Individualistic cultures are characterized by individualism, which is the prioritization or emphasis of the individual over the entire group. In individualistic cultures people are motivated by their own preference and viewpoints. Individualistic cultures focus on abstract thinking, privacy, self-dependence, uniqueness, and personal goals. [1] The term individualistic culture was first used in the 1980s by Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede to describe countries and cultures that are not collectivist, Hofstede created the term individualistic culture when he created a measurement for the five dimensions of cultural values. [2]
People in individualistic cultures see each other as loosely connected and have a diverse population of different races, ethnicities, languages, and cultures. Individuals gain the most happiness from three key factors: personal satisfaction, internal happiness, and family satisfaction. [3] People living in individualistic cultures use direct communication, low-power distance communication, self-expression of emotions, and a variety of conflict resolution strategies.
There has been a global increase in individualism in the recent years and individualistic culture is on the rise in many countries around the world due to wealth and urbanization. [4] [5] Highly individualistic countries are often Western countries, like Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. [6] [7]
The rise of Individualistic culture is a result of the integration of diverse cultures. The migration and meeting of cultures on a global level flourish in countries with political ideologies that allow freedom of self expression. A fertile atmosphere of freedom encourages the individual in self pursuit of personal growth. [8] Individualistic culture has its focus on the individual mentality in society as opposed to the societal structure of the collective mentality. There has been much discussion about individualistic culture as opposed to a collectivism culture. One, the individualistic culture, promotes individualism or independent pursuits not associated with a group, while, in contrast, collectivism discourages the independence of the individual to develop a oneness of the masses with shared goals and ideology as in a group. Many thoughts and observations on individualism have been shared by noted intellectuals in philosophy, psychology and economics. In each of these schools of thought are Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Mises, [9] and Geert Hofstede. Among the 3 of these scholars Geert Hofstede is most notable. It was Hofstede's study of culture and society in various countries which resulted in the term "Individualistic Culture", as a concept of social psychology solely attributed to him.
Low-power distance includes power distance which is the degree to which unequal distribution of power is accepted and present in a culture. [10] Individualistic cultures are referred to as low-power distance cultures that contains a hierarchy system, that strives for equality, and rejects inequality. Low-power distance countries are Austria, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and South Africa. [11] Low-power distance countries challenge authority, encourage a reduction of power differences between management and employees, promote the distribution and use of power fairly, and focus on the unique skill of a person. [12] People in low-power distance cultures challenge social norms, are creative, and outspoken. [13] Though low-power distance cultures challenge authority, their appreciation of diversity allows people to perform better in group work than collectivist cultures. People from low-power distance cultures appreciate abstract thinking and combine their different opinions and ideas to work together and develop solutions to problems in group work. [14]
Low-Power Distance behavior, as a characteristic, is more evident and commonly associated with diverse cultural backgrounds. The rights of the individual take precedence over the collective, and instead, minimizes the juxtaposition of the power distance relationship in individualistic culture resulting in the Low-Power distance dimension as set forth by Geert Hofstede’s observations on cultural dimensions. [15]
Individualistic cultures tend to prioritize the individual person over the group, [16] and this can be seen in how the display rules vary from a collectivist culture compared to an individualistic culture. Display rules are the rules that exist in different cultures that determine how emotion should be displayed publicly. [17]
In an individualistic culture, self-expression is highly valued, making the display rules less strict and allowing people to display intense emotion such as: happiness, anger, love, etc. While in a collectivist culture, moderation and self-control is highly valued for the well-being of the group, and collectivist cultures therefore tend to restrain from showing emotion in public. [16]
In 1994 Ruth K. Chao, argued that "parenting styles developed on North American samples cannot be simply translated to other cultures, but instead must reflect their sociocultural contexts". [18] Many cultures have different styles of parenting and the dynamics those families are also different.
People from individualistic cultures usually look out for themselves and their immediate family only. [19] While people from collectivistic cultures look out for their community or group, as well as their family. Harald Wallbott and Klaus Scherer suggest that in cultures that are collectivist and high in power parents use real shame in their parenting styles. Whereas in individualistic cultures that are low in power, and are uncertainty-avoidance, shame more closely resembles guilt in their parent style. For example, in Asian collectivistic cultures shame is a highly valued emotional response. So much so, that in Japan, which is considered to be a collectivistic culture, many people commit suicide after dishonoring or bringing shame to their family or community.
One's cultural style can also interfere with work-family relationship dynamics between different cultures. In Shan Xu research he found that employees from more individualistic cultures are more sensitive to how their work interferes with their family life. [20] These employees are more concerned about their own individual family dynamics and structure. While people from more collectivistic cultures are more concerned about how their work provides material, social, and cognitive resources such as intelligence and experience which will help their families. These employees are more focused on the overall and harmony of all those little factors and how they affect their families.
Conflict strategies are methods used to resolve different problems. There are different approaches to resolving a conflict and depending on the culture a person is brought up in, the more likely it is for them to use a certain approach. Since individualistic culture sets greater value to personal achievement, contrary to collectivist cultures who value harmony, [21] it is more likely for a person from an individualistic culture to use competition as their method of resolving conflict.
When using competition as an approach to resolving conflict, a person is more confrontational and seeks to achieve his or her own goals with no regard of the goals of others. [22] Using this approach, a person seeks domination, which means to get others to do what the person wants instead of what they initially wanted. [22] On the contrary, a collectivist culture would more likely use a less confrontational approach such as accommodation to end the conflict with compromise so that each party is benefited.
Gerard Hendrik (Geert) Hofstede was a Dutch social psychologist, IBM employee, and Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, well known for his pioneering research on cross-cultural groups and organizations.
Cross-cultural studies, sometimes called holocultural studies or comparative studies, is a specialization in anthropology and sister sciences such as sociology, psychology, economics, political science that uses field data from many societies through comparative research to examine the scope of human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture.
In cross-cultural psychology, uncertainty avoidance is how cultures differ on the amount of tolerance they have of unpredictability. Uncertainty avoidance is one of five key qualities or dimensions measured by the researchers who developed the Hofstede model of cultural dimensions to quantify cultural differences across international lines and better understand why some ideas and business practices work better in some countries than in others.According to Geert Hofstede, "The fundamental issue here is how a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: Should we try to control it or just let it happen?"
Power distance is the unequal distribution of power between parties, and the level of acceptance of that inequality; whether it is in the family, workplace, or other organizations.
Japanese values are cultural goals, beliefs and behaviors that are considered important in Japanese culture. From a global perspective, Japanese culture stands out for its higher scores in emancipative values, individualism, and flexibility compared to many other cultures around the world. There is a similar level of emphasis on these values in the cultures of the United States and Japan. However cultures from Western Europe surpass it in these aspects. Overall, Japanese society exhibits unique characteristics influenced by personal connections, consensus building, and a strong sense of community consciousness. These features have deep historical roots and reflect the values ingrained in Japanese society.
Cultural psychology is the study of how cultures reflect and shape their members' psychological processes.
In anthropology, high-context culture and low-context culture are ends of a continuum of how explicit the messages exchanged in a culture are and how important the context is in communication. The continuum pictures how people communicate with others through their range of communication abilities: utilizing gestures, relations, body language, verbal messages, or non-verbal messages. "High-" and "low-" context cultures typically refer to language groups, nationalities, or regional communities. However, the concept may also apply to corporations, professions, and other cultural groups, as well as to settings such as online and offline communication. High-context cultures often exhibit less-direct verbal and nonverbal communication, utilizing small communication gestures and reading more meaning into these less-direct messages. Low-context cultures do the opposite; direct verbal communication is needed to properly understand a message being communicated and relies heavily on explicit verbal skills. The model of high-context and low-context cultures offers a popular framework in intercultural-communication studies but has been criticized as lacking empirical validation.
Cultural competence, also known as intercultural competence, is a range of cognitive, affective, behavioural, and linguistic skills that lead to effective and appropriate communication with people of other cultures. Intercultural or cross-cultural education are terms used for the training to achieve cultural competence.
Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions. Through expanding research methodologies to recognize cultural variance in behavior, language, and meaning it seeks to extend and develop psychology. Since psychology as an academic discipline was developed largely in North America and Europe, some psychologists became concerned that constructs and phenomena accepted as universal were not as invariant as previously assumed, especially since many attempts to replicate notable experiments in other cultures had varying success. Since there are questions as to whether theories dealing with central themes, such as affect, cognition, conceptions of the self, and issues such as psychopathology, anxiety, and depression, may lack external validity when "exported" to other cultural contexts, cross-cultural psychology re-examines them using methodologies designed to factor in cultural differences so as to account for cultural variance. Some critics have pointed to methodological flaws in cross-cultural psychological research, and claim that serious shortcomings in the theoretical and methodological bases used impede, rather than help the scientific search for universal principles in psychology. Cross-cultural psychologists are turning more to the study of how differences (variance) occur, rather than searching for universals in the style of physics or chemistry.
According to some theories, emotions are universal phenomena, albeit affected by culture. Emotions are "internal phenomena that can, but do not always, make themselves observable through expression and behavior". While some emotions are universal and are experienced in similar ways as a reaction to similar events across all cultures, other emotions show considerable cultural differences in their antecedent events, the way they are experienced, the reactions they provoke and the way they are perceived by the surrounding society. According to other theories, termed social constructionist, emotions are more deeply culturally influenced. The components of emotions are universal, but the patterns are social constructions. Some also theorize that culture is affected by the emotions of the people.
Face negotiation theory is a theory conceived by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985, to understand how people from different cultures manage rapport and disagreements. The theory posited "face", or self-image when communicating with others, as a universal phenomenon that pervades across cultures. In conflicts, one's face is threatened; and thus the person tends to save or restore his or her face. This set of communicative behaviors, according to the theory, is called "facework". Since people frame the situated meaning of "face" and enact "facework" differently from one culture to the next, the theory poses a cross-cultural framework to examine facework negotiation. It is important to note that the definition of face varies depending on the people and their culture and the same can be said for the proficiency of facework. According to Ting-Toomey's theory, most cultural differences can be divided by Eastern and Western cultures, and her theory accounts for these differences.
Life satisfaction is the evaluation of a person's quality of life. It is assessed in terms of mood, relationship satisfaction, achieved goals, self-concepts, and self-perceived ability to cope with life. Life satisfaction involves a favorable attitude towards one's life—rather than an assessment of current feelings. Life satisfaction has been measured in relation to economic standing, degree of education, experiences, residence, and other factors.
Cross-cultural psychology attempts to understand how individuals of different cultures interact with each other. Along these lines, cross-cultural leadership has developed as a way to understand leaders who work in the newly globalized market. Today's international organizations require leaders who can adjust to different environments quickly and work with partners and employees of other cultures. It cannot be assumed that a manager who is successful in one country will be successful in another.
Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory is a framework for cross-cultural psychology, developed by Geert Hofstede. It shows the effects of a society's culture on the values of its members, and how these values relate to behavior, using a structure derived from factor analysis.
Global leadership is the interdisciplinary study of the key elements that future leaders in all realms of the personal experience should acquire to effectively familiarize themselves with the psychological, physiological, geographical, geopolitical, anthropological and sociological effects of globalization. Global leadership occurs when an individual or individuals navigate collaborative efforts of different stakeholders through environmental complexity towards a vision by leveraging a global mindset. Today, global leaders must be capable of connecting "people across countries and engage them to global team collaboration in order to facilitate complex processes of knowledge sharing across the globe" Personality characteristics, as well as a cross-cultural experience, appear to influence effectiveness in global leaders.
Cultural communication is the practice and study of how different cultures communicate within their community by verbal and nonverbal means. Cultural communication can also be referred to as intercultural communication and cross-cultural communication. Cultures are grouped together by a set of similar beliefs, values, traditions, and expectations which call all contribute to differences in communication between individuals of different cultures. Cultural communication is a practice and a field of study for many psychologists, anthropologists, and scholars. The study of cultural communication is used to study the interactions of individuals between different cultures. Studies done on cultural communication are utilized in ways to improve communication between international exchanges, businesses, employees, and corporations. Two major scholars who have influenced cultural communication studies are Edward T. Hall and Geert Hofstede. Edward T. Hall, who was an American anthropologist, is considered to be the founder of cultural communication and the theory of proxemics. The theory of proxemics focuses on how individuals use space while communicating depending on cultural backgrounds or social settings. The space in between individuals can be identified in four different ranges. For example, 0 inches signifies intimate space while 12 feet signifies public space. Geert Hofstede was a social psychologist who founded the theory of cultural dimension. In his theory, there are five dimensions that aim to measure differences between different cultures. The five dimensions are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, and Chronemics.
Allocentrism is a collectivistic personality attribute whereby people center their attention and actions on other people rather than themselves. It is a psychological dimension which corresponds to the general cultural dimension of collectivism. In fact, allocentrics "believe, feel, and act very much like collectivists do around the world." Allocentric people tend to be interdependent, define themselves in terms of the group that they are part of, and behave according to that group's cultural norms. They tend to have a sense of duty and share beliefs with other allocentrics among their in-group. Allocentric people appear to see themselves as an extension of their in-group and allow their own goals to be subsumed by the in-group's goals. Additionally, allocentrism has been defined as giving priority to the collective self over the private self, particularly if these two selves happen to come into conflict.
Decision-making is a mental activity which is an integral part of planning and action taking in a variety of contexts and at a vast range of levels, including, but not limited to, budget planning, education planning, policy making, and climbing the career ladder. People all over the world engage in these activities. The underlying cross-cultural differences in decision-making can be a great contributing factor to efficiency in cross-cultural communications, negotiations, and conflict resolution.
Cultural differences can interact with positive psychology to create great variation, potentially impacting positive psychology interventions. Culture differences have an impact on the interventions of positive psychology. Culture influences how people seek psychological help, their definitions of social structure, and coping strategies.
Culture can affect aviation safety through its effect on how the flight crew deals with difficult situations; cultures with lower power distances and higher levels of individuality can result in better aviation safety outcomes. In higher power cultures subordinates are less likely to question their superiors. The crash of Korean Air Flight 801 in 1997 was attributed to the pilot's decision to land despite the junior officer's disagreement, while the crash of Avianca Flight 052 was caused by the failure to communicate critical low-fuel data between pilots and controllers, and by the failure of the controllers to ask the pilots if they were declaring an emergency and assist the pilots in landing the aircraft. The crashes have been blamed on aspects of the national cultures of the crews.
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