living in such a cold place that can kill you if you go outside for too long for large parts of the year. I have no confirmation of that idea, however. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/12 "2013-03-14T19:47:07Z")
**Colophon** , good point about language. It is my understanding that while in English we say “My name is Earl”, but in Russian it’s “They call me Yakov.” They don’t even own their names. Apparently this does have some sort of psychological effect, but I don’t really know any more about it. ---
**Author:** ![Rollo\_Tomasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@Rollo\_Tomasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rollo_Tomasi)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/13 "2013-03-14T20:00:08Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I’ve never understood where the idea that French people are rude comes from. As a nation I think they are rather excessively polite. The language itself has a level of politeness you don’t see in English (“I beg you to accept, sir, the expression of my distinguished salutations…”). > > Plus, if you walk into a shop, the shopkeeper will always greet you. That very rarely happens in England. They can be a bit frosty if you fail to acknowledge the greeting, but that hardly counts as rude IMHO. I’ve also found the French to be extremely friendly and welcoming except for (and I’m hardly the first person to say this) a handful of exceptionally unpleasant waiters. And this wasn’t just a “their waiters are different than American waiters” situation. This was a full-on, nose-in-the-air, roll-your-eyes-when-the-customer-greets-you-in-French-and-with-a-smile display of rudeness. It’s a stereotype, the snotty French waiter, but in my experience, there’s more than a grain of truth in it, and I think that might be one of the causes of the widespread perception of the French being rude. But other than that? I think the French are delightful. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/14 "2013-03-14T20:07:24Z")
> [@Rollo\_Tomasi](#): > > But other than that? I think the French are delightful. The British, on the other hand… OK, pretty much every Brit that I’ve met was very nice. But I remember hanging out with a couple of Londoners in New York. They made a big deal about how nice and friendly New Yorkers are. London must be a pretty cold place. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/15 "2013-03-14T20:11:23Z")
Whiel we Americans have a reputation as mindless pleasure-seekers with no standards, on the whole we tend towards a certain decorum and even prudishness not often seen in many parts of the world. There are definite lines in the sand over sexuality that proper people do not cross (in public). Obviously, we know people are people on those issues, but we also mostly consider many such facts as very personal and unfit for public space. Germans seem to have almost a collective repression concerning their own cooking. It’s not just that they enjoy varied cuisine, but that Italian specifically seems to have almost completely supplanted native cooking. It’s possible that it’s just my experience and that everyone else was enjoying old-fashioned German cooking, but I found german cuisine honestly hard to come by, even in private homes. What makes this more mysterious to me is that Germany has some very old culinary traditions - older than the entire United States. Yet they mostly ate food borrowed from Italian styles, with German fare set aside for special occaisions or desserts. I will say they had a delicious and common sort of German breakfast everywhere, from private homes to reasonably nice hotels across half of Germany. Americans seem to view the concept of paying for toilet use a personal insult to God, country, and all that is decent in the universe. Germans (and from what I hear, most Europeans), consider it normal to pay cash for ostensibly public facilities. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/16 "2013-03-14T20:12:12Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > **njtt** , I disagree to some extent. Language has quite a powerful psychological effect. If you have formal vs informal pronouns, or different inflections depending on the status of the person you are talking to, that has to affect the way you interact with other people. But that is an example of differing culture, and cultural expectations, not of differing psychological traits - and that was my point. > [@tdn](#): > > I’m not entirely sure about that. I used to date a psychologist who was fascinated with the idea that an entire nation could suffer a giant group dissociation. Last I heard, she didn’t have time or grant money to do a study on it. There is a reason why she isn’t getting that grant money. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/17 "2013-03-14T20:17:08Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > There is a reason why she isn’t getting that grant money. Care to explain it? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/18 "2013-03-14T21:02:07Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I’ve never understood where the idea that French people are rude comes from. It’s Parisians who are rude, in my experience. I used to work for a big French helicopter manufacturer, and you could fairly easily tell which of the French interns were from Paris vs. elsewhere, because the guys from Marseille, Lyons, etc… were all really outgoing, fun, and ebullient, but the Parisian guys were kind of rude and snooty. It’s a generalization, but it held true there, and has in other situations as well. I think it’s probably that way anywhere- “big city” people are perceived as ruder than people from elsewhere. I’m sure that to some rural Texan folks, I’m probably unspeakably impolite, even though I’m really not. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/19 "2013-03-14T22:03:17Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Germans seem to have almost a collective repression concerning their own cooking. It’s not just that they enjoy varied cuisine, but that Italian specifically seems to have almost completely supplanted native cooking. It’s possible that it’s just my experience and that everyone else was enjoying old-fashioned German cooking, but I found german cuisine honestly hard to come by, even in private homes. What makes this more mysterious to me is that Germany has some very old culinary traditions - older than the entire United States. Yet they mostly ate food borrowed from Italian styles, with German fare set aside for special occaisions or desserts. I will say they had a delicious and common sort of German breakfast everywhere, from private homes to reasonably nice hotels across half of Germany. 😕 Where in Germany were you? I’ve never found it difficult to find a Gasthaus in Germany that serves various types of schnitzel, spaetzle, sauerbraten… The OP might enjoy travel literature. More than simply describing cities and landscapes, good travel literature often attempts to paint a psychological profile of a nation or region. ---
**Author:** ![MickNickMaggies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MickNickMaggies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MickNickMaggies)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889/20 "2013-03-15T05:19:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > It’s Parisians who are rude, in my experience. I used to work for a big French helicopter manufacturer, and you could fairly easily tell which of the French interns were from Paris vs. elsewhere, because the guys from Marseille, Lyons, etc… were all really outgoing, fun, and ebullient, but the Parisian guys were kind of rude and snooty. It’s a generalization, but it held true there, and has in other situations as well. I think you’re pretty close here. In my experience, as an outsider looking in, there isn’t really a French national culture so much as there’s a hundred little regional identities. Our teacher (a proud Alsatian) had us in stitches imitating Parisians. Once, on the Isle of Mull, we picked up hitchhikers who identified themselves as ‘not _just_ French, but from Picardy’. Paris just doesn’t seem to have a regional culture and falls back on ‘we’re better that you’ more often than not. The French waiter thing? Sometimes. But waiting tables is a different thing here. It’s a life-long profession and not one to be sniffed at. I imagine that the attitude which sometimes emerges is connected to people like my father-in-law, who whistle and call them _garcon_. Still. Even though they know better. Living on the border is funny, though. We quite often feel more relaxed on the German side of the Rhine, but we’re usually there with less pressure to communicate so we’re not sure if it’s cultural. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-psychological-quirks-by-nation/652889.md?page=2)