The historical impetus of psychology toward experimentation as a source of causal explanations has fostered a neglect of social and environmental context as a key determinant of both feelings and behavior. This neglect has been a cause for concern, both at the level of individual personality (M. H. Bond, 2013; Mischel, 1977) and in terms of the limited and highly distinctive cultural contexts within which the great majority of psychological investigations continue to be conducted (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). To gain a full understanding of issues related to personality, we need sampling of the broadest possible set of social contexts. While studies conducted in different parts of the world did provide an initial set of challenges to ethnocentric descriptions of personality, more substantive progress was dependent upon the development of adequate conceptual frameworks for describing cultures and the ways in which they vary from one another. The present chapter explores the utility in this respect of the dimension of individualism-collectivism, as first defined by Hofstede (1980).
We commence by outlining the way in which Hofstede identified and measured this construct as an attribute of national cultures and note the ways in which it has become a popular explanatory construct. We then examine nation-level relations between individualism and dimensions of personality. In the third section, we focus on studies that have sought to identify individual-level attributes relevant to individualism-collectivism. However, we follow Hofstede in restricting use of individualism-collectivism to descriptions of cultural groups, preferring other terms to describe self-construals, in order to avoid confusions between levels of analysis. In the concluding sections, we explore prevalent identities within individualistic and collectivistic contexts and the contingent issues that arise when migrants move from one national culture to another.
Hofstede’s (1980) identification of the dimension of individualism-collectivism was made possible by the availability of a large database derived from an attitude survey of IBM employees in many nations. Curious as to why responses from different nations varied so markedly, he hit upon the possibility of averaging individuals’ responses to each item within each nation’s data, and then conducting a nation-level factor analysis of the resulting item means. After controlling for variation across nations in the distribution of occupations and subdividing his first factor—which comprised content associated with both individualism-collectivism and power distance—this procedure yielded four dimensions of variance between the 40 nations and three regions for which he had data. He subsequently repeated his analysis with data from 50 nations and three regions. Hofstede described this procedure as an ecological-level analysis and reasoned that the ways in which items factored together would not necessarily be the same as found in individual-level analyses. A nation-level analysis represents the extent to which responses to particular items descriptive of nations cluster together across nations rather than across individuals.
Hofstede named his four dimensions of difference between national cultures as power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and masculinity-femininity. Scores for power distance were positively correlated with those for collectivism, but he chose to define each as a separate dimension in light of the differing items defining them. The items defining individualism-collectivism were ratings evaluating desirable aspects of one’s job. Nations scoring high on individualism had strong loadings on having “personal” time, freedom, and challenge. Nations scoring high on collectivism had stronger loadings on use of skills, good environmental conditions, and opportunities for training. Hofstede reasoned that these latter items imply dependence on others, and therefore exemplify aspects of collectivism. Later commentators (e.g., Smith, Fischer, Vignoles, & Bond, 2013) have noted the tenuous connection between the items defining this dimension and the ways in which Hofstede himself and numerous other authors (e.g., Triandis, 1995) have conceptualized individualism-collectivism as a dimension of culture. Despite these concerns, individualism-collectivism has proved much more influential in guiding the subsequent development of cross-cultural psychology than the other dimensions identified by Hofstede.
There are four plausible reasons why this may have happened. Firstly, the contrast between person and group is so fundamental to lay understandings of everyday life that it achieves ready acceptance. Secondly, nation-level scores for individualism-collectivism fit with conventional expectations that “Western” nations, particularly the United States, differ from those in other parts of the world. Thirdly, scores for individualism-collectivism correlate significantly with a wide variety of independent indices, even after controlling for differences in national wealth (Hofstede, 2001; Kirkman, Lowe, & Gibson, 2006; Taras, Kirkman, & Steel, 2010). Finally, subsequent large-scale research projects for which more adequate measures of individualism-collectivism have been developed have yielded scores that correlate strongly with those obtained by Hofstede (e.g., House et al., 2004), even though the data were collected in different decades and the samples were not closely equivalent.
These types of empirical validation of the concept of individualism-collectivism leave to one side the questions of how one might best define culture and cultural differences and how such differences may relate to personality. Hofstede (1980) proposed that his set of dimensions referred to the “collective programming of the mind,” which generates and sustains social norms as well as the structure and functioning of societal institutions. His dimension scores as first formulated are therefore not directly relevant to the analysis of individual-level phenomena. In terms of the person-situation debate, the individualism-collectivism dimension defines a class of situations within which individual behaviors are enacted, but did not at first address directly how persons and their situational contexts might affect one another. Hofstede (2001) somewhat revised this position, noting that “The central element in this programming in this case is the self-concept” (p. 210). As we shall explore within this chapter, later authors have proposed that particular cultural contexts tend to elicit specific types of self-construals and identities and that these identities can explain the ways in which individuals accommodate to the contexts within which they are located.
While Hofstede thus now sees a linkage between individualism-collectivism and the prevalence of particular types of self-construal, the actual measures used by him to define this dimension both initially and up to the present day (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010) are measures of value preferences in relation to work. Triandis (1995) proposed that individualism-collectivism was best considered as a multifaceted syndrome, encompassing distinctive types of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors. More recently, Brewer and Chen (2007) recommended distinguishing elements of individualism that are based upon self-representations, elements that are based on beliefs about the world, and elements that express values about what one should aspire to attain. It is desirable to measure each of these elements separately and to determine the degree to which they are associated with each other.
The measures of individualism-collectivism employed by House et al. (2004) comprised descriptions of the behaviors of others and of values concerning desired behaviors of others. Their nation-level measure of perceived behaviors characteristic of in-group collectivism correlated strongly with Hofstede’s scores, whereas their values measure did not. This supports the view that it is desirable to separate the different elements of individualism-collectivism, rather than assuming them to be positively correlated with one another. However, debate continues as to the types of measurement errors inherent in the measurement procedures used by Hofstede and by House et al., as well as to whether it is more desirable to base characterizations of individualism-collectivism on self-reports, on reports of the perceived behavior of others (Hofstede, 2006; Javidan, House, Dorfman, Hanges, & Sully de Luque, 2006), or on objective indices (Vandello & Cohen, 1999). Self-reports can lack validity if respondents differ in the baselines against which they choose to compare their preferences (Heine, Lehman, Peng, & Greenholz, 2002). Perceptions of the behaviors of those in large groups such as nations, however, may be influenced by stereotypic thinking. The choice of an optimal measure may depend upon the specific focus of a given study (Smith, 2006).
Cross-national surveys of values have yielded nation-level dimensions that are conceptually similar to individualism-collectivism. One such dimension has been defined in terms of embeddedness versus autonomy (S. H. Schwartz, 1994, 2009; see also Schwartz, Volume 2, Chapter 5 in this book set). Nation-level scores on this dimension of values correlate with Hofstede’s scores for collectivism at .61 (n = 57). Similarly, a nation-level measure of survival versus self-expression values has been identified among responses to the World Values Survey and also correlates strongly with collectivism scores (Inglehart & Oyserman, 2004). Owe et al. (2013) have developed a measure of contextualism, which they define as the belief component of individualism-collectivism. Contextualism is the belief that to understand an individual’s actions, it is necessary to have information about their social context. Using nation-level averages of individual data from adults within each of 35 nations, this measure correlated with House et al.’s measure of perceived behaviors characteristic of in-group collectivism at .54 (n = 21), and with Hofstede’s collectivism at .39 (n = 28). Measures based on aspects of language usage such as omission of first-person pronouns are also found to correlate with Hofstede scores for individualism-collectivism (Kashima & Kashima, 1998). Thus, continuing caution is required in specifying which particular aspects of individualism-collectivism have been tapped in any study under discussion. Measures based upon values correlate more strongly with one another than with measures based on beliefs or on perceived behaviors.
Cross-national survey responses in all the studies discussed above are likely to be affected by differences in response style because respondents in cultures where norms favor modest self-presentation make distinctively more use of scale midpoints than those in cultures where norms favor robust self-presentation (Smith, 2011). Indices of acquiescent response derived from different large-scale cross-national surveys show substantial correlation with one another and are highest in nations characterized by House et al. as high on in-group collectivism behaviors (Smith, 2004). Hofstede (1980) addressed this problem by making a within-nation standardization of averaged item means before he conducted his nation-level factor analyses. His scores for individualism-collectivism are therefore free of the effects of response style, although some critics argue that this type of standardization eliminates variance that is substantive rather than artifactual (Fischer, 2004). S. H. Schwartz (2009) uses a similar standardization procedure. Owe et al. (2013) discounted acquiescent responding by using balanced sets of positively worded items, some favoring high contextualism and others favoring low contextualism. Each of these procedures provides enhanced assurance of the validity of nation-level means.
The initially accidental and relatively easy availability of scores characterizing differences between nations has led to a strong tendency within the literature to equate national differences with cultural differences. However, there remains an empirical question as to the extent to which individuals’ actions are guided by the national context in which they are located, rather than by the more proximal contexts of cultures defined by region, ethnicity, occupation, social class, and family. Each of these contexts can also be characterized in terms of individualism-collectivism, and some progress has been achieved in that direction. For instance, U.S. states are found to differ in terms of characteristics relevant to individualism-collectivism (Vandello & Cohen, 1999), as are subnational groupings used by marketers within Western Europe (van Herk & Poortinga, 2012), work teams within multinational businesses (Kirkman & Shapiro, 2001), and community groups (Realo, Allik, & Vadi, 1997).
The definition of cultures in terms of nation-level dimensions implies the existence of a substantial degree of consensus within each nation as to its salient qualities, even though some individuals may maintain alternative viewpoints. More recent multilevel analyses have revealed much greater individual-level variance than nation-level variance both in terms of personality dimensions (van Hemert, van de Vijver, Poortinga, & Georgas, 2002) and of value dimensions (Fischer & Schwartz, 2011). Any nation-level influences on individual behaviors are therefore much more likely to be due to attributes of subcultures within one’s national culture that individuals perceive to be normative rather than to explicit requirements based directly on nation-level consensus. What are probably most salient are the incentive structures inducing individualistic or collectivistic behaviors within one’s local communities (M. H. Bond, 2013).
Mean differences in Big Five personality traits across national cultures are discussed in Volume 1 of this book set. Our concern here is with examining the extent and meaning of the nation-level relationship between Big Five personality factors and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, particularly individualism-collectivism. Four datasets are available: NEO self-reports from 36 nations (McCrae, 2002), peer descriptions of others using NEO scales from 51 nations (McCrae et al., 2005), short-form Big Five self-report data from 56 nations (Schmitt, Allik, McCrae, & Benet-Martínez, 2007), and Occupational Personality Questionnaire self-report data from 31 nations (Bartram, 2013).
Allik and McCrae (2004) used multidimensional scaling of 30 NEO facet scores derived from the self-report data of McCrae (2002) to define two dimensions summarizing similarities and differences between national means. The first dimension, which was principally defined by high neuroticism, correlated significantly with Hofstede scores for uncertainty avoidance. The second dimension, which was principally defined by high extraversion and openness, correlated significantly with high individualism and low power distance. As Allik and McCrae note, caution is required in considering whether these effects are substantive, rather than attributable to artifacts such as cultural differences in response style.
Replications using differing measurement instruments provide one way of addressing this issue. Responses to NEO items are vulnerable to the possibility that respondents may vary in the baseline against which they judge whether they engage in particular behaviors rarely or frequently. Bartram’s (2013) OPQ has a forced-choice format, so that respondents necessarily make judgments as to the frequency of each of their behaviors relative to their other behaviors. Across 32 nations, Bartram replicated the association of neuroticism with high uncertainty avoidance and of extraversion with individualism. No effects were found for openness, but additional associations were found between individualism and conscientiousness as well as low neuroticism.
These results give somewhat stronger confidence that there are significant nation-level differences in personality between nations in terms of the profile for individualism-collectivism. However, none of the reported associations between personality and individualism-collectivism was replicated across all four of the published datasets (Bartram, 2013; McCrae, 2002; McCrae et al., 2005; Schmitt et al., 2007). This could be partly due to sampling of different nations within each study. In none of these studies was the number of nations overlapping with those sampled by Hofstede greater than 31. There may also be differences across the four studies in measurement instrument content and validity, since none of them included tests of measurement invariance. Among all the dimensions identified by Hofstede, the only relationship with the personality dimensions that was replicated across all four datasets was that between neuroticism and uncertainty avoidance.
Hofstede and McCrae (2004) wrote separate sections of their joint paper, debating the meaning of the differences reported by Allik and McCrae (2004). McCrae emphasized the genetic basis of personality, arguing that cultural groups high in neuroticism will be tense and irritable. Over time, he predicted that such groups will evolve cultural adaptations favoring regulation and stability, which would be sustained by values favoring uncertainty avoidance. He also noted that those whose personalities showed poor cultural fit would be more likely to emigrate and less likely to have progeny, thus enhancing cultural distinctiveness over time. In contrast, while Hofstede conceded some genetic component of personality, he noted the magnitude of variability in personality within nations. He argued that persons of a given personality would need to learn to present themselves in ways that are congruent with prevailing cultural values and norms. Consistent with this view, McCrae, Yik, Trapnell, Bond, and Paulhus (1998) found that among Chinese immigrants to Canada, scores on agreeableness and openness were closer to those of native-born Canadians the longer the immigrants had been in Canada.
The evidence for association of nation-level differences in personality with individualism-collectivism and Hofstede’s other dimensions of cultural variation is thus suggestive rather than compelling. A wider range of measures as well as tests of measurement invariance will be required before a clearer picture can be established. Elimination of NEO items found to be problematic even across a three-nation sample has been found to attenuate the differences that are found (Church et al., 2011). An alternative way to gain a fuller picture may be to explore the reported incidence across nations of personality-related mood states and behaviors that are associated with individualism-collectivism.
A central aspect of a collectivist culture is that one’s enduring group memberships are more salient than one’s individual choices and personal qualities. This suggests that personality traits may be more strongly predictive of behavior in individualistic cultures. A belief in contextualism gives less weight to traits as an explanation of behavior and therefore should be more strongly predictive in collectivist cultures. Church et al. (2012) employed a forced-choice measure contrasting beliefs that one’s behavior is dependent on personal traits versus a belief that it is dependent on circumstances. Belief in the traitedness of one’s behaviors was stronger than belief in contextualism across all four nations sampled, but was significantly stronger in the United States as an exemplar of individualism than in Mexico, Philippines, and Japan as exemplars of collectivism. This is consistent with the findings of Owe et al. (2013) noted earlier, showing contextualism to be associated with collectivism across 35 nations. Belief in the traitedness of one’s behavior implies some degree of resistance to social influence. Consistent with this logic, a meta-analysis of 134 studies employing the Asch (1956) line judgment task found greatest conformity within collectivist nations, after controlling for all other sources of variance (R. Bond & Smith, 1996).
Substantial variance in mood states across nations has been reported. Across 163 nations, recent mean scores for subjective well-being range between three and eight on 10-point rating scales (Diener & Tay, 2015). In earlier studies, Diener, Diener, and Diener (1995) reported equally large variations and showed that mean subjective well-being was positively correlated with national wealth, high individualism, and low corruption. As these indices are themselves correlated with one another, some care is required in distinguishing their respective contributions and their linkage with nation-level differences in personality. The relationship between individualism and well-being was sustained even after controlling for national differences in wealth. Given the association between individualism and well-being, the meta-analysis by Steel and Ones (2002) is also relevant. These authors found strong correlations between high subjective well-being and nation-level means for high extraversion and low neuroticism, both when measured with the Eysenck Personality Inventory and with Big Five measures. Furthermore, when nation-level variations in wealth were controlled, extraversion and neuroticism still explained significant additional variance.
Fischer and Boer (2011) conducted a series of meta-analyses intended to distinguish the relative contribution of wealth and individualism to nation-level indices of mood states. As a measure of individualism, they used scores on S. H. Schwartz’s value dimension of autonomy versus embeddedness. As indices of well-being, they sampled studies with measures of general health, of anxiety, and of burnout. Each analysis showed individualism to be a stronger predictor than wealth, and the authors concluded that the association between wealth and positive indicators may occur only because nations that are wealthy become more individualistic. Within national contexts that are more individualistic and more traited, there is a greater likelihood that personality factors will be associated with variations in subjective well-being.
As the material reviewed in the preceding sections has shown, the impetus toward analyzing cultural differences at the level of national differences initiated by Hofstede (1980) has proved a fruitful one. However, studies of nations as cultural contexts cannot fully illuminate the ways in which culture and personality interact. Many researchers have seen the need also to identify individual-level expressions of individualism and collectivism, and this perspective is explored in the next section.
The view that individuals will tend to think of themselves in different ways in cultural contexts that are more individualistic or more collectivistic was pioneered by Markus and Kitayama (1991). Drawing primarily upon prior studies conducted in Japan and the United States, they proposed a contrast between cultures in which individuals would construe themselves as relatively independent of others and cultures in which individuals would see themselves as relatively interdependent with close others. Within their model, self-construal and culture are seen as reciprocal aspects of a given context that is best understood in terms of its consequences, which are expressed as differing cognitive processes, differing motives, and differing types of emotion. Self-construal is seen as a tacit process that does not lend itself to direct empirical measurement (Markus & Kitayama, 2010).
Frequent attempts have nonetheless been made to develop valid and reliable measures of the extent to which individuals construe themselves as relatively independent or interdependent with others. The attractiveness of doing so lies in the possibility that measures of self-construal can be used to test hypothesized explanations of observed differences between samples drawn from nations that are individualistic or collectivistic. Nations differ in numerous respects and tests for mediation of a given effect by measures of self-construal can substantially narrow the range of alternative explanations (Smith et al., 2013).
Initial attempts to measure self-construal treated it as a trait-like entity, with separate scales tapping independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal. The most frequently used measure (Singelis, 1994) was shown, for instance, to mediate sample differences in self-reported embarrassment both at the individual level and between cultural samples (Singelis, Bond, Sharkey, & Lai, 1999). However, later studies have shown that the scales do not achieve adequate reliability in some samples and that they often do not yield a simple two-factor solution (Cross, Hardin, & Gercek-Swing, 2011; Levine et al., 2003).
There are several possible explanations of these difficulties. Firstly, the measures developed by Singelis (1994) and others make no correction for cultural differences in survey response styles such as acquiescence and extremity, which are known to vary across national cultures (Smith, 2004). Secondly, respondents to self-construal scales from different cultures may make different assumptions as to who to compare themselves with, thereby generating scores that cannot be validly compared (Heine et al., 2002). Thirdly, independence-interdependence may not be unidimensional, just as has proved to be the case for individualism-collectivism at the nation level (Brewer & Chen, 2007). We consider these problems in turn.
Most measures of self-construal have failed to include items keyed positively and negatively in comprising the overall measure. A consequence of this omission has been that attempts to summarize the results (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002) have concluded that at the individual level, independence and interdependence are positively correlated with one another, even though individualism and collectivism are opposed to one another at the nation level. Controlling individual-level self-construals for acquiescence in the way that nation-level researchers such as Hofstede (1980) and S. H. Schwartz (1994) have done shows that as would be expected, independent and interdependent self-construals are either negatively correlated or unrelated to one another, depending on which measure is used (Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2005).
Survey respondents asked to describe aspects of themselves are liable to make judgments relevant to their immediate context. Thus, somewhat independent respondents located within an individualistic culture might judge themselves to be not very independent, while the same persons within a more collectivistic culture might report themselves to be very independent. It is preferable to overcome this problem by asking respondents to rate the relative salience of different aspects of themselves, as S.H. Schwartz et al. (2001) have done.
The use of experimental primes has provided clear evidence that self-construals can vary, even over short time periods (Oyserman & Lee, 2008). It is preferable to think of self-construal as a state rather than as a trait. Furthermore, the ways in which people think about themselves at different times and in different places is only very broadly encompassed by the concepts of independence and interdependence (Realo et al., 1997). Self-construals can encompass specific identities defining one’s position in relation to a variety of different groups and can vary in the aspects of identity that are emphasized. For instance, Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge, and Scabini (2006) posited six identity motives: self-esteem, continuity, distinctiveness, belonging, efficacy, and meaning. Each of these can find expression in different ways in relation to individualism-collectivism, as we discuss in a later section.
Persons’ willingness to describe themselves in particular ways may indeed differ depending on whether one is located within individualistic or collectivistic cultural contexts. If a key element of collectivism is maintenance of appropriate bonds with those persons around one, different identities will be required in different contexts. Consistent with this view, Cousins (1989) found Japanese more able than Americans to describe themselves when a context was specified, whereas Americans found it easier to describe themselves when no context was specified. English and Chen (2007) found greater differentiation of self-descriptions across situations among Asian Americans than among European Americans, even though self-descriptions in any given situation remained consistent over time. Those in collectivist cultures are more context sensitive.
The various threats to measurement validity outlined in the preceding sections indicate the need for measures that can more adequately tap aspects of self-construal relevant to individualism and collectivism. Using data from adults within 35 nations, Vignoles et al. (2015) have developed a measure that distinguishes self-reliance, self-direction, self-containment, and difference from others as aspects of independence and personal variability, harmony and commitment to others as aspects of interdependence. To address the problem of acquiescence, some items within each scale are keyed toward one end of the scale and others are keyed toward the alternate end of the scale. To enhance comprehension, no items include negations. Nation-level means for these scales show convergent validity with prior measures of individualism-collectivism (Hofstede, 1980; House et al., 2004; Owe et al., 2013; S. H. Schwartz, 2009). These measures provide a basis for more precisely targeted studies concerning interactions between individual dispositions and cultural context. An additional way forward would be to give fuller attention to objective indices of nation-level individualism-collectivism (Morling & Lamoreaux, 2008; Vandello & Cohen, 1999). However, for the present we are dependent upon the use that has been made of prior measures.
The availability of individual-level measures of self-construal makes it possible to examine the relationship between cultural context and individual dispositions. Three approaches have been explored: In the first, self-construals have been seen as more salient and more consistent in some contexts than in others, so that their association with personality-related measures is moderated by prevailing levels of individualism-collectivism. In the second, the prevalence of particular patterns of self-construal have been predicted to mediate the relationship between individualism-collectivism and various dependent measures. In the third, identities have been regarded as universal, but likely to be fulfilled in different ways in different cultural contexts.
The earliest study to have included data from a sufficient number of nations to make this examination possible was based on measures that are not directly linked with independent and interdependent self-construals. Diener and Diener (1995) computed individual-level correlations between single-item measures of self-esteem and of overall life satisfaction within each of 31 nations. The correlations were positive in all samples, but they were significantly stronger in more individualistic nations. The magnitude of the correlation between satisfaction with one’s friends and life satisfaction was also stronger in individualistic nations, but no such effect was found when satisfaction with family was the predictor. Diener and Diener explain this aspect of their results in terms of the greater salience of an individualistic need for self-esteem within individualistic cultures. Oishi (2000) examined the relation between four measures of self-construal (Triandis, 1995) and a five-item measure of life satisfaction among college students from 39 nations. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that the relationship between independent self-construal (described by Oishi as horizontal individualism) and life satisfaction was significantly stronger in more individualistic nations, whereas the other three measures of self-construal showed no significant effects.
Schmitt and Allik (2005) administered the 10-item Rosenberg self-esteem scale to students in 53 nations. Self-esteem, whether measured with positively or negatively keyed items, was consistently correlated positively with extraversion and negatively with neuroticism. No tests were made in this study as to whether the magnitude of these correlations varied in terms of cultural context. However, after controlling for variations in sample size, we computed a correlation of r = .38 (p < .05) between Hofstede scores for individualism and the extraversion-esteem correlation. Similarly, the correlation of neuroticism with self-esteem is significantly stronger in the more collectivistic samples (r = .42; p < .01). Nation-level means for total self-esteem were unrelated to individualism-collectivism. Thus, rather than thinking of cultural differences in terms of variations in need for self-esteem, it may be more fruitful to think in terms of differing bases for self-esteem in different contexts (Becker, Vignoles, et al., 2014). Schmitt and Allik also computed a measure of the variance in self-esteem ratings across items. Low variance on this measure, reflecting consistency in how one thinks about oneself, was named meta-traitedness. Nation-level meta-traitedness correlated significantly with individualism, consistent with the results of Church et al. (2012) and Owe et al. (2013) discussed previously.
We noted previously the findings of Singelis et al. (1999) that individual-level measures of independent versus interdependent self-construal mediated sample-level differences in self-reported embarrassability. Similar mediation effects have been reported for differences between European-Americans and Asian Americans in stress control strategies (Lam & Zane, 2004), differences between Chinese and American students in preferred vacation spots (Zhang & Mittal, 2007), preferred closeness of family in Canada and Turkey (Uskul, Hynie, & Lalonde, 2004), conversational constraints in the United States, Korea, and Japan (Kim et al., 1996), and conversational indirectness in the United States, South Korea, and China (Sanchez-Burks et al., 2003). Each of these studies contrasted samples identified in Hofstede’s (2001) measures as differing strongly in individualism-collectivism.
Numerous other studies showing that self-construals do predict a wide variety of dependent measures have been reported (Cross et al., 2011), including sensitivity to context, socially engaging versus socially disengaging emotions, individual versus social motivations, aspects of self-enhancement and self-regulation, and direct versus indirect communication. Many of these studies were conducted within one or just two nations, and those that sampled more widely have not always tested for mediation. Further studies have been reported that have tested for mediation effects and failed to find them (e.g., Kitayama, Park, Sevincer, Karasawa, & Uskul, 2009; Oetzel et al., 2001). Given the psychometric weaknesses of most of the self-construal scales that have been employed, it remains unclear to what extent individual-level measures can help account for sample-level differences. Prerequisites for greater clarity include much wider sampling of cultures, more adequate individual-level measures, and greater specification of the ways in which individual- and sample-level effects may be related to one another (Smith et al., 2013).
Vignoles et al. (2006) proposed that six motives to sustain one’s identities are relatively universal. Wishes for self-esteem, continuity, distinctiveness, belonging, efficacy, and meaningfulness can all be salient, but the ways in which they can be fulfilled will be moderated by cultural context. Becker et al. (2012, 2014) have reported cross-cultural tests of reported identities in relation to individualism-collectivism. Their position differs from that of the self-construal researchers whose work has been outlined in the preceding section. In the view of Becker et al., identities are contingent on the cultural contexts within which one is located, more than on the basis of one’s individual attributes.
Becker et al. (2012) explored this perspective, focusing on the need for distinctiveness among high school students from 19 nations. Respondents were asked to provide 10 brief self-descriptions, using a format similar to the Twenty Statements Test (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954). They next rated each of these statements for its relative importance to their overall identity, as well as for the extent to which it provided them with distinctiveness. They also made further ratings of how much each self-description gave them a distinctive social role, made them different from others, and made them separate from others. Wish for distinctiveness was found not to be stronger in individualistic cultures, as many interpretations of individualism-collectivism might lead one to expect. Within the present data set, the need for distinctiveness was in fact stronger in collectivistic cultures. Within more collectivist cultures, distinctiveness was found to be significantly associated with having a distinctive social role, whereas in more individualistic cultures, distinctiveness was significantly associated with being different and being separate from others. Thus, the study contrasted collectivistic ways of being distinctive from individualistic ways of being distinctive. These effects were found to depend on differences between samples in collectivistic values and contextualist beliefs, not on differences in individual-level values and beliefs, thus emphasizing the cultural basis of identity.
Becker et al. (2014) made a similar study of the need for self-esteem, using the same sample of high school students from 20 nations. After providing 10 self-descriptions as described above, respondents made a series of ratings as to how much each one gave them a feeling of control in their life, how much it involved doing one’s duty toward others, how much others benefit from one’s being like that, and how much it increased one’s social status. All four of these hypothesized sources of self-esteem were important in all samples. Samples were characterized in terms of S. H. Schwartz’s (2009) value dimension of autonomy versus embeddedness, which parallels Hofstede’s dimension of individualism versus collectivism. Within the samples scoring higher on embeddedness, doing one’s duty was a significantly stronger source of self-esteem, whereas in samples scoring higher on autonomy, controlling one’s life was a significantly stronger source of self-esteem.
This study also involved a second data collection 5 months after the first data set had been provided. Longitudinal analyses showed that the Time 1 measures of the bases of self-esteem were significant predictors of Time 2 self-esteem. The differences between samples high on embeddedness and those high on autonomy were also sustained, providing stronger evidence of the causal direction between potential sources of self-esteem and experienced self-esteem. As in the preceding analysis by Becker et al. (2012), these results were found to be dependent on nation-level variations in values, not on values at the individual level. Thus, we need to look more closely at the role of collective contexts more generally in structuring relations between individuals. The remaining sources of identity postulated by Vignoles et al. (2006) have yet to be explored using the methods employed by Becker et al. (2012, 2014).
The work of Becker, Vignoles, and their colleagues demonstrates that people construct their identities in culturally appropriate ways in order to satisfy universal identity motives. A more specific question concerning individualism-collectivism and identity is whether the function and importance placed on social identities—identities that are rooted in people’s group memberships—vary systematically across cultures.
By far the most influential perspective concerning group identities within Western psychology is the social identity approach, comprising social identity theory (SIT; Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and self-categorization theory (SCT; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). SIT suggests that, when a particular group membership becomes contextually salient, people will define themselves as group members rather than as individuals. When this shift occurs, people become motivated to achieve a sense of positive distinctiveness for their social identities, that is, a perception that their own group is differentiated from other groups in a positive way, such as through holding a superior social status.
SCT (Turner et al., 1987) elaborated upon the cognitive processes involved when people define themselves as group members and thus identify with a group. According to SCT, the self-concept is extremely fluid and can vary from moment to moment and across contexts. At any given moment, people will be more likely to define themselves as group members if (a) the differences among members of the in-group are perceived to be less than the differences between members of the in-group and an out-group, known as comparative fit, (b) the behaviors or attributes of the individuals match one’s prior expectations about the behaviors or attributes of the relevant groups, known as normative fit, and (c) their goals, motives, attitudes, and past experiences support defining the self and others using the relevant group memberships, known as perceiver readiness. Importantly, when these considerations are in place, SCT proposes that people perceive themselves as interchangeable exemplars of a homogeneous social category, and intergroup differences are accentuated. The social identity approach has been extensively investigated and supported within Western cultures, but few researchers have investigated group identities across different national cultures.
Accordingly, one might expect the social identity approach to be more applicable in collectivistic rather than individualistic cultures, given the importance of group memberships, relationship harmony, and in-group loyalty within collectivist cultures. However, research findings suggest that cross-cultural differences in the perceptions and functions of groups are more nuanced than this hypothesis. For example, in a study of Chinese and British Hongkongers during the British handover of Hong Kong to China, M. H. Bond and Hewstone (1988) found that Chinese Hongkongers identified more strongly with their in-group than did British Hongkongers, but that they also showed much less intergroup differentiation, perceiving greater similarity between themselves and the out-group and being more friendly toward the out-group. This suggests that groups are important to the identities of members of collectivistic cultures, but that the motive for positive distinctiveness, a core premise of SIT, may not be as powerful within collectivistic cultures. Supporting this view, Yamagishi, Mifune, Liu, and Pauling (2008) found lower levels of in-group bias among Japanese than New Zealanders, and Heine and Lehman (1997) reported weaker positive bias among Japanese than Canadian respondents when evaluating their family members and universities.
However, under certain conditions, members of collectivistic cultures do show stronger levels of in-group bias than members of individualistic cultures. Y.-R. Chen, Brockner, and Katz (1998), for example, assessed in-group and out-group evaluations after manipulating both individual and in-group success or failure on a task. They found that U.S. respondents evaluated their in-group much more negatively than Chinese respondents after they were told they had succeeded as an individual but that their in-group had failed, whereas Chinese respondents maintained their positive in-group evaluations under these conditions. This suggests that U.S. respondents were more likely than Chinese respondents to distance themselves from poorly performing groups of which they are members, whereas Chinese respondents instead showed group loyalty by sticking by their in-group even when the positive distinctiveness of their group was threatened.
These studies endorse Triandis’ (1989, 1995) proposal that members of collectivistic cultures tend to have relatively few but highly stable and influential group memberships, whereas members of individualistic cultures tend to belong to numerous social groups that have permeable and often overlapping boundaries. It follows that, when the positive distinctiveness of a group is threatened, members of individualistic cultures can choose to dissociate themselves from the group and shift their self-definitions and allegiance to another of the many available group memberships (Ellemers, 1993). In this sense, members of individualistic cultures have more fluid social identities and can define themselves using a range of social identities across different contexts. Members of collectivistic cultures, however, are highly embedded within their existing groups (S. H. Schwartz, 1994) and have very few opportunities to change their group memberships. They must show loyalty toward their groups and conform to its standards (R. Bond & Smith, 1996) because expulsion can lead to isolation and the removal of the benefits associated with group membership, such as a heightened sense of agency (Menon, Morris, Chiu, & Hong, 1999).
Schug, Yuki, and colleagues (Schug, Yuki, Horikawa, & Takemura, 2009; Schug, Yuki, & Maddux, 2010) term these cultural differences in the availability of opportunities to form new connections relational mobility and have shown that this accounts for several important differences in the attributes and functions of groups and relationships across cultures. For example, they found that relational mobility accounted for their finding that the friendships of U.S. respondents were based more on similarity than those of Japanese respondents (Schug et al., 2009). Relational mobility also accounted for the finding that U.S. respondents were more likely to disclose personal information to a valued friend, a behavior motivated by a desire to strengthen the relationship (Schug et al., 2010). They argue this is because individuals in contexts with high relational mobility must invest more effort in maintaining their highly valued relationships and group memberships in order to discourage others from leaving, something which is rarely a possibility when relational mobility is low.
In Japan, a culture characterized by low relational mobility, Schug, Yuki, and colleagues argue that people have little opportunity to change groups. They cannot, therefore, choose to join groups that provide them with a sense of greater positive distinctiveness or whose members are similar to themselves. Instead, members value their groups and relationships depending upon how harmonious and reciprocally helpful they are. Supporting this argument, Yuki (2003) found that group status was a predictor of group loyalty and identification only for their U.S. respondents. Their Japanese respondents, however, reported a sense of national loyalty to the extent that they felt they understood their intragroup relational structure (Yuki, 2003). Furthermore, Yuki and colleagues found that Japanese respondents trusted an out-group member with whom they had a potential indirect link just as much as an in-group member (Yuki, Maddux, Brewer, & Takemura, 2005), whereas U.S. respondents trusted in-group members more than out-group members regardless of any potential indirect links. This suggests that reciprocal relationships are important in contexts characterized by low relational mobility.
Groups within individualistic cultures tend therefore to be relatively homogeneous, are based upon member similarity, and have permeable group boundaries through which members can easily enter and leave. Individuals within individualistic cultures tend to more readily identify with a range of groups and hold highly fluid social identities, and are more likely to be attracted to and define themselves with a social identity that is positively distinguished from other groups.
In contrast, groups within collectivistic cultures tend to have well-defined boundaries through which it is very difficult to enter or leave. Group membership is therefore relatively static. Groups are also less homogeneous and are based more upon the harmony and reciprocity of the interpersonal relationships of the members rather than the similarity between them. Group members invest their loyalty and trust in their fellow group members and are more willing to sacrifice their personal wants for the group, resulting in groups that are highly agentic (Menon et al., 1999). Identification, therefore, is more strongly based upon intragroup processes rather than the extent of intergroup differentiation offered by their social identity.
Although research implies the existence of these differences in the function and importance of groups and social identities for members of individualistic versus collectivistic cultures, most studies have been limited to bicultural comparisons, with very few sampling cultures other than the United States, Japan, and, in some cases, New Zealand, United Kingdom, or China. Because of this, we have virtually no understanding of the function and importance of groups and social identities in Africa or South America, and only a very limited grasp of this in East Asian cultures other than Japan and China. There have also been no investigations of social identities that have taken advantage of techniques such as multilevel modeling or social network analysis to address these issues. For example, multilevel analyses of data from a range of cultures could directly test the comparative strength of positive distinctiveness motivations associated with social identities, and social network analyses could illuminate the permeability of group boundaries across cultures by analyzing the patterns of interpersonal influence within and between groups. One area of fruitful research that may help to enrich our understandings of personality and identity has investigated what happens to immigrants who leave one country and begin living in another, beginning the process of acculturation.
The preceding sections make the conventional simplifying assumption that cultural groups are relatively fixed entities. However, the scale of contemporary migration, both from rural locations to urban locations and from nation to nation, requires increasing explicit attention. Short-term travel for purposes such as tourism and business is quite often from more individualistic cultures to collectivistic cultures. In contrast, longer term contemporary migration, both within and between nations, is predominantly from the more collectivist cultures of Asia, Africa, and Latin America toward the more individualist cultures of Europe and North America. Classic definitions of the process of acculturation envisage changing culture patterns among both migrants and host cultures (Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits, 1936). Despite this duality of potential influence, the majority of research studies have targeted change in the identities, behaviors, and outcomes of migrant groups alone.
While contrasts can be made between different modes of acculturation, all migrants must inevitably accommodate to their new cultural contexts to some extent as well as retain some aspects of their prior identities. Where circumstances are favorable, substantial personality change can be involved. McCrae et al. (1998) investigated the reason why Big Five scores for Chinese in Canada differed from those in Hong Kong. Using bicultural respondents, they established that the differences were not due to differences in survey translation. While the profile of recently migrated Chinese was similar to that for nonmigrant Chinese, McCrae et al. found migrant personality increasingly similar to the profile of European Canadians among those who had been resident in Canada for a longer period. Most notable were increases in openness, extraversion, and agreeableness. These differences could not be explained in terms of migrants learning to respond to the NEO-PI-R in different ways, because equivalent changes were found when peer ratings were used: Canadian Chinese raters rated one recently migrated Chinese and one long-term Chinese, both of whom they knew well. So, the Chinese immigrant experience in the individualistic culture of Canada involves accommodation to Canadian norms on some, but not all dimensions of personality, since conscientiousness and neuroticism showed no change.
Berry (1997) has championed the view that acculturation is best seen as a process of acquiring additional identities, rather than as a process of losing one’s identities of origin, and adopting identities that are more concordant with those appropriate to one’s new context. Retention of one’s existing identities along with development of new identities is defined by him as integration. In contrast, loss of one’s preexisting identities and development of new ones is named as assimilation, simple maintenance of old identities is labeled as separation, and loss of both identities is termed marginalization. While there is continuing controversy as to how best to measure these modes of acculturation, it appears that integration is associated with most positive outcomes, while assimilation is superior to separation and marginalization (Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2013; Sam & Berry, 2010). However, the effect sizes are small, suggesting the need for attention to additional sources of influence on outcomes. Although personality differences may influence individuals’ choice of acculturation mode (Kosic, 2006), it is more likely that variations in outcome have to do with varied host contexts, and ambiguities in the way in which integration has been conceptualized and measured. We consider these issues in turn.
Successful migrant acculturation is likely to be strongly dependent on the attitudes of hosts toward the arrival of migrants within their community. Attitudes toward minorities will depend on the degree of perceived difference of the “other.” For instance, Montreuil and Bourhis (2001) found that French Canadians favored integration for French immigrants, but assimilation, segregation, or exclusion for Haitians. Dutch respondents have been found to use perceived social status as the basis for an ethnic hierarchy, favoring integration of higher status groups (those of Caribbean origin) and assimilation or segregation of lower status groups (those from Morocco and Turkey) (Schalk-Soekar, van de Vijver, & Hoogsteder (2004).
Minority and majority preferences also vary between different domains. In relation to Turkish immigrants to the Netherlands, Dutch natives favor integration both at work and in their home life. In contrast, while Turkish immigrants favor integration at work, they prefer separation in their home life (Arends-Toth & van de Vijver, 2003). Thus, in this and similar cases, migrants experience contrasting pressures toward alternate identities. Studies of this type that reveal contrasting attitudes of migrants and hosts indicate that acculturation can fruitfully be considered in terms of theories of intergroup relations (S. J. Schwartz, Vignoles, Brown, & Zagefka, 2014). More or less adaptive forms of acculturation will be dependent on whether migrant and host preferences concur, and on the separate types of factors, such as domains of life, influencing each of their attitudes.
At least among those populations that have been most studied to date, majority group members are typically from cultures defined by Hofstede as individualistic. Immigration has the potential to pose real or imagined threats to the distinctiveness and continuity of their personal and national identities. Such threats can include widespread use of alternative languages, particularly in the United States, and adherence to Muslim religious practices, particularly in Europe. The way in which majority identities can link with rejection of migrants can also vary widely. For instance, Pehrson, Vignoles, and Brown (2009) distinguished nations in which national identity is conceptualized in terms of language and ancestry (e.g., Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark) from nations in which national identity is conceptualized in terms of citizenship (e.g., Canada, Israel, and New Zealand). Prejudice against migrants was lower in citizenship nations and where identification with one’s nationality was lower. Crucially, the relationship between individuals’ identification with their nation and prejudice was moderated positively in language and ancestry nations and negatively in citizenship nations.
Within most nations, minority group members are drawn predominantly from collectivist cultures. They are particularly likely to experience threats to their self-esteem, since their prior social roles and work qualifications may be discounted, and threats to their need for group membership, since they are required to strive for individual recognition. Consistent with the predictions of SIT (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), they can be expected to engage in individual mobility, social competition, or social creativity. Individual mobility can involve attempts to achieve assimilation to higher status or majority groups. Social competition can involve seeking ways to enhance the status of one’s minority group. Social creativity can involve the creation of autonomous ethnic enclaves within major cities, in ways that minimize contact with the majority culture. This range of options indicates that more fine-grained distinctions may be required to gain a clear understanding of the circumstances yielding differing types of acculturation outcomes.
While integration as defined by Berry (1997) may be predictive of successful outcomes, this term does not capture adequately the way in which it entails the retention within the migrant of two alternate identities, better described as biculturalism. The differing social contexts faced by migrants in the course of everyday living require some degree of biculturalism even among those who opt predominantly for assimilation or separation. Benet-Martínez, Leu, Lee, and Morris (2002) proposed that the degree to which biculturals’ alternate identities are integrated with one another is a key component of successful migrant outcome. This is particularly likely to be important among migrants of collectivist heritage.
Benet-Martínez et al. (2002) measured bicultural identity integration (BII) of Chinese in the United States by asking a series of questions, such as whether they perceived themselves as Chinese living in America or as Chinese Americans. In an experimental study using priming, they showed that respondents high in BII responded to a U.S. prime by making the internal causal attributions that are more typical of Americans and to a Chinese prime by making external causal attributions more typical of Chinese. In contrast, low BII respondents reacted defensively, consistent with Benet-Martínez et al.’s expectation that the primes would be experienced as a threat to their uncertain identities. They responded to a U.S. prime by making more external attributions and to a Chinese prime by making more internal attributions.
In further studies, Mok, Morris, Benet-Martínez, and Karakitapoglu-Aygun (2007) have confirmed that high BII respondents have networks of friends of varying ethnicity, many of whom also know each other, whereas low BII respondents have two separate networks of friends, many of whom do not know each other. S. J. Schwartz et al. (2015) conducted a longitudinal study to determine whether BII was best thought of as a trait-like quality or as a developmental construct. Over a 3-year period, recent Hispanic adolescent migrants to the United States consistently scored either high or low on BII. High BII respondents reported significantly more positive outcomes, such as higher self-esteem, greater optimism, and more positive ratings of family relationships. In a study of Chinese immigrants to Hong Kong, S. X. Chen, Benet-Martínez, and Bond (2008) also found high BII to be associated with more positive outcomes, even after controlling for differences in neuroticism and self-efficacy. Thus, BII retains its predictive validity even where the sampled migrants have moved from one collectivist culture to another collectivist culture. The studies to date indicate that BII holds much promise as an indicator of successful acculturation. It appears to be independent of fundamental personality attributes and to be quite rapidly established among recent migrants. The achievement of high rather than low BII may prove dependent upon the host cultural context within which migrants arrive, as noted in the preceding section.
The concept of individualism-collectivism has provided an important basis for the identification of major contrasts between differing cultural groups, particularly nations. While the association of nation-level personality dimensions with individualism-collectivism is modest at best, attempts to link individual-level attributes that are relevant to personality, such as self-construal, social identities, and biculturalism, with the cultural contexts in which they are expressed have proved more fruitful. The nation-level correlates of individualism-collectivism and their relation to national differences in wealth are interesting and provocative, but can generate only modest value unless they can be in some way “unpackaged” (Smith et al., 2013; Whiting, 1976) to identify more specific causal factors. Attempts to develop individual-level measures analogous to the contrast between individualism-collectivism have been plagued until recently by use of measures with insufficient measurement validity.
Even where we have such measures, they will not by themselves serve to explain cultural differences. Models are required that specify the ways in which cultural context and the expression of individual attributes channel one another (M. H. Bond, 2013). In this chapter, we have provided some instances of the way in which needs for distinctiveness and for self-esteem are differentially expressed within the national contexts of individualism and of collectivism (Becker et al., 2012, 2014). We have similarly noted the way in which group identities have differential significance dependent upon their location within an individualistic or collectivistic national context (Schug et al., 2009, 2010; Yuki, 2003; Yuki et al., 2005). No studies have been reported that examine directly the possible interactions between personality and how it is expressed in contexts that vary in individualism-collectivism. The study of McCrae et al. (1998) has identified personality change as a consequence of migration, but acculturation may also entail learning of how to be an extravert or how to be agreeable within a context that is individualistic rather than collectivistic. Improved measurement and more representative sampling will be required to explore interactions of these kinds more fully.
This chapter commenced by underlining the need for clear descriptions of the variation in contexts within which personalities are expressed. The dimension of individualism-collectivism has proved particularly valuable in this respect. It provides a key proximal descriptor of cultural differences that may well be contingent on distal causal factors such as climate and economy (van de Vliert, Chapter 5 in this volume) or pathogen frequency (Murray & Schaller, Chapter 4 in this volume). It also provides a basis for understanding the elicitation of contingent identities, self-construals, and adaptations of personality. The future lies in fuller exploration of interactions between these individual-level attributes and the nation-level contexts with which they occur.
We are grateful to Evert van de Vliert, Michael Bond, and Anu Realo for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.
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