Individualism And Collectivism

Introduction

Both Individualism (independence) and collectivism (interdependence) are social constructs that describes societies (Cross et al., 2010). An individualist is a person who places their needs before others (Cross, Hardin & Gercek, 2010). They are unique, outspoken (Dion & Dion, 1993) and tend to originate from the Western world (Fiske & Taylor, 1984). While a collectivist, prioritises the groups needs before his or her own, connected to their social context and tend to come from the Eastern world (Fiske et al., 1984). Such social constructs are very useful in understanding behaviour and motives, as they do determine them (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). On the other hand, researchers have found social constructs to be too simplistic, as countries are categorised, as either

Supporting evidence comes from Hemesath and Pomponio (1998), they analysed individual economic behaviour using the prisoner’s dilemma on Chinese and Americans and found that cooperation was higher amongst the Chinese, 54%, and lowest among Americans, 26%.

Social constructs are very useful because it gives an opportunity for researchers to analyse and understand behaviour in other cultures, as most empirical findings on behaviour is gathered from the west and behaviours are very Eurocentric. However, research that has been gathered are mostly from extreme contrasting societies, America and Asia (Fiske et al., 1984).

Further supporting evidence has found Asians to describe themselves with external traits such brother and sister whereas, Europeans and Americans are found to be more likely to describe themselves with internal traits such as, witty and friendly (Markus et al., 1991). These behavioural differences are again the result of Asia being a collectivist society whereas America and Europe are individualist