The origins of individualism-collectivism differences

As in the case of the possible origins of differences in power distance discussed in Chapter 2, the origins of differences on the individualism-collectivism dimension are a matter of conjecture, in which, however, statistical relationships with geographic, economic, and historic variables can support the guesswork.

As mentioned in Chapter 1 it is a common assumption among archaeologists that the development of human societies started with groups of hunter-gatherer nomads; that subsequently, people settled down into a sedentary existence as farmers, and that farming communities grew into larger settle­ments which became towns, cities, and finally the modern megalopolises. Cultural anthropologists have compared present-day hunter-gatherer tribes, agricultural societies, and urbanized societies. They found that from the most primitive to the most modern society, family complexity first increased and then decreased again. Hunter-gatherers tend to live in nuclear families or small bands. Sedentary agricultural societies mostly show complex extended families or village community in-groups. When farmers migrate to cities the sizes of extended families become reduced and the typical urban family is again nuclear In most countries today one finds only agricultural and urban subcultures. For these two types, modernization corresponds to individualization.

Table 3.1 and Fig. 3.1 clearly illustrate that the wealthy, urbanized, and industrialized societies score individualist, and the poorer, rural, and traditional societies collectivist. There are some exceptions, especially in east Asia, where Japan and the 'newly industrializing countries' South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore seem to have retained consider­able collectivism in spite of industrialization.

The relationship between national wealth and individualism is illustrated by Fig. 3.2, in which IDV scores are plotted against the countries' per capita gross national product (GNP) in US dollars, as published by the World Bank for the year 1990. The IBM survey data on which the IDV scores are based date from the period 1967-1973, and in the original study they were related to 1970 per capita GNP data. Figure 3.2 shows that the 1967-1973 IDV scores are still quite strongly related to 1990 wealth.⁸

A statistical relationship as illustrated in Fig. 3.2 does not show which of the two related phenomena is cause and which is effect, or whether both could be caused by a third factor, not shown in the graph. If individualism were the cause of wealth one should find that IDV scores relate not only to national wealth per se but also to economic growth. The latter is measured by the ' World Bank as the average annual percentage increase in per capita GNP during a 23-year period. If individualism leads to wealth, IDV should be positively correlated with economic growth in the period following the collection of the IDV data. However, this is not the case. Across all countries the relationship between IDV and subsequent economic growth is about zero. For the wealthy countries the relationship is even negative: the more individualist wealthy countries showed less, not more, economic growth than the less individualist ones. Two extreme examples of this are the USA and Japan: the latter has grown much faster and in 1986 bypassed the USA in per capita GNP.

The reverse causality, national wealth causing individualism, is more plausible and statistically supported in the IBM case.⁹ When a country's wealth increases, its citizens have access to resources which allow them to 'do their own thing'. The storyteller in the village market is replaced by TV sets, first one per village, but soon more. In wealthy Western family homes every family member may have his or heir own TV set. The caravan through the desert is replaced by a number of buses, and these by a larger number of motor cars, until each adult family member drives a different car. The village hut in which the entire family lives and sleeps together is replaced by a house with a number of private rooms. Collective life is replaced by individual life. However, the negative relationship between individualism and economic growth for the very wealthy countries suggests that this development leads to its own undoing. Where wealth has progressed to a level at which most citizens can afford to do their own thing, this leads to friction losses, and the national economy grows less than in countries where people are still accustomed to doing at least a number of things together — like Japan. However, there are other aspects to the fast economic growth of the East Asian countries which will be discussed in Chapter 7.

After national wealth the next measure statistically related to the IDV scores is geographical latitude: the distance from the equator of a country's capital city. In Chapter 2 latitude was the first predictor of power distance scores. In view of the correlation between collectivism and power distance (Fig. 3. 1), it is no surprise that it also plays a role in predicting individualism. Countries with moderate and cold climates tend to show more individualist cultures: in such countries, as we argued already in the case of power distance, people's survival depends more on personal initiative, which supports individualist cultures.

The size of the population of a country which contributes to predicting power distance does not relate to collectivism. However, population growth strongly relates to collectivism. Population growth other than by immi­gration is the result of a large average number of children per family. It should therefore be no surprise that in cultures with higher birth rates collectivist rather than individualist values are bred in the family.

Historical factors, apart from economic ones, can also account for part of the country differences on this dimension, although not as clearly as in the case of the influence of the Roman Empire on power distance. The influence of the teachings of Confucius in the East Asian countries to which most of Chapter 7 will be devoted supports the maintenance of a collectivist value system. On the other hand, in parts of Western Europe, in particular in England, Scotland, and the Netherlands, individualist values could be recognized centuries ago, when the average citizen in these countries was still quite poor and the economies were overwhelmingly rural. The migrants from Europe who populated North America, Australia, and New Zealand were by definition sufficiently individualist to leave their old environment, and they came to countries where, in the frontier spirit, every person had to fend for him/herself.