Differences between individualist culture and collectivist culture may have deep roots. Talhelm et. al proposed a Rice theory suggesting logistic differences in early core economy functions such as growing rice v.s growing wheat as the reason why in some (rice) regions, people were more interdependent while people were more independent in others (Talhelm et al., 2015). The US and Western Europe’s cultures are believed to be individualistic while Asian cultures are generally regarded as collectivist. Individualist cultures reward individual achievements while collectivist cultures reward group efforts more (Gorodnichenko & Roland, n.d.). Consequently, collectivist cultures punish people who do not conform to group standards and may appear as restrictive, or "tight" from the perspective of individualists. In a survey of most populous nations, people are more likely to feel shame and guilt in collectivist countries (Carducci, 2012). Carducci et. al described further contrasts as followed: 1. Self-enhancement is higher in individualist cultures; 2. Taking personal responsibility for both self and group failures is higher in collectivist cultures; 3. Personal happiness and emotions are more important in individualist cultures (Carducci, 2012).
In describing themselves, people from individualist countries use personal characteristics instead of social roles (Gorodnichenko & Roland, n.d.). Asian languages like Vietnamese have many more nouns to describe roles than other languages. For example, there are several ways to describe "aunt" in Vietnamese. Additionally, the Koreans were found to change their self-descriptions per social environment (Gorodnichenko & Roland, n.d.). It shows that independent individuals tend to define their identities using self attributes, while interdependent individuals tend to incorporate social and group values into the process of identity building.
In working with others in groups, people in strong individualistic cultures will consider their own gains first. For example, in a study about whistle blowing, it was found that US employees are more likely to blow the whistle than their German counterparts due to the fact that German employees tend to think more about the associated consequences on peers and groups (Rausch, Lindquist, & Steckel, 2014). In another study, it was found that people from individualistic cultures only consider small and tight-knit groups essential, while people from collectivist cultures value all groups (both common-bond and common-identity groups) are essential (Bierle, Becker, & Ikegami, 2019).
Indeed, there are personality differences between individualist and collectivist cultures, in the way the individual define fundamental values of love, belongness, awareness and personal identity. People from collectivist cultures put more emphasis on the harmony and often time, being cautious about the impacts of their actions on the surrounding environments. Those people can be creative and can innovate but they may limit or shield their ideas if they think those ideas may cause controversial issues. Generally, people in individualist cultures are believed to be more straight-forward, more risk taking, thus more innovative.
References
Bierle, I., Becker, J. C., & Ikegami, T. (2019). Coping with unpleasant groupmemberships in Japan and Germany: Cultural differences in disidentification,confrontation and emotion regulation.European Journal of Social Psychology,49(5), 953–969. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2562
Carducci, B. J. (2012). Expressions of the self in individualistic vs. collective cultures: Across-cultural-perspective teaching module.Psychology Learning and Teaching,11(3), 413–417. doi:10.2304/plat.2012.11.3.413Feist, J.,
Feist, G. J., & Roberts, T.-A. (2018).Theories of personality.
Gorodnichenko, Y. & Roland, G. (n.d.).Understanding the Individualism-CollectivismCleavage and its Effects: Lessons from Cultural Psychology.
Rausch, A., Lindquist, T., & Steckel, M. (2014).A Test of U.S. versus GermanicEuropean Ethical Decision-Making and Perceptions of Moral Intensity: CouldEthics Differ within Western Culture?
Talhelm, T., Zhang, X., Oishi, S., Shimin, C., Duan, D., & Lan, X. (2015).Commentary: ”Large-scale psychological differences within China explained byrice vs. wheat agriculture”.Science,6, 603–608. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00489
