An Exploration of Within-Cultural Differences of a Culture-specific Syndrome: The Case of Brazilian jeitinho

Abstract

To what extent are cultural syndromes invariant within nations or can we identify within-cultural variability in structure and endorsement of cultural syndromes? These questions are central to a) recent discussions around the relevance of nation-states in cultural vs. geographical psychology and b) explorations of how cultural syndromes described in anthropological research are endorsed by individuals within and across regions within the country. We report data on Brazilian jeitinho, an informal problem-solving strategy that is central to Brazilian culture but may show within-cultural variability as suggested in previous anthropological and sociological research. Using a large online sample (N = 1259) we found evidence of full score equivalence for two multi-dimensional jeitinho measures across the most populous Brazilian regions, suggesting that respondents interpret the instruments similarly. Second, we found no practically meaningful mean differences: jeitinho was endorsed equally across all regions of the country. Finally, we found some small but consistent associations with demographic variables, notably gender, age, and education differences. We need to pay greater attention to behavioral functionality at individual level—the social position of individuals within the system rather than geographical boundaries.

Keywords

jeitinho cultural syndrome informal problem-solving strategy simpatia culture-specific behavior

All human behavior is cultural in origin and focus. This realization has led to an increased focus to help us better understand behavior within and between different cultural contexts. Culture-specific influence strategies have received considerable attention recently because they allow novel insights into how humans navigate and interact with their social worlds to solve locally relevant problems. Culture-specific behaviors are those syndromes of behavior that are recognized by individuals within a particular historical, social, and cultural context, often using a specific name that encodes the suite of behavioral activities to facilitate faster and more efficient communication among members. Anthropologists often provide thick descriptions of these behaviors, but it is often less clear how much members of these cultural groups actually endorse these behaviors and importantly, whether similar behaviors also occur in other cultural contexts, even if the specific constellation of behaviors and the names given to these behaviors may differ. Therefore, a psychological examination of cultural syndromes has much to offer to different discussions in cultural research. Most centrally, researchers have shown renewed interest in the meaningfulness of national boundaries for cultural analyses. Using broad psychological constructs, some researchers have questioned whether nation-states are the most appropriate category within cultural psychology (Fischer & Schwartz, 2011; Hofstede et al., 2010; Lenartowicz & Roth, 2001; Peterson et al., 2018), others defended the use of nation-states as a meaningful unit of analysis (Akaliyski et al., 2021) and a third group of geographical psychologists emphasized the importance of regional variations within nations (Rentfrow, 2020).

Our study offers a different lens on these issues by focusing on a culture-specific construct, which may show variation within a nation due to different historical, geographical, and economic demands (Fischer et al., 2014; Pilati et al., 2011; Ribeiro, 1995), but at the same time has a strong nation-specific component and may not be present in other cultural contexts.

Among culture-specific constructs, Brazilian jeitinho is particularly interesting for a variety of reasons. First, recent psychological studies have shown that the syndrome shows a more complex multi-dimensional structure, which can be linked to commonly studied psychological correlates such as values, personality, and ideology (Ferreira et al., 2012; Fischer et al., 2014; Miura et al., 2019; Nishioka and Akol, 2019; Resende and Porto, 2020). Second, previous sociological and ethnographic research has focused on the distinctiveness and salience of the construct within Brazil using observations and historical analyses (DaMatta, 1979), but psychological research has suggested that there is a disconnect between the normativeness of the construct at a symbolic level and the personal endorsement of individual behavioral facets (Ferreira et al., 2012; Fischer et al., 2014). Third, although the syndrome carries the name of the nation, historical, anthropological, and sociological studies of Brazil point to possible variation in this behavioral syndrome across the different regions of the country, due to divergent, colonial, economic, and ecological conditions (Almeida, 2007; Barbosa, 2006; DaMatta, 1979; Ribeiro, 1995).

We are the first to provide a focused analysis of cultural influence strategies within the same culture. By using validated multi-dimensional measures, we contribute both to broader discussions of within-nation variability as well as opening new frontiers for analyses of culture-specific syndromes. Specifically, we test whether two different multi-dimensional measures of jeitinho are a) understood and interpreted in the same way across major administrative and ecological regions of the country, b) whether and how large any geographic differences in jeitinho might be and c) whether different demographic groups within the nation respond differently to jeitinho measures. Our research provides novel insights for theoretical discussions of appropriate levels of theory and analysis in cultural psychology (addressing challenges from geographical psychology, see Rentfrow, 2020) as well as the behavioral endorsement of cultural syndromes discussed in ethnographic and anthropological research.

Jeitinho is defined as a strategy to solve a problem establishing or using interpersonal relations, often with a certain element of creativity that seeks to establish or maintain a positive and affectionate personal interaction, but which can break social norms, rules, or regulations, and that may include using deception and cunningness. Social science studies had focused on the broad symbolic value, situating the construct between providing favors and corruption (Almeida, 2007). Focusing on the behavioral instantiations, psychological research has identified at least two behavioral dimensions of jeitinho. The first has been called Jeitinho Simpático and includes socially oriented behaviors that seek to maintain positive social interactions, avoiding overt conflict and finding creative and innovative ways to solve problems, such as seeking to promote a positive climate in social relationships and helping co-workers in solving problems (Miura et al., 2019). A second component is named Jeitinho Malandro (named after the symbolic anti-hero figure of the Malandro, see DaMata, 1979) that captures more stereotypically negative behaviors such as breaking social rules and norms, the use of deception and trickery, and within modern context often with the implication of corruption and serious violations of the rule of law. An example might be to call in sick on Monday morning despite feeling well, jumping queues or using personal contacts to resolve a bureaucratic problem.

Scenario studies of jeitinho (Ferreira et al., 2012) focusing on the intersubjective norm component (Chiu et al., 2010; Fischer et al., 2019; Morris et al., 2015) suggested a slightly different break-down of prototypical situations, differentiating 1) corruption, 2) social norm breaking, and 3) creative problem-solving situations. This approach was based on prototypical scenarios identified in qualitative interviews, which are then rated in terms of whether the behavior is typical for Brazilians. Table 1 shows scenario examples for each dimension. Miura et al. (2019) presented evidence that these normative Corruption and Social Norm Breaking scenario factors are consistently associated with Jeitinho Malandro (Trickery) dimension, whereas the normative Creativity scenarios are consistently related with Jeitinho Simpatico behavioral dimension. At the same time, there is a consistently higher endorsement of the normative aspects of these jetinho scenarios compared to when asking individuals about their personal preferences (Ferreira et al., 2012). These findings demonstrate the necessity to focus on both the normative perceptions as well as the behavioral endorsement by individuals.

Table 1.

Scenario examples of jeitinho from Brazilian Jeitinho Questionnaire (Ferreira et al., 2012).

Dimension	Example
Corruption	Every time José takes a taxi for company purposes, he has the right to request reimbursement for the amount paid. When he is without money, he requests a receipt for a greater amount than he has paid and submits this to the company. He keeps the extra money
Social norm breaking	Parking at shopping centers is difficult during busy times. Knowing that it is very difficult to find a place to park at these times, Camila speaks to her grandmother and invites her to go shopping, so that she can park in a space reserved for the elderly
Creativity	It is the birthday of a very close friend of Joana and she has forgotten to buy him a present. She has also financial problems and believes that she will not find anything affordable on a short notice. As Joana is very clever, she uses free school material to create a beautiful card to give to her friend

The two major behavioral dimensions of Jeitinho Simpatico and Jeitinho Malandro show some conceptual similarities with other culturally shaped informal social influence processes including Blat from Russia; Sociolismo from Cuba; Veza from Serbia; Tanish-bilish from Uzbekistan; Guanxi from China, among several others (Ledeneva, 2017). Empirical research using a variation of social norm breaking scenarios suggests some empirical similarities with Guanxi, Wasta, and Pulling Strings common in the UK. Common to these informal social influence processes is their motivation to resolve problems within typically hierarchical and bureaucratic contexts, but via somewhat different means. For instance, Guanxi refers to the quality of the relationships established via family, school, or work contacts. Wasta also involves social relations, but typically derived from familial or tribal connections and focused on higher social positions that may be able to influence decisions within the hierarchy. The simpatico aspect of jeitinho also involves social relationship strategies. However, comparative studies suggested that jeitinho is somewhat distinct from Guanxi and Wasta (Smith et al., 2012a; Smith et al., 2012b). Importantly, these international comparative studies conceptualized and measured jeitinho as a unidimensional behavioral phenomenon, which contrasts with the multi-dimensional behavioral structure identified in psychological studies (e.g., Ferreira et al., 2012; Miura et al., 2019; Pilati et al., 2011). These studies demonstrated that jeitinho is multi-dimensional and involves behaviors with different motivational profiles, which requires more nuanced assessments.

To provide some context on possible differences within Brazil, it is necessary to present some basic geographic, social, and historical details. Brazil is the largest country across Central and South America with more than 8,000,000 km² and more than 210 million inhabitants. The country is a federation and consists of 27 states organized into five geopolitical regions: North, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, and South. The North (around 18 million inhabitants) is located along the Amazon basis and characterized by a strong indigenous population presence. The Northeast (around 57 million inhabitants) features large Caatinga areas (dry, nearly desert-like vegetation), often suffers from droughts and was the first area to be colonized. It shows a complex mixture of European, indigenous, and people of African descent. The North and Northeast are the poorest regions within the country. The South (around 30 million inhabitants) and Southeast (around 88 million inhabitants) are the economically richest and currently the population centers in Brazil, characterized by large industrial and agricultural complexes, attracting historically a larger number of internal and external migrants which resulted in greater ethnic diversity with significant and culturally distinct subpopulations from various European countries and Asia (specifically Japan, with the largest Japanese population outside Japan). The Midwest (around 17 million inhabitants) is characterized by the Cerrado landscape (the largest tropical savannah region in South America) and it is relatively sparsely populated, with the exception of the capital region around Brasilia and the Federal District. This region was colonized by migrants moving in from the southeast during the 18th century which led to massive replacements of the indigenous populations. More recent economical and populational development happened in conjunction with the construction of Brasilia in the 1950’s. The move of the capital from Rio de Janeiro to this previously remote central region significantly increased the cultural diversity in this predominantly rural area.

Given its diverse colonization history and geographical features, scholars have speculated and predicted different cultures across the five geopolitical regions. (Ribeiro, 1995) described the different “ethnic matrices” of the country, proposing distinct cultural regions within the country based on these historical, ethnic and economic differences that we sketched in the previous paragraph. Specifically, (Ribeiro, 1995) argues that the formation of the Brazilian people is a mixture of several ethnic groups such as the sertanejos from the Northeast, the caboclos from the North, the caipiras from the Southeast and Midwest, and the gaúchos from the South, which resulted from the mixing of individuals of European, African, and Indigenous descent within highly distinct ecological contexts. (Ribeiro, 1995) provided a rich historical portrait of the different ethnic and cultural characteristics of groups in the five major geographical regions. Within popular culture, there are clear nuances of jeitinho relevant behaviors. For example, the concept of the malandro in often associated with the urban lifestyle of Rio de Janeiro in the Southeast (see for example comments by participants in Fischer et al., 2014), whereas the Northeastern variations of jeitinho have been famously described in the works by Ariano Sussuana (Dias, 2020), which have been turned in highly popular TV series and feature films. Given these rich historical and cultural representations of the concept, it would be interesting to examine how residents in these different regions actually perceive and endorse jeitinho components. This is one of our main goals, to provide the first empirical data with psychometrically valid measures on the distribution of jeitinho among Brazilians.

To the best of our knowledge, the only quantitative study that included measures relevant for jeitinho in a large study across the country was conducted by Almeida (2007). Almeida focused on the conceptual distinction of jeitinho versus favor and corruption, which was proposed in the seminal work by Barbosa (2006). Almeida interviewed 2363 people from 102 municipalities in all Brazilian states and geopolitical regions, with highly diverse educational attainments (e.g., 9% were illiterate, around 45% completed primary school, 31% with complete high school degrees and 12% with a completed undergraduate degree). Participants were asked to classify 19 different situations as either favor, corruption or jeitinho. (with one indicating favor, four indicating jeitinho and seven indicating corruption). Respondents from the Northeast tended to classify scenarios more as favor than people from all other four geopolitical regions. These scenarios were consequently more likely interpreted a personal favor rather than as corruption or jetinho. These findings suggest that Brazilians from different regions may conceptualize jeitinho behaviors differently. However, it is important to highlight that this study a classification task which does not allow us to understand the endorsement or relevance of the scenarios. Furthermore, because it is unclear how these scenarios were selected, we cannot be sure how well they represented the multi-dimensional nature of jeitinho and whether they may actually have been representative of favor, corruption or jeitinho.

Moving from culture-specific measures to broad cultural constructs, a number of recent studies have compared the five geopolitical regions using values and beliefs. Hofstede, Malvezzi, Tanure and Vinken (2010) reported three different data sets using managerial and highly educated samples from different economic sectors across all Brazilian regions. Using value surveys completed during work hours, they concluded that the largest differences may be between the South and the Northeast: respondents in the South were more hierarchical, less formal, more individualistic, and more masculine; respondents in the Northeast in contrast were less hierarchical, less formal, and less masculine. Torres et al. (2015) reported a meta-analysis of value studies primarily with student samples covering all Brazilian regions of Brazil. Inhabitants of the Northeast and the South were found to endorse conservation values more than those of the Midwest, while people from the Southeast endorsed values of self-directed values more than inhabitants of the Midwest. However, these results were somewhat at variance with the previous results by Hofstede et al. (2010) and with previous ethnographic descriptions of cultural characteristics (Ribeiro, 1995). Even more complicating the picture, a recent study (Milfont et al., 2020) focused on regional differences in relational mobility, which is a cultural concept defined as the degree of freedom and opportunity a society affords individuals to choose and dispose of interpersonal relationships. The authors found no significant differences across the country, even though previous research had suggested meaningful correlations with values that were studied by Hofstede et al. and Torres et al. Therefore, these studies demonstrate the importance of further research to examine claims from previous ethnographic and sociological research that suggests regional differences.

Based on the classification study by Almeida (2007) and reports in Fischer et al. (2014), we could expect some differentiation of jeitinho across the Brazilian regions. Using both a behavioral measure as well as a normative measure of behavioral scenarios, we are able to focus on both the personal endorsement and the normative perception of the representativeness of the concept across the regions. Our study therefore provides new data that helps us to better understand whether the concept of jeitinho is uniform or divergent across the country in its normativeness and whether there are differences in the reported likelihood to use or report jeitinho.

In addition to any geographic differences, sociodemographic differences may be important to consider. To what extent are some groups more or less likely to endorse a sociocultural construct such as jeitinho or see it as more or less representative of the typical behavior of Brazilians? Given that it is considered a social problem-solving strategy, different demographic groups may have different resources available to them that may make the use more or less necessary or desirable. The aforementioned study by Almeida (2007) reported educational differences in classification tasks, with Brazilians with higher levels of formal schooling classifying the scenarios more frequently as corruption compared with individuals with less formal education. Almeida also found that younger Brazilians were more critical and classified situations more frequently as corruption compared with older participants. However, when asked if jeitinho is morally right or wrong Almeida’s data shows that older and more educated participants tend to consider jeitinho as more morally unacceptable compared to younger and less educated participants. Therefore, higher education may be associated with a greater propensity to label jeitinho related behaviors as corrupt and morally wrong. In contrast, younger individuals were both more morally lenient about jeitinho but also more likely to judge ambiguous scenarios as corruption rather than jeitinho proper.

Social psychological investigations that differentiated the jeitinho components (Ferreira et al., 2012) suggested that higher levels of income were positively associated with the endorsement of social norm breaking scenarios. In contrast, less education was associated with more endorsement of the creativity dimension. This suggests that education may shift behavioral strategies, with more highly educated individuals daring to use more socially abrasive strategies, whereas less educated individuals preferring to use creative means of solving problems that may be less likely to disrupt social relations. Hence, these patterns suggest some resource and social status related differences in the usage of jeitinho.

In summary, the historical, sociological, and psychological research seems to suggest substantive within-cultural variability within Brazil and distinct interpretations and usages of jeitinho might be possible. These findings nevertheless are not uniform and do not align with both the central cultural identity element of jeitinho (see Fischer et al., 2014) nor the many common elements, such as a unified government, a consolidated democracy, and a common language, which have been shown to increase cultural homogeneity (Minkov & Hofstede, 2011; Peterson et al., 2018). Therefore, we do not propose specific hypotheses but rather present an open-minded exploration of possible regional and demographic differences in jeitinho behavior, using two distinct scales. As outlined above, exploring culture-specific phenomena can enrich psychological understanding of human behavior by providing a more fine-grained analysis of locally relevant and meaningful behavior and contributing to discussions of the meaningfulness of national boundaries for cultural phenomena.

Method

Participants

A total of 1259 participants responded to an online survey (790 females: 63.15%; 461 males: 36.85%; eight individuals identified as “other”). The mean age was 36.2 years (SD = 13.42). A total of 616 participants were single (51.76%), 474 were married (39.83%) and 100 were either separated or widows (8.40%). Among our participants, 452 respondents (36.75%) had children. Summing up all the income in the household, the total income varied between R$678.00 and R$7000. The modal income was R$5000-6000 (231 responses, 19.54%), the mean and median income was R$3000-3500 (approximately US$538 to US$627 using the current exchange rate). For education, 121 individuals (9.6%) had completed at least high school, 413 individuals (32.8%) had university degree and 694 individuals had post-graduate education (55.1%) and 31 (2.5%) did not respond to the education question. Concerning the geopolitical regions our sample was composed of 395 participants from Midwest, 391 from the Southeast, 243 from the Northeast, 101 from the South, and 29 from the North. Unfortunately, 100 participants did not inform their state of residence.

Our sampling was based on chain-referral sampling (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981) and a non-probabilistic snowball sampling (Browne, 2005). This method optimizes the time vs cost trade-off and can be used to reach large samples that would otherwise be unavailable (Baltar & Brunet, 2012). Participation was completely voluntary, and participants did not receive any material compensation or prize for their participation in the research, therefore, our sampling did not unduly influence responses based on a material reward. Sampling seeds (approximately 100 individuals were contacted) were based on convenience. Links to the online survey were distributed via private and group messages in social media channels (Whatsapp and Facebook) and individuals were invited to distribute the links through their personal channels, thus identifying potential new participants and contributing to an exponential growth of the sample size. However, it is important to interpret results in relation to population that has been reached (Eysenbach, 2004).

In order to estimate our sampling efficiency, we compared our sample to the last available census data (Brasil, 2010). Our sample overrepresented the Midwest and underrepresented the Southeast, South, and Northeast, which are the principal population centers in Brazil. The small group of respondents from the North was in line with census data. Our sample was more educated than would be expected, the census data showed that only 7.1% of the Brazilian population have completed a university degree. The modal monthly income according to 2010 census data was R$596.20 to R$2384.80 (about US$104.60 to US$418.32; 34% of the census population reported this income bracket). In the Brazilian population, female constituted 51% of the population and 47% of Brazilians were single. Therefore, similar to other online surveys and the previous studies that compared regional variation in Brazil, our sample was biased toward females, more educated, higher income, and single participants. Our sampling also underrepresented the large population centers in the country, but the proportion of respondents from the North was in line with expectations.

Measures and Procedures

All measure and study materials were presented in Brazilian Portuguese, because this is the only official language of the country.

Personal Jeitinho Scale

We included a short version of the personal jeitinho scale (Miura et al., 2019) which measures behavioral aspects of jeitinho similar to personality traits. The scale uses a 6-point response scale varying between 1 (does not resemble me) to 6 (resembles me a lot). The specific items for Jeitinho Simpático were: “keep a pleasant social climate,” “creative at work to solve problems,” “offers help to others at work,” and “others feel loved around this person.” For Jeitinho Malandro (Trickery), these items were included: “entry to an event without payment because person knows owner,” “lying to obtain something,” “calling in sick on Monday because feeling tired from the weekend,” and “switches phone off when somebody will call & later claims that battery ran out.” Internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha was .57 and omega was .58 for Jeitinho Malandro and alpha was .71 and omega .72 for Jeitinho Simpático. The supplement reports additional analyses with shortened scales.

Brazilian Jeitinho Questionnaire

We used a short version of the questionnaire (Ferreira et al., 2012), which consists of scenarios that describe an actor solving a problem by using creativity, social norm breaking or corruption. Creativity scenarios describe situations in which the characters use creative solutions to solve a problem without violating a social or legal norm. Corruption scenarios involve descriptions of strategies that include illicit means (bribes, overcharging, etc.). Social Norm Breaking scenarios focus on strategies that bypass social norms. Participants responded on a 0 to 10 scale whether the behavior was deemed as completely characteristic of Brazilians (10) or not (0). The middle point was not labeled, but the response scale was formatted in a way that it implied “moderately characteristic.” Internal consistency estimates were similar to previous studies (Creativity alpha = .51, omega = .53; Corruption alpha = .86, omega = .86; Social norm breaking alpha = .85, omega = .86). The study was conducted between April 17 and May 17, 2016. The data collection was performed online using the EFS Survey software (www.unipark.de). All data is available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/mue2y/?view_only=c2d2dbd6a7f24427bc33616255ff3950).

Results

Confirmatory Factor Structure in the Total Sample

Our first aim was to confirm the structure of the jeitinho measures. We ran a confirmatory factor analysis using full information maximum likelihood (ML) estimation (script available on the OSF: https://osf.io/mue2y/?view_only=c2d2dbd6a7f24427bc33616255ff3950). The overall model fit was adequate: X² (df = 142) = 499.42; CFI = .96, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .044, SRMR = .043. An estimation of the factor loadings suggested that one of the Jeitinho Malandro items (“entering an event without paying”) and one of the Creativity scenarios (“Birthday Joana’s friend”) did not load as highly as the other items on their respective factor (see Table 2). In the supplement, we report analyses of the regional differences with these two items removed. The main results of no significant differences across regions remained unchanged with these two items removed.

Table 2.

Factor loadings of the joint CFA analysis (PJS and BJQ) using the full sample.

Item Description	Estimate	Std. Err	z	p<	R Square
Item Description	Factor loadings
Jeitinho Simpático (PJS)
Keep a pleasant social climate	.76	.04	19.83	.001	.34
Creative at work to solve problems	.67	.04	15.37	.001	.22
Offers help to others at work	.76	.03	23.19	.001	.46
Others feel loved around this person	1.03	.04	25.82	.001	.57
Jeitinho Malandro (PJS)
Entry to an event without payment because person knows owner	.46	.06	8.32	.001	.09
Lying to obtain something	.81	.05	15.11	.001	.30
Calling in sick on Monday because feeling tired from the weekend	.80	.05	16.10	.001	.34
Switches phone off when somebody will call and later claims that battery ran out	1.08	.07	15.67	.001	.33
Creativity (BJQ)
Birthday Joana’s friend	.52	.06	8.08	.001	.08
Marilia auxiliar	.90	.06	15.71	.001	.39
Motoboy Tampinha	.92	.06	15.31	.001	.36
Corruption (BJQ)
Flavio realtor	1.23	.04	31.34	.001	.58
Manuel worker	1.31	.04	32.14	.001	.60
Paulo and the insurance	1.40	.04	33.57	.001	.64
City councillor and construction material	1.23	.04	31.65	.001	.59
Social norm breaking (BJQ)
Marina and the supermarket	1.21	.04	33.52	.001	.63
João’s teacher	1.20	.04	33.27	.001	.63
Camila and the parking slot	1.18	.04	27.65	.001	.48
Eduardo and the show’s tickets	1.20	.03	34.86	.001	.67

We then tested a single jeitinho factor, by loading all items on a single factor. The fit was significantly worse: X² (df = 152) = 2242.01; CFI = .73, TLI = .69, RMSEA = .104, SRMR = .10. A two-dimensional model in which we forced items from the instruments to load on instrument-specific factors also did not fit well: X² (df = 151) = 1302.12; CFI=.85, TLI = .83, RMSEA = .08, SRMR = .08. As the social norm breaking and corruption aspects correlated quite highly, we also estimated a model in which these two latent factors were collapsed. The model fit was approximating the five-factor structure, but still fitted somewhat worse and below commonly acceptable thresholds: X² (df = 146) = 655.55; CFI=.93, TLI = .92, RMSEA = .052, SRMR = .048. Finally, we tested whether two broad simpatia/creativity vs social normbreaking/corruption/trickery factors may fit our data. Again, the fit was suboptimal: X² (df = 151) = 1305.46; CFI = .85, TLI = .83, RMSEA = .077, SRMR = .081. Therefore, the five-factor structure presented the best fit to our data.

Table 3 shows the descriptive information and the intercorrelations of these scales in the full sample. The correlations between the jeitinho components suggested that the Jeitinho Simpático and Jeitinho Malandro were weakly, but significantly negatively correlated.

Table 3.

Means, standard deviations, and correlations with confidence intervals.

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4
1. Jeitinho Simpático (PJS)	5.65	0.95
2. Jeitinho Malandro (PJS)	2.21	1.04	−.07*
			[−.12, −.01]
3. Creativity (BJQ)	5.15	1.13	.24**	.06*
			[.18, .29]	[.00, .11]
4. Corruption (BJQ)	5.04	1.40	.03	.12**	.13**
			[−.02, .08]	[.07, .18]	[.07, .18]
5. Social norm breaking (BJQ)	5.63	1.30	.07**	.14**	.22**	.78**
			[.02, .13]	[.09, .20]	[.16, .27]	[.75, .80]

Note. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively. Values in square brackets indicate the 95% confidence interval for each correlation. * indicates p < .05. ** indicates p < .01.

Furthermore, Jeitinho Simpático was positively related to Creativity scenarios, but also weakly and positively to Social Norm Breaking scenarios. Jeitinho Malandro was positively related to both Corruption and Social Norm Breaking scenarios. The two more negatively valenced jeitinho scenario types were strongly positively correlated, suggesting that Social Norm Breaking and Corruption are perceived highly similarly in this sample. The important question now is whether these perceptions vary across the major administrative regions of the country.

Measurement Invariance Across Four Brazilian Regions

First, for statistical reasons we excluded the 29 participants from the North for the invariance analyses. In the supplement, we report the analyses including the North region, which showed similar results. We ran a configural fit model and tested whether all the items loaded on the designed factor across regions as expected. Overall, the fit was adequate: X² (df = 568) = 1026.40, CFI = .93; TLI = .92; RSMEA = .053; SRMR = .054. Therefore, configural invariance was met.

We next constrained the factor loadings to be identical across the four regions. Even though the ΔΧ² test was significant (p = .045), it is well known that it is sensitive to sample size. The AIC and BIC were smaller for the more restricted model (AIC = 72,337; BIC = 73,473) vs the less restricted model (AIC = 72,362; BIC = 73,710), the overall fit statistics were adequate (CFI = .93, TLI = .92, RMSEA = .053; SRMR = .058) and the difference tests for CFI, TLI, and RMSEA were within the .01 change limit. Therefore, the individual items loaded equally on the respective factors, implying that individuals interpreted the items in the same way.

We next tested whether the intercepts were significantly different between the four regions. This test of scalar invariance suggested that scalar or full score invariance was met by our data. First, the ΔΧ² test was not significant (p = .41), the individual fit measures were adequate: CFI = .93, TLI = .92, RMSEA = .053 and SRMR = .058 and the difference tests were within the .01 limit. This is an important first result of our investigation—the interpretation of jeitinho dimensions do not qualitatively differ across the country and it is possible to directly compare mean differences across the regions in our sample.

Test of latent Mean Differences Between the Four Administrative Regions of Brazil

The finding of full score equivalence allowed us to examine whether there are latent mean differences between the regions. A model in which we restricted the latent means to be equal across the four administrative regions suggested adequate model fit. The ΔΧ² test was significant (p = .044), but the other fit indices overall suggested relatively good fit: CFI = .93, TLI = .93, RMSEA = .051, and SRMR = .060. There was a slight deterioration in fit when examining the SRMR only (change was .01, deteriorating from 0.059 to 0.060 for the more restricted model with equal factor means). Therefore, the evidence for latent jeitinho differences between the four regions was minimal.

A test of Variance Estimates Across the Five Brazilian regions.

Even though the latent mean analysis did not suggest significant differences between the regions, we were interested in quantifying the relative difference (independent of whether it is statistically significant or not). We therefore ran a multi-level model which allows an estimation of the variance in responses that can be attributed to administrative region (vs. individual differences). In this analysis, we included the Northern region of the country.

For Jeitinho Malandro, the variance estimate was 0.00775 (.8%), for Jeitinho Simpático it was 0.0035776 (.4%), for the three jeitinho scenarios factors of BJQ (Creativity, Social Norm Breaking, and Corruption), the variance estimate was virtually indistinguishable from zero. Therefore, these effects further supported that regional differences were empirically small or absent. One of the interesting observations in this regard is that the regional variability for the normative scenarios that asked whether these behaviors are typical of Brazilians showed virtually no variability at all between regions. This suggests that there is a strong intersubjective consensus on the normativity of these three jeitinho components across the regions. We found some small differences for the questions where people had to respond whether the behaviors describe them (or not). But these differences were miniscule compared to the overall variability in the data.

Demographic Correlates of Jeitinho Responses.

We finally ran a series of regressions in which tested whether age, gender, income, education, civil status, and whether an individual had children correlated with reported jeitinho behaviors. In this analysis, we also included dummy variables for the five administrative regions (see Table 4).

Table 4.

Summary of the multiple regression results.

	JS (PJS)		JM (PJS)		Creativity (BJQ)		SNB (BJQ)		Corruption (BJQ)
Predictor	b	95% CI	b	95% CI	b	95% CI	b	95% CI	b	95% CI
Intercept	5.13**	[4.84, 5.41]	2.85**	[2.55, 3.15]	5.00**	[4.68, 5.32]	5.98**	[5.61, 6.34]	5.58**	[5.19, 5.97]
Northeast	0.05	[−0.11, 0.21]	0.16	[−0.01, 0.33]	−0.09	[−0.27, 0.09]	0.02	[−0.19, 0.22]	−0.01	[−0.23, 0.21]
North	0.26	[−0.10, 0.62]	−0.03	[−0.41, 0.36]	0.15	[−0.26, 0.56]	−0.01	[−0.47, 0.46]	0.24	[−0.27, 0.74]
Southeast	0.12	[−0.02, 0.26]	0.16*	[0.00, 0.31]	0.12	[−0.04, 0.28]	0.14	[−0.05, 0.32]	0.12	[−0.08, 0.32]
South	0.06	[−0.16, 0.28]	−0.09	[−0.32, 0.14]	−0.22	[−0.47, 0.03]	−0.14	[−0.42, 0.14]	0.05	[−0.25, 0.35]
Females	0.18**	[0.06, 0.30]	−0.08	[−0.21, 0.04]	0.10	[−0.03, 0.24]	0.30**	[0.15, 0.45]	0.24**	[0.08, 0.41]
Age	0.00	[−0.00, 0.01]	−0.02**	[−0.03, −0.01]	−0.00	[−0.01, 0.01]	−0.02**	[−0.03, −0.01]	−0.03**	[−0.03, −0.02]
Income	0.02	[−0.01, 0.04]	0.02	[−0.01, 0.04]	−0.00	[−0.03, 0.02]	0.02	[−0.01, 0.06]	0.01	[−0.03, 0.04]
University degree	0.03	[−0.17, 0.23]	0.15	[−0.07, 0.36]	0.26*	[0.03, 0.49]	0.13	[−0.13, 0.38]	0.22	[−0.06, 0.50]
Post-graduate	0.03	[−0.18, 0.23]	−0.01	[−0.23, 0.20]	0.26*	[0.03, 0.49]	0.14	[−0.12, 0.40]	0.18	[−0.11, 0.46]
Married	0.08	[−0.08, 0.24]	−0.22*	[−0.39, −0.05]	−0.17	[−0.35, 0.01]	−0.06	[−0.27, 0.14]	−0.09	[−0.31, 0.13]
Separated	−0.09	[−0.35, 0.17]	0.03	[−0.24, 0.31]	−0.07	[−0.37, 0.22]	−0.01	[−0.34, 0.32]	−0.11	[−0.47, 0.25]
Children	0.10	[−0.07, 0.28]	0.09	[−0.09, 0.28]	−0.00	[−0.20, 0.20]	0.04	[−0.19, 0.26]	0.06	[−0.18, 0.30]

Note. A significant b-weight indicates the semi-partial correlation is also significant. b represents unstandardized regression weights. * indicates p < .05. ** indicates p < .01.

JS–Jeitinho Simpático; JM–Jeitinho Malandro; SNB–Social Norm Breaking

For Jeitinho Simpático behaviors, the only significant result was that females reported significantly higher sympathy behavior compared to males. None of the other variables were statistically significant. Overall, 3.33% of the variance was explained by all the variables included.

For Jeitinho Malandro, we found a significant effect for age—older individuals were less likely to report behaving in this way. We found a significant effect of being married, married individuals were less likely to report these behaviors compared to singles. When accounting for the demographic differences, we also found a significant effect for region, individuals in the Southeast were more likely to report this behavior compared to the Midwest of the country. This effect disappeared when excluding the lowest loading item (results available in the supplement). All together 10.06% of the variance was explained by all the variables combined.

For Creativity scenarios, individuals with higher education overall indicated that these behaviors were more typical for Brazilians. Individuals who were married thought that this jeitinho behavior was slightly associated with Brazilians (p = .067). Nevertheless, these indicators together only explained 2.06% of the variance in these perceptions.

For Corruption scenarios, females thought that this behavior was more typical of Brazilians, whereas older individuals thought that this was less typical of Brazilians. No other effects were approaching significance. Together, the variables explained 6.91% of the variance perceptions.

Finally, for Social Norm Breaking scenarios, similar results as for corruption were found. Females were more likely to report that the behavior in these scenarios is typical for Brazilians, whereas older individuals thought it was less typical. A total of 6.37% of the variance was explained in this regression model.

Discussion

The existence of cultural problem-solving strategies so far has been associated with national and ethnic boundaries, for example, guanxi is a typical Chinese concept, whereas pulling strings is a typical behavior of the English. Yet, both in-depth historical and anthropologically oriented research as well as cultural psychology have suggested that national cultures are often complex and significant regional variations can exist. Building on previous work that suggested both historical and contemporary differences across regions in Brazil, our aim was to study whether participants across the country a) understand jeitinho in the same way (a question of factorial invariance) and b) whether there are both sociodemographic and regional differences in the reported normative representativeness and use of jeitinho. Using two previously developed jeitinho measures, the Personal Jeitinho Scale and the Brazilian Jeitinho Questionnaire, we found that the structures of both measures were stable across Brazilian regions, and no practically meaningful differences in the means across the administrative regions within Brazil. We nevertheless found some demographic differences which were aligned with findings from previous study (Almeida, 2007; Ferreira et al., 2012; Miura et al., 2019). Overall, the evidence of a robust multi-dimensional structure of jeitinho highlights the stability of the construct from a psychometric perspective. It also brings to the fore that this cultural construct is multi-faceted but understood in similar ways across Brazil. These patterns are relevant both theoretically as well as politically given the current discussions of the role of jeitinho during the socio-economic and politic crisis of Brazil. We discuss these points in turn.

First, jeitinho is a multi-dimensional construct which can be reliably measured. Jeitinho has been at the forefront of political discussions in recent years. For example, one of the Brazilian High Court judges cited psychological work on jeitinho when discussing the political situation and the sociological structure of the country (Barroso, 2020). The topic continues to attract significant attention by political commentators and pundits (Oliveira and Lima, 2020; Barroso, 2020). Previous multinational studies have used relatively simple unidimensional conceptualizations of jeitinho, typically in line with the social norm breaking component (Smith et al., 2012a; Smith et al., 2012b). The current studies demonstrates that it is necessary to distinguish the different components within the larger construct as they are empirically distinct and individuals across the country can reliably differentiate these components. At least two major dimensions consistently appear across different measures, a relationship oriented interpersonal and creative component and a social norm breaking and possibly corrupt behavioral component. Future research needs to pay greater attention to what aspect of jeitinho is being studied, as the results may vary depending on the specific component. Politically, it is also important to introduce greater nuance into the political and economic debate when discussing the possible roles of jeitinho.

One important avenue for future research is to examine how concepts such as jeitinho align with other cultural characteristics, such as the concept of Latino simpatia. Simpatia is defined as a preference to interact in a warmth and emotionally positive way, and to avoid overt conflict (Acevedo et al., 2020). Research on simpatia has a rich history in cultural and cross-cultural psychology, demonstrating the centrality of this concept across several Latin American cultures (Triandis et al., 1984). Simpatia may show some similarities with the Jeitinho Simpatico dimension but lacks the goal-driven problem-solving focus as Simpatia is conceptualized as a broader relationship construct. Therefore, the Brazilian concept seems to include some cultural-behavioral features that are common across a wider set of Latin cultures, but in this case, they are employed for a specific purpose of solving some social problems and the culture-specific concept forms a more complex cultural syndrome involving other behavioral components that do not form part of Simpatia. Further research should explore the differences and similarities between the two constructs and other cultural characteristics.

In terms of the lack of regional differences, our findings are not aligned with previous studies reporting regional differences in culturally relevant values and behaviors across Brazil (Almeida, 2007; Hofstede et al., 2010). We did not find such differences when using two distinct instruments focusing on both normative perceptions and personal endorsement, which reinforces the argument that jeitinho is a cultural syndrome widely recognized by Brazilians as a defining, even though complex, feature of the national identity (Fischer et al., 2014). Even when we take in account the complex colonization history of the country’s five geopolitical regions (Ribeiro, 1995), the reproduction of structural inequalities across all regions appears to make jeitinho a relevant behavioral adaptive response and has become a stable representation of problem-solving behavior. This aligns with psychological conceptualizations of jeitinho as informal problem-solving strategies (Miura et al., 2019), as individuals confront these historically maintained bureaucratic and rigid institutional structures, generating a mutual understanding of how to work the system to keep life (and business) going. As might be expected (see Ferreira et al., 2012; Miura et al., 2019), the morally loaded trickery component was less highly endorsed compared to relationship oriented simpático component. Furthermore, our results suggest individuals perceived that the three normative scenario components are somewhat typical of Brazilians (with means slightly above the midpoint of the scale). This highlights that it is important to test thick ethnographic descriptions with psychological, behavioral, and perceptual data.

The demographic differences further underline the hypothesis that jeitinho behavior is strategically used to overcome problems, with the utilization depending on the perceived power of individuals within the system and individuals’ life experiences. Jeitinho is an informal problem-solving strategy, a type of cultural game strategy that all individuals within the culture take part in (Yamagishi et al., 2008). Considering Brazil is an unequal economic environment for its citizens, jeitinho seems to be a tool that facilitates navigation in a complex, bureaucratic and unequal social fabric in which gender, marital status, and age have a small but significant amount of influence on how individuals employ these strategies.

Putting these findings into the context of within-cultural variability, the meaningfulness of national borders for cultural psychology versus the challenges to focus on local variability raised by geographic psychology, our findings suggest that we need to pay more attention to the functionality of behavior at the individual level. What may matter more for cultural syndromes such as jeitinho is the position of the individual within the social system, not so much where the individual may be living geographically.

Limitations

Our sample cannot be considered representative of the Brazilian population. Although internet penetration via social media apps is high, our recruitment strategy did result in a sample that represented the wider sociodemographic variation within the country. In many ways, our sampling strategy is an improvement of the typical student samples used in psychological research. However, future studies exploring the shared cognitive representation of jeitinho should aim for more sociodemographic, political, and regional representativeness. A second limitation is that we relied on self-reports. Jeitinho may be seen negatively, and individuals may be reluctant to report that they engage in some of these behaviors (see Ferreira et al., 2012). Some of our findings may be less affected by such social desirability effects, notably the BJQ which includes scenarios and asks whether the behavior is representative of a group (e.g., Brazilians). Nevertheless, observational studies and unobtrusive data collections of actual behavior differences would be highly desirable.

Conclusions

To the best of our knowledge, we report the first within-cultural exploration of a cultural problem-solving strategy like jeitinho. We believe that in-depth explorations of culturally specific behavioral syndromes are a key factor for broadening and deepening our understanding of human psychological phenomena. Reporting on within-cultural variations in a large non-Western country, we contribute to recent discussions of cultural boundaries as well as providing new perspectives on thick descriptions of culture from a psychological perspective, which hopefully moves us forward and beyond the much-noted limitations of psychological research being concentrated in highly specific and culturally unusual places.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-ccr-10.1177_10693971221086818 – Supplemental Material for An Exploration of Within-Cultural Differences of a Culture-specific Syndrome: The Case of Brazilian jeitinho

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-ccr-10.1177_10693971221086818 for An Exploration of Within-Cultural Differences of a Culture-specific Syndrome: The Case of Brazilian jeitinho by Ronaldo Pilati and Ronad Fischer in Cross-Cultural Research

Footnotes

Author Contributions

All authors developed the study’s design and data collection; Ronald developed the data analysis; Ronaldo drafted the article. All authors revised and produced the final version of the present manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded by a grant to the first author from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (number: 302414/2019-3) and from the University of Brasilia (DPG/DPI 02/2021).

ORCID iDs

Ronaldo Pilati

Ronald Fischer

Author Biographies

Ronaldo Pilati is Associate professor of Social Psychology. Research interests in social cognition and jeitinho, dishonest behavior, prosocial behavior, morality, and scientific reasoning.

Ronald Fischer is Professor in Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, NZ and Researcher in the Neuroscience Unit at Institute D'Or for Research and Teaching, Brazil. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society NZ Te Aparangi and the Association for Psychological Science. His work focuses on cultural and evolutionary dynamics.

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