Risk and culture
Recently, we got a new credit card for our German bank account. Yet, my German wife and I were flummoxed by the layers of security we had to navigate. This unexpected complexity shows how cultures encounter risk differently.
In the United States, activating a credit card is an ordinary thing that can take less than a minute to do. Theoretically, it should be pretty straightforward in Germany, too. But our bank’s identity theft safeguards require us to have no less than three cell phone apps that have to be linked in just the right way.
Also, although we have a joint account, my wife and I have separate contracts with the bank, which means we each need a different set of apps with different login credentials and access codes to use our account.
The system is super complex, and one of my wife’s friends who works at the bank admits it’s really clunky.
When it came to activating the credit card, the process took three days, two calls to customer support, and two visits to the bank branch.
During my wife’s second visit, three staff members had to help her activate the card. When she left, there were several other people waiting in line with the same problem.
For an American, the process was maddening. Germans find it frustrating, too, but they also seem more willing to live with the frustration because the system, overly complicated as it is, reduces the risk of identity theft.
To be sure, Americans are concerned about identity theft, but our desire for convenience—as well as our need to spend, spend, spend—drown out potential risk. So when we get our credit cards, we demand a frictionless process.
In Germany, friction isn’t necessarily a sign of incompetence. It can also mean safety.
That small difference suggests something big about risk.
Risk, as communication researchers Robert Heath and Dan O’Hair remind us, is different from danger. Unlike a danger, which is real and present, a risk is something that hasn’t happened—may never happen—but nevertheless could happen.
Heath and O’Hair contend that what we worry about and how we choose to protect ourselves are rooted in our culture, history, and politics. We can understand the values of a society by the risks it tolerates and the institutions (like banks) it creates to manage the risks it fears.
In an increasingly complex and diverse society, different risk calculations come into contact with each other and create confusion and conflict.
If we can stay curious, we can learn more about what others value and where they feel most vulnerable. And we can learn about our own values and vulnerabilities, too.
