Understanding Collectivist Cultures

Collectivist cultures emphasize the needs and goals of the group as a whole over the needs and desires of each individual. In such cultures, relationships with other members of the group and the interconnectedness between people play a central role in each person's identity.

Cultures in Asia, Central America, South America, and Africa tend to be more collectivistic. Countries considered collectivistic include Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela, Guatemala, Indonesia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, and India.

Collectivistic Culture Traits

A few common traits of collectivist cultures include:

• Social rules focus on promoting selflessness and putting community needs ahead of individual needs.
• Working as a group and supporting others is essential.
• People are encouraged to do what's best for society.
• Families and communities have a central role.
• There is a greater emphasis on common goals over individual pursuits.

How Collectivist Cultures Differ

Collectivist cultures are usually contrasted with individualistic cultures. Collectivism stresses the importance of the community, while individualism is focused on the rights and concerns of each person. Where unity and selflessness are valued traits in collectivist cultures, independence and personal identity are highly stressed in individualistic cultures.

These cultural differences are pervasive and can influence many aspects of how society functions. How people shop, dress, learn, and conduct business can all be influenced by whether they are from a collectivist or individualist culture.

For example, workers who live in a collectivist culture might strive to sacrifice their own happiness for the greater good of the group. Those from individualistic cultures, on the other hand, may feel that their own well-being and goals carry greater weight.

Influence on Behavior

Cross-cultural psychologists study how these cultural differences impact various aspects of behavior. They see effects in many areas of behavior.

Self-Perception

Culture influences how people behave, as well as their self-concept. Those in individualistic cultures might describe themselves in terms of personality traits and characteristics (e.g., "I am smart, funny, athletic, and kind"). Those from collectivist cultures, on the other hand, would more likely describe themselves in terms of their social relationships and roles (e.g., "I am a good son, brother, and friend").

Relationships

Research shows that collectivist cultures are associated with low relational mobility, a term to describe how many opportunities individuals in a society have to form relationships with people of their choosing.

Low relational mobility means that the relationships people have are stable, strong, and long-lasting. These relationships are usually formed due to factors such as family and geographical area, rather than personal choice.

In a collectivist culture, it's difficult to build relationships with new people, partly because it's generally more difficult to meet them. Strangers are more likely to remain strangers to those from a collectivistic culture than they would be to people from individualistic cultures.

Paradoxically, this means that people in individualistic cultures devote more effort and energy toward actively maintaining close relationships, often through increased self-disclosure and greater intimacy. Unlike collectivist cultures where stable relationships are more expected, relationships in individualistic cultures tend to be more fraught and fragile. People must make a greater effort to maintain these relationships.

Conformity

Cultural differences also influence the motivation to either stand out or fit in with the rest of the group. In one experiment, participants from American and Japanese cultures were asked to select a pen. Most of the pens were the same color, with a few options in different colors. Most American participants chose the rarer colored pens.

The Japanese participants, on the other hand, were much more likely to choose the most common colored pen, even though they preferred the rarer pens. This may have been because, coming from a collectivistic culture, the Japanese participants instinctively valued interpersonal harmony above personal preference and thus chose the unoffensive behavior of leaving the rarer pens for others who might want them.

Social Anxiety

Research shows that collectivistic cultures are more accepting of socially reticent behaviors. People in these cultures displayed higher levels of social anxiety in comparison to individualistic cultures.

However, it may not be collectivist values alone that contributed to this. People in Latin American countries, for example, display lower levels of social anxiety than do people in East Asian countries. Researchers suggest that this may be due to an emphasis on group harmony and a higher value on qualities such as sociability—factors that may help decrease social anxiety—in Latin American cultures.

Social Support

When people in collectivist cultures are faced with stress, they are less likely than those in individualistic cultures to talk about their problems with loved ones. Research suggests that people from collectivist cultures are more reluctant to discuss stressors with people they are close to out of concern for potentially negative relational consequences. 

Instead, people often seek out what is known as implicit social support. This involves spending time with supportive people without actually addressing the source of the stress.