Specific/Diffuse (part 2)

<< Seven dimensions of culture index
Specific/diffuse is hard to understand, so I'm putting together an example. Tab said about Broken Hill,

It's hard to get in (to the native culture) but once ur in, ur in for good, and it's a complete acceptance.

So I'm going to use my constructed idea of Broken Hill (having never actually been there) as an example.

Frederick, who is from my constructed idea of Newcastle moves to my constructed idea of Broken Hill. At first he finds that the people in Broken Hill won't talk to him very much. They don't seem very welcoming. However, over time, some of the locals do begin to open up.
My constructed idea of Broken Hill has a very diffuse culture. It appears to Derrick that the locals are pretty stand-offish, and they are pretty cautious about making friends. They want to find out a reasonable amount about a person before they're willing to open up. Compared to people from more specific cultures, they don't have many friends. However, their friends will be very close. They'll just have one group of friends. They will play tennis, go to the pub, do road trips with the same group of friends, whereas in a more specific culture there will be a different group of friends for each social activity.

Hope that helps to explain it better.
<< Seven dimensions of culture index