Submissiveness and Risk of Heart Disease

Abstract

This study explored statistical relationships between work values and risk of heart disease. Hofstede assembled a database of 117,000 questionnaires from employees of a multinational company. Country means for these data were compared with Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) mortality data published by the World Health Organization. It was found that the probability of CHD is strongly predicted by work values of low power distance index (r = -.68,N = 29 countries), low uncertainty avoidance index (r = -.65,N = 33), and high individualism (r = .59,N= 33). Further analysis was used to identify factors at the individual level. Low probability of cardiac death over the next 20 years was found to be predictable from questions assessing tension at work, loyalty, deference, and high power-distance. The statistical factor that emerged might be called submissiveness, and its risky pole could be called in subordination. An individual-level study was designed to test for a relationship between work values and CHD risk factors. A cross-section of 62 healthy Japanese expatriates was compared with 53 British workers in the same employment. The two nationalities were remarkably similar, both in work values and probability of CHD. No protective CHD risk profile was found in the Japanese, contrary to the national base rates. Japanese men were unexpectedly found to be significantly more exhausted. The work values scales were found to be unreliable at the individual level. “Tension at work” and “fear of expressing disagreement” were found to predict several CHD risks.