Measures of cultural distance

A new paper with many authors — most prominently Joseph Henrich — tries to measure the cultural gaps between different countries.  I am reproducing a few of their results (see pp.36-37 for more), noting that higher numbers represent higher gaps:

Distance from the U.S.

Algeria: 0.15

Australia: 0.03

Brazil: 0.07

Canada: 0.02

China: 0.17

Ecuador: 0.12

Egypt: 0.24

Ethiopia: 0.14

Georgia [the country]: 0.15

Hong Kong: 0.09

Indonesia: 0.19

Japan: 0.11

Malaysia: 0.12

Nigeria: 0.15

Switzerland: 0.06

Egypt is the most distant, then Yemen, with Canada as the closest.

As for cultural distance from China, we have:

Great Britain: 0.20

Hong Kong: 0.09

Japan: 0.14

Russia: 0.09 (not *so* far away)

Taiwan: 0.10

Vietnam: 0.06

Overall the numbers show much greater cultural distance of other nations from China than from the United States, a significant and under-discussed problem for China.  For instance, the United States is about as culturally close to Hong Kong as China is.

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