PAPER REVIEW
- Levine and Norenzayan 1999 – The Pace of Life in 31 Countries
This study compared the pace of life in large cities from 31 countries around the world. Three indicators of pace of life were observed: average walking speed in downtown locations, the speed with which postal clerks completed a simple request (work speed), and the accuracy of public clocks.
Hilarious that the country with the most accurate clocks was… Switzerland.
Chalk up one more victory for stereotypes.
Unsurprisingly there’s an evident correlation with measures of future time orientation in general.
OTOH, Italy and Romania(!) has more accurate clocks than Japan, which isn’t what you’d expect from national stereotypes. So count me somewhat skeptical. It’s not enough to get the 1st place right, the whole list has to match the stereotypes, or at least more-or-less.
Evidently Mussolini`s legacy!
Antonescu made the clocks run on time.