C. Harry Hui

Individualism-Collectivism A Study of Cross-Cultural Researchers

Individualism and collectivism are terms used by both social scientists and the public, but there are few systematic studies of this dimension. A sample of psychologists and anthropologists from all parts of the world was asked to respond to a questionnaire the way they believe an individualist and a collectivist would respond. The questionnaire described 10 target persons in seven situations. The responses converged, suggesting that there is consensus about the meaning of the dimension. Accordingly, collectivism can be defined as (1) concern by a person about the effects of actions or decisions on others, (2) sharing of material benefits, (3) sharing of nonmaterial resources, (4) willingness of the person to accept the opinions and views of others, (5) concern about self-presentation and loss of face, (6) belief in the correspondence of own outcomes with the outcomes of others, and (7) feeling of involvement in and contribution to the lives of others. Individualists show less concern, sharing, and so on than collectivists. The approach can be used with other relatively unstudied constructs to establish whether there is consensus among researchers about the meaning of a construct.

Effects of Culture and Response Format on Extreme Response Style

Do cultural and ethnic groups differ in their extreme response style? To answer this question, Hispanic and non-Hispanic subjects were asked to respond to a questionnaire on 5-point or 10-point scales. As predicted, Hispanics were found to exhibit a stronger tendency for extreme checking (about half the time, on the average) than non-Hispanic, but only when the 5-point scales were used. Use of 10-point scales reduced the extreme responses of the Hispanics to the level of non-Hispanics. Extreme responses of non-Hispanics were not affected by the scales. Implications of the findings for social research are discussed.

The measurement of the etic aspects of individualism and collectivism across cultures

The dimension of individualism-collectivism, as identified by Hofstede (1980), was studied using items developed both theoretically and emically in nine diverse cultures. The dimension was found to be analysable into four stable etic factors: Individualism had two aspects (Separation from Ingroups and Self-Reliance with Hedonism) and collectivism had two aspects (Family Integrity and Interdependence with Sociability). These four factors are orthogonal to each other. The location of nine cultures on these four factors was used to compute a “collectivism” score which correlated r = + · 73 with Hofstedes (1980) collectivism scores for the nine cultures. This approach enables the measurement of individualism-collectivism in each culture as well as across cultures, and shows that different methods for measuring individualism-collectivism converge.

Individualism-Collectivism and Pyschological Needs: Their Relationships in Two Cultures

Two studies were conducted to examine the relationship between the dimension of individualism versus collectivism and psychological needs. In the first study Chinese subjects in Hong Kong completed an Individualism-Collectivism Scale and the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule. Collectivism was found to be positively related to the needs for affiliation, succorance, abasement, and nurturance and negatively related to the needs for autonomy, deference, and heterosexuality. In the second study, American subjects in Illinois responded to several scales from the Personality Research Form, (PRF) and a collection of items constructed to measure collectivism. A factor labeled Self-reiliance Versus Interdependence held significant correlations with the autonomy need. It was negatively associated with needs for abasement, affiliation, nurturance, succorance, and desirability, as measured by the PRF. The similarity of correlational patterns observed among Hong Kong Chinese subjects and Illinois subjects suggested that there was some generality in the findings.

A Method for Determining Cultural, Demographic, and Personal Constructs

A theoretical distinction is made between cultural, demographic, and personal constructs. The utility of the distinction is illustrated. Taking advantage of the shared aspect of culture, a method is presented that extracts a shared element of subjective culture from cultural samples. The method is illustrated with data concerning values obtained in Illinois and Hong Kong. The method converges with other methods of measurement of values, but has distinct advantages they do not possess. The illustration shows considerable agreement between Illinois and Hong Kong on most values, but also a few large discrepancies indicating extreme modernity in Hong Kong.

Individualism-Collectivism An Empirical Study of a Conceptual Issue

Individualism-collectivism emerges from the literature as a high-order concept, explaining cross-cultural differences over a wide range of situations, with collectivists more inclined than individualists to provide for others. The present study challenges this conceptualization. Not only the readiness to support others (input) but also the expectation to receive support (output) has to be taken into account. Subjects in Hong Kong, Turkey, Greece, The Netherlands, and the United States (New York State) completed a questionnaire asking how much support they expected to receive from and give to persons in a range of social categories. Results showed that (a) the ratio between input and output as well as (b) the patterning of input and output over social categories were similar in all samples. Ratings of emotional closeness that were also obtained could account for most variance between social categories. The findings fit an interpretation of cross-cultural differences in terms of specific patterns of interpersonal relationships.

Perceived Language Proficiency and Person Perception

A group of native Mandarin Chinese speakers listened to tapes of six American females speaking in Chinese as their second language and evaluated each speaker on a set of 22 traits. Another group of native Chinese speakers listened to the same tapes and evaluated the six speakers on areas of Chinese language proficiency. The trait evaluations were then correlated with the language evaluations. Evaluations of 8 of the 22 traits showed significant correlations with evaluations in every language area. In contrast, seven other traits showed no significant correlations with any language area. Listening order significantly affected ratings on 12 of 22 traits. The results indicate two distinct groups of traits. One group is the traits that the trait judges somehow associated with language proficiency. In evaluating these traits, the judges depended on cues of language proficiency. The other group is the traits that apparently the trait judges evaluated independently of spoken language proficiency.