Individualism and Collectivism: Implications for Women

This essay examines the nature and dynamics of individualism and collectivism as social and interpersonal phenomena. It considers the importance of affirming the true self as a key feature of individualism as conceived by Donald Capps. By means of cultural and gender analysis, the essay explores aspects of self-affirmation among women, especially Korean American women in both individualist and collectivist societies. It ultimately proposes a “self-affirming collectivism” that promotes the authentic individual self as imago Dei whose unique identity is expressed within community.     

Critical individualism: Whitehead's metaphysics and critique of liberalism

Conclusion Whitehead's metaphysics contains an accurate portrayal of concrete human existence - one which can serve as a ground for criticizing the abstractions into which liberalism has fallen. His critical individualism, his insistence both on the individual as the seat of all value and on our essential connectedness to one another in modern society, is a call for liberalism to restore concrete meaning to its fundamental notions of individuality and freedom. However, his suggestions that the core values of liberalism can be actualized if we but reaffirm Plato's ancient equation of knowledge with virtue rests on an optimism that is difficult to sustain apart from a compensatory metaphysical dogma. We can appropriate Whitehead's criticism of liberalism, but if we can no longer convince ourselves of a metaphysical vision that supports faith in Plato's equation, we must look elsewhere for suggestions as to how liberalism can be revitalized.     

Suicide among American Indian adolescents: an overview

Suicide has become a major concern of many Indian tribes and pueblos, as the rates in these tribes have increased dramatically in the last decade. One of the critical research questions is how to explain the vastly different rates of adolescent suicide among tribes. Research has identified some common patterns in experience and behavior among Indian adolescent suicides; these patterns are similar in many ways to those found in Los Angeles suicide research of Teicher (1979). Chronic versus acute stress factors in suicide are examined. Recent research has also identified a number of factors characterizing tribes with high suicide rates; these include failure to adhere to traditional ways of living, to traditional religion, and to clans and societies, and the resulting chaotic family structure and adult alcoholism. The roles of adoption of Indian children, boarding schools, and high unemployment in many tribes are also discussed. Suicide prevention and intervention programs are briefly described.     

Paradoxical sleep: is it the guardian of psychological individualism

The brain is the sole organ of homeotherms that do not undergo cell division. We thus have to explain how certain aspects of psychological heredity (found in homozygotes twins raised in different surroundings) may persist for a whole life (psychological individuation). A definitive genetic programming during development (by neurogenesis) is unlikely due to the plasticity of the nervous system. That's why we have to consider the possibility of an iterative genetic programming. The internal mechanisms (synchronous) of paradoxical sleep (SP) are particularly adapted to such programming. This would activate an endogenous system of stimulation that would stimulate and stabilize receptors genetically programmed by DNA in some neuronal circuits. The excitation of these neurons during SP leads to oniric behaviours that could be experimentally revealed--the lists of these behaviours are specific to each individual and indirect data suggest a genetic component of this programming. Amongst the mechanisms allowing the iterative programming of SP, sleep is particularly important. Security--and hence the inhibition of the arousal system--is a sine qua non condition for genetic programming to take place. In that sense, sleep could very well be the guardian of dreaming. On the other hand, sleep seems to be necessary for the accumulation of energetic resources used by the cholinergic mechanisms of SP. The temporal modalities of SP (diachronic organization) are also discussed in relation to phylogenesis. Thus, the absence of SP in poikilotherms is explained by a continual neurogenesis in the adult. During ontogenesis in mammals, a stage of programming by neurogenesis (seismic sleep) precedes the appearance of SP so long as the programming system isn't functional. The presence, or absence, of rebound after SP deprivation is interpreted in terms of the existence, or non existence, of stress during SP suppression. An explanation is proposed to account for the absence of specific effects of SP deprivation in humans. In the same way somatic intraspecific variability is one of the conditions of evolution, it is proposed that one of the functions of SP is to maintain psychological variability in a given population.     

Methodological individualism in experimental games: not so easily dismissed

Orthodox game theory and social preference models cannot explain why people cooperate in many experimental games or how they manage to coordinate their choices. The theory of evidential decision making provides a solution, based on the idea that people tend to project their own choices onto others, whatever these choices might be. Evidential decision making preserves methodological individualism, and it works without recourse to social preferences. Rejecting methodological individualism, team reasoning is a thinly disguised resurgence of the group mind fallacy, and the experiments reported by Colman et al. [Colman, A. M., Pulford, B. D., & Rose, J. (this issue). Collective rationality in interactive decisions: Evidence for team reasoning. Acta Psychologica, doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2007.08.003.] do not offer evidence that uniquely supports team reasoning.     

Methodological individualism: Singular causal systems and their population manifestations

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the properties of singular causal systems and their population manifestations, with special concern for the thesis of methodological individualism, which claims that there are no properties of social groups that cannot be adequately explained exclusively by reference to properties of individual members of those groups, i.e., at the level of individuals. Individuals, however, may be viewed as singular causal systems, i.e., as instantiations of (arrangements of) dispositional properties. From this perspective, methodological individualism appears to be an ambiguous thesis: some properties of collections of (independent) systems of the same kind are reducible, but other properties of collections of (dependent) systems of the same kind are not. In cases of the first kind, therefore, methodological individualism is true, but trivial; while in cases of the second kind, it is significant, but false. Hence, if the arguments that follow are correct, at least some of the properties of social groups should qualify as emergent.     

Open society fosters satisfaction: explanation to why individualism associates with country level measures of satisfaction

ABSTRACT

Although the association between individualism and satisfaction in societies is well documented, the precise mechanism linking these two remained understudied so far. Here we coin and describe the specific facet of individualism responsible for the above association–the ‘open society’. Open societies foster four others-benefitting attitudes: tolerance, trust, civic engagement, and minimization of materialistic pressure. In the others-benefitting qualities of these four attitudes, this paper finds the mechanism promoting life satisfaction of societies. Further, when open society attitudes are controlled for, the most common facet of individualism (quantified by Hofstede) turns out to be a negative predictor of satisfaction in societies. At the individual level of analysis, the relation of endorsement of four open society attitudes with individual life satisfaction is almost absent. Thus, open society promotes the satisfaction of communities in a eusocial way only.     

匹配对创造性的影响: 集体主义的调节作用

以305名大学生为研究对象, 检验创造性氛围的供给-期望匹配、个人创造性能力的要求-能力匹配与个人创造性的关系, 考察集体主义价值观对这种关系的影响。结果显示供给-期望匹配中实际创造性氛围、要求-能力匹配中的实际创造性能力对个人创造性有显著作用。对于高集体主义价值观的个人, 环境因素(实际创造性氛围和要求创造性能力)对他们创造性影响作用更为显著, 展现出集体主义价值观对创造性的间接积极作用。     

中国情境下的行为剖图假说：来自学生样本的证据

联结松散的行为剖图解释集体主义的不同面向在个体间不存在相关性而个体内存在跨时间一致性这一现象。为了证明该现象同样适用于中国被试,研究1从广东省某一高中抽取了404名高中生,采用图片分类任务、框架直线任务、自我膨胀任务、归因任务、“亲亲性”任务和集体主义量表任务,证实了个体间不存在相关性。研究2通过电子调查问卷收集了708人（主要为山东省内在读专科/本科大学生）的数据,并在三个月后通过重测获得了其中131人的第二次数据,采用自我包括他人任务、图片分类任务、归因任务和“亲亲性”任务,得到了个体间不存在相关性而个体内存在一致性这一结果。这表明行为剖图假说同样适用于中国被试。     

Rethinking individualism and collectivism: evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses

Are Americans more individualistic and less collectivistic than members of other groups? The authors summarize plausible psychological implications of individualism-collectivism (IND-COL), meta-analyze cross-national and within-United States IND-COL differences, and review evidence for effects of IND-COL on self-concept, well-being, cognition, and relationality. European Americans were found to be both more individualistic-valuing personal independence more-and less collectivistic-feeling duty to in-groups less-than others. However, European Americans were not more individualistic than African Americans, or Latinos, and not less collectivistic than Japanese or Koreans. Among Asians, only Chinese showed large effects, being both less individualistic and more collectivistic. Moderate IND-COL effects were found on self-concept and relationality, and large effects were found on attribution and cognitive style.     

Assessing alternative models of individualism and collectivism: a confirmatory factor analysis

Six alternative structural models of individualism–collectivism are reviewed and empirically compared in a confirmatory factor analysis of questionnaire data from an Australian student sample (N = 340). Central to the debate about the structure of this broad social attitude are the issues of (1) polarity (are individualism and collectivism bipolar opposites, or orthogonal factors?) and (2) dimensionality (are individualism and collectivism themselves higher‐order constructs subsuming several more specific factors and, if so, what are they?). The data from this Australian sample support a model that represents individualism and collectivism as a higher‐order bipolar factor hierarchically subsuming several bipolar reference‐group‐specific individualisms and collectivisms. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chinese Cultural Collectivism and Work-Related Stress: Implications for Employment Counselors

The influence and damage of work-related stress on employees from different cultures may well be the same, but the form of stressors may not be so. Stress is influenced by cultural and social variables such as values, attitudes, and perceptions. The collectivism-individualism construct was suggested to measure cultural variables and attempt to explain the differences of some social behaviors between Eastern and Western people. Eastern cultures like the Chinese and the Japanese are collectivistic, whereas Western cultures such as the American and Canadian are individualistic. As members of an Asian collectivistic society, Hong Kong Chinese workers tend to interpret and handle work-related stress differently from Westerners, despite the fact that they have been exposed to western business practices. Like Asian Americans, they are often caught between their collectivistic tradition and an increasingly competetive individualistic market place. Employment counselors should take cultural issues into consideration as they provide consultation or counseling services to people who are searching for satisfying work environments.     

The Worldview Dimensions of Individualism and Collectivism: Implications for Counseling

A recent article, “Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta‐Analyses” (D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, & M. Kemmelmeier, 2002), revealed that 170 studies have been conducted on the worldview dimensions of individualism and collectivism. The authors' analyses of the studies provided empirical support for the theoretical notion posited by numerous multicultural counseling scholars, which outlines the importance of understanding worldview for competent practice. This article reviews the results of the authors' analyses and discusses the implications for counseling.     

Adaptive memory: The survival scenario enhances item-specific processing relative to a moving scenario

Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada (2007) found that retention of words rated for their relevance to survival is superior to that of words encoded under numerous other deep processing conditions. They suggested that our memory systems might have evolved to confer an advantage for survival-relevant information. Burns, Burns, and Hwang (2011) suggested a two-process explanation of the proximate mechanisms responsible for the survival advantage. Whereas most control tasks encourage only one type of processing, the survival task encourages both item-specific and relational processing. They found that when control tasks encouraged both types of processing, the survival processing advantage was eliminated. However, none of their control conditions included non-survival scenarios (e.g., moving, vacation, etc.), so it is not clear how this two-process explanation would explain the survival advantage when scenarios are used as control conditions. The present experiments replicated the finding that the survival scenario improves recall relative to a moving scenario in both a between-lists and within-list design and also provided evidence that this difference was accompanied by an item-specific processing difference, not a difference in relational processing. The implications of these results for several existing accounts of the survival processing effect are discussed.     

个体主义/集体主义的影响因素:生态视角

个体主义/集体主义是衡量文化的重要维度。两者的价值取向有所区别,前者关注自我的独特性,而后者关注自我与他人的关系。近年来研究者发现了众多影响个体主义/集体主义的新因素并构建了理论。这些理论中有4个理论非常具有代表性:现代化理论、气候-经济理论、传染病理论以及大米理论。其中后3个理论从远因的角度来对个体主义/集体主义的成因进行了探讨,为研究者探究个体主义/集体主义成因提供了新思路。未来个体主义/集体主义影响因素的研究可以用多种测量方法综合的方式或者从基因的角度来进行探索。     

Individualism Versus Collectivism: A Comparison of Kenyan and American Self-Concepts

We predicted that individuals from traditional, collectivist Kenyan cultures would have self-concepts with more social components than would those from individuated American culture and that the self-concepts of urbanized and educated Kenyans would be less social than those of traditional Kenyans. Consistent with predictions, the proportion of social category responses to the Twenty Statements Test was 12% for American college students, 17% for Kenyan university students in Nairobi, 58% for Kenyans employed in Nairobi, 80% for Maasai Kenyans, and 84% for Samburu Kenyans. American and Kenyan university students responded primarily with nonsocial categories of psychological and interpersonal style, whereas traditional Kenyans responded with social categories of occupational and kinship roles. Sociocultural factors of urbanization, education, and Westernization appear to correlate with individuated (nonsocial) self-conceptions.