I was talking with some Japanese people, when the topic of different cultures came up. One person said something pretty interesting. She was talking about the reasons behind action in different cultures:

Germans do things because it's commanded.
Americans do things because they want to be heroes.
Japanese do things because everybody else is doing it.

Naturally, I wanted to ask the question, "What if everybody was jumping off a cliff? Would you jump too?" But, perhaps wisely, I decided to hold my tongue.