Mr Hansson's IB Psychology Website



Belle & SornIB Psychology SL Y1Obedience vs. Power of DistanceThe power of distance is a cultural dimension which is a measure of inequality in a community. When a group of people have more ‘power’, as in wealth and social status, the other group of people that has less power will be treated differently. The power of distance can also relate to obedience because the more unequal the community is, the more obedient the people from lower social classes are. For example, if a rich person and a poor person are put together in a room, the poor one will feel intimidated and powerless in comparison. When the rich asks a favor from the poor, he/she will likely to obey, since he/she does not want to get into trouble, considering that the rich has more power.5048251529080According to Merritt and Helmreich (1996), it is evident that the airlines owned, managed and operated by pilots at countries with higher power of distances, the members tend to be more obedient. They surveyed 9,000 male commercial airline pilots as a replicate of Hofstede's study (late 1960s and 1970s), making sure that each member and pilot's nationality at birth and current nationality matches the nationality of the airline. As a result, pilots from Brazil, Korea, Mexico, and the Philippines have the highest power distance scores, whereas the pilots from New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa have the lowest.The table above shows the power of distance rankings for 50 countries, taken from Hofstede’s Exhibit. It is shown that Brazil, Korea, Mexico, and Philippines (even Thailand) are in the top 30, while New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa are lower (in the low 50s). One possible way of determining the relationship between this particular cultural dimension with obedience is by comparing the measure of power distance with the number of crashes per each airline. For instance, the higher the power distance is, the crews will respect the person of a higher rank such as the pilot, and just blindly believe what the pilot says. Nevertheless, if the pilot becomes fatigued or sleepy, unable to perform properly, the airplane’s crews will not be aware of it and just follow the pilot’s orders; or if the crews actually do notice that the pilot is inefficient, it is unlikely for them to speak up and disapprove the pilot due to the large distance in status or ranking between them and the pilot: Country & Airline(s)Power of Distance RankNumber of Airplane crashesPhilippines: Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific44Mexico: Mexicana de Aviación5/61Brazil: TAM Airlines, Gol Transportes Aéreos, Varig1414South Korea: Korean Air27/2813South Africa: South African Airways35/364Australia: Qantas4115New Zealand: Air New Zealand502-104775150495It appears that there is no obvious relationship between the number of airplane crashes and the power distance ranking. The first two countries with highest power distances: Philippines and Mexico have a very small number of crashes. This might be because of the better technologies or better skilled pilots, where they strictly check that each of them is capable of piloting the airplane without any mistake. For Brazil and South Korea, there are other reasons involved in the crashing. Several reasons for Brazilian airlines’ crashes are due to fuel starvation or mechanical failure, which are not originated from the pilot. They are because the airlines’ carelessness or old technology. In South Korea, most of the crashes are from military shoot down and terrorism, which is due to the current national issue between North and South Korea. For Australia (rank: 50), almost all of the crashes are from loss of control. This might be due to the pilots’ mistakes or technical reasons happened in the airplane.Hence, considering that there are many factors that influence the number of airplane crashes, there is no strong relationship between power distance and obedience, judging from the number of airplane crashes for each national airline. ................
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