4.12 Indulgence vs. Restraint

The final cultural characteristic is called indulgence vs. restraint, which examines issues of happiness and wellbeing. According to Hofstede et al. (2010) “Indulgence stands for a tendency to allow relatively free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun. Its opposite pole, restraint, reflects a conviction that such gratification needs to be curbed and regulated by strict social norms” (p. 281).  The top five on the Indulgence end are Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, and Nigeria, whereas those on the restraint end are Pakistan, Egypt, Latvia, Ukraine, and Albania. The U.S. is towards the indulgence end of the spectrum and ranks at #15 along with Canada and the Netherlands.

Some interesting findings associated with indulgence include experiencing higher levels of positive emotions and remembering those emotions for more extended periods. Individuals from more indulgent cultures tend to be more optimistic, while their restrained counterparts tend to be more cynical. Individuals from indulgent cultures tend to be more extraverted and outgoing as compared to individuals from restrained cultures. In addition, people from indulgent countries are more open to other cultures, more satisfied with their lives, and are more likely to communicate with friends and family members via the Internet while interacting with more people from other cultures via the Internet as well.

This section is adapted from Cultural Characteristics and Communication in Interpersonal Communication Copyright © by Jason S. Wrench; Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter; and Katherine S. Thweatt available at Interpersonal Communication – Simple Book Publishing licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.