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Although turnover is an issue of global concern, paradoxically there have been few studies of turnover across cultures. We investigated the cross-cultural generalizability of the job embeddedness model (Mitchell & Lee, 2001) by examining turnover in an individualistic country (United States) and a collectivistic country (India). Using cross-cultural data from call centers (N = 797), we demonstrated that although organization job embeddedness predicted turnover in both countries, different dimensions of job embeddedness predicted turnover in the United States and India. As hypothesized, on the basis of individualism--collectivism theory, person--job fit was a significant predictor of lower turnover in the United States, whereas person--organization fit, organization links, and community links were significant predictors of lower turnover in India. We also explored whether a newly developed construct of embeddedness--family embeddedness--predicts turnover above and beyond job embeddedness and found initial support for its utility in both the United States and India. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Keywords: job embeddedness, turnover and retention, culture, individualism--collectivism, human resource practices DOI: 10.1037/a0919464

Rapid Westernization and modernization in most Chinese societies has triggered a process of acculturation to Western value orientations, which induced conflicts between Confucian-based collectivism and Western individualism at both the societal and individual levels. A review of research instruments indicated that a cultural conflict approach is often used when assessing the personality and psychological functioning of Chinese people within and outside the United States. In spite of the receptiveness toward Western influences, family and collectivistic orientation are Confucian virtues and remain dominant values that govern the interpersonal and normative relationships in Chinese societies. Within this cultural conflict context, the concept of collectivistic conflict is proposed to conceptualize the psychological adaptation and counseling concerns of the Chinese. The development of a compromising self and the reintegration of the indigenous coping mechanism of self-cultivation (i.e., striving to be a cultivated, cultured person) are postulated as therapeutic tasks when helping Chinese clients resolve collectivistic conflict. Keywords: collectivism, acculturation, filial piety, self-cultivation, compromising self

Do differences in individualism and collectivism influence values, self-concept content, relational assumptions, and cognitive style? On the one hand, the cross-national literature provides an impressively consistent picture of the predicted systematic differences; on the other hand, the nature of the evidence is inconclusive. Cross-national evidence is insufficient to argue for a causal process, and comparative data cannot specify if effects are due to both individualism and collectivism, only individualism, only collectivism, or other factors (including other aspects of culture). To address these issues, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of the individualism and collectivism priming literature, with follow-up moderator analyses. Effect sizes were moderate for relationality and cognition, small for self-concept and values, robust across priming methods and dependent variables, and consistent in direction and size with cross-national effects. Results lend support to a situated model of culture in which cross-national differences are not static but dynamically consistent due to the chronic and moment-to-moment salience of individualism and collectivism. Examination of the unique effects of individualism and collectivism versus other cultural factors (e.g., honor, power) awaits the availability of research that primes these factors. Keywords: culture, individualism, collectivism, situated cognition, priming Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.311.supp

In psychological research on cultural differences, the distinction between individualism and collectivism has received the lion's share of attention as a fundamental dimension of cultural variation. In recent years, however, these constructs have been criticized as being ill-defined and 'a catchall' to represent all forms of cultural differences. The authors argue that there is a conceptual confusion about the meaning of ingroups that constitute the target of collectivism. Collectives are rarely referred to in existing measures to assess collectivism. Instead, networks of interpersonal relationships dominate the operational definition of 'ingroups' in these measures. Results from a content analysis of existing scales support this observation. To clarify and expand the individualism--collectivism distinction, a theoretical framework is proposed that draws on M. B. Brewer and G. Gardner's (1996) conceptualization of individual, relational, and collective selves and their manifestation in self-representations, beliefs, and values. Analyses of data from past studies provide preliminary support for this conceptual model. The authors propose that this new theoretical framework will contribute conceptual clarity to interpretation of past research on individualism and collectivism and guide future research on these important constructs. Keywords: cultural differences, individualism, collectivism, ingroups, outgroups

The aim of this study was to investigate collectivism and individualism in Cameroon. Cameroonians were hypothesized to be more collectivist than individualist and the women to he more collectivist than the men. Specific regional characteristics were also assumed. Four-hundred and fifteen students (university and senior high school) in three different areas filled in questionnaires including the Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, and Gelfand (1995) and the Triandis, Chen, and Chan (1998) scales. Later, a group of university students discussed the preliminary results with the researchers. Cameroonians were shown to he more collectivist than individualist. The women were more individualist than the men. This unexpected finding could be interpreted in terms of the everyday struggles of women. Those in the northern area were more collectivist than those in the central area, and those in the western area fell between the two. The convergence of the results confirm the suitability of the conceptual distinction. Keywords: Cameroon; Africa; individualism; collectivism; gender

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., In 1978, Sue introduced the construct of worldview to the field of counseling with his article "Worldviews and Counseling" (Ibrahim, Roysircar-Sodowsky, & Ohnishi, 2001). Since its introduction, worldview has become [...]

The authors examined the similarities and differences between 3 dimensions that represent people's focus on self vs. other: individualistic vs. collectivistic nations, independent vs. interdependent self-concepts, and intrinsic vs. extrinsic aspirations. In samples of South Korean and U.S. college students, the authors found that each of these dimensions was interrelated in expected ways and that each also was independently associated with different aspects of participants' self-report of their own well-being (i.e., self-actualization, vitality, happiness, anxiety, and physical manifestations). The authors concluded that environmental circumstances and personality characteristics that focus on personal needs are more likely to provide experiences supportive of psychological well-being. Key words: cross-cultural study, independent versus interdependent self-concepts, individualistic versus collectivistic cultures, intrinsic versus extrinsic aspirations, well-being, CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY contains several dimensional constructs representing the extent to which individuals focus on their own needs and rights versus their desires to fit their behavior and goals into [...]

This study had two goals. The first one was to determine whether the predictors of individualism/collectivism, self-esteem, and feeling of mastery in a specific socio-cultural environment in which individuals from different cultural backgrounds interact with each other explain life satisfaction. The second goal was to illuminate the contradiction between cross cultural and local findings about ongoing Turkish cultural experience within the related variables and the frame of the socio cultural environment. Research participants numbered 696, 388 students and 308 academicians of Mersin University. Students were enrolled in the Faculty of Art and Science, the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics. Fifty percent of them were females and the fifty percent were males. The academic sample consisted of the academic personnel (instructors, assistants, lecturers, and professors) in the above-mentioned faculties. The sample made up of academicians was also half female and half male. The participants responded to the Turkish version of the short form of Individualism/Collectivism Scale (INDCOL), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Mastery Scale and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Among these scales, the short form of INDCOL showed a high level of construct validity and the Mastery Scale showed a moderate level of construct validity in the related samples. Others have showed high levels of validities and reliabilities in the previous Turkish studies conducted. The findings of this study revealed that individualism predicted high life satisfaction and collectivism predicted low life satisfaction. Self-esteem and mastery also predicted high life satisfaction. It was observed in this study that university life contributed to male university students being autonomous and independent.

This article focuses on the relationships among face (mianzi), individualism-collectivism, feedback processes, and learning outcomes in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States. An expected effect between individualism and desire to gain mianzi (Mianzigain) was generally confirmed; however, the mirror effect between collectivism and fear of losing mianzi (Mianziloss) was not. As, expected, there was a consistent negative effect between Mianziloss and student question-asking in class (InAsk), but the positive effect from Mianzigain to InAsk was only found in the U.S. sample. Selective effects of feedback forms on learning were highly sensitive to cultural contexts. In the United States, asking questions outside of class was positively related to grades. However, InAsk had a negative effect. In contrast, InAsk was positively related to grades in Hong Kong. For Singaporeans, only checking with students outside of class had an effect on performance, but it was negative.

This study examined the validity of the view that the constructs of individualism and collectivism are coherent cultural manifestations necessarily reflected in an individual's attribution patterns. It was hypothesized that the attribution patterns of locus of control and moral accountability would show divergent individualistic and collectivistic influences in a culture during change from a collectivist culture to an individualist culture. 98 university students from the United States and Puerto Rico were administered the Singelis Individualism-Collectivism Scale, Rotter's Locus of Control Scale, and Miller and Luthar's justice-related moral accountability vignettes. Contrary to expectation, the Puerto Rican sample scored less external in locus of control than the United States sample. No cultural differences in moral accountability were found. No strong correlations were found among the variables at the individual level of analysis. Accounting for these results included the lack of representativeness of the samples, the independence of relation between variables at different levels of analysis, and social change.

The present research demonstrated that horizontal collectivism (HC), the tendency to emphasize social bonds and interdependence, is associated with overestimating the extent to which one's preferences, feelings, and behavioral inclinations are transparent to close others. The link between HC and felt transparency was mediated by self-other merging but was not significantly mediated by perceived similarity, behavioral closeness, or metaperception positivity. Evidence of a causal connection was obtained in an experiment where individuals for whom interdependence was primed exhibited greater transparency overestimation than did those for whom it was not. Additional results indicated that higher HC is associated with greater confidence but not greater accuracy in judgments about a friend. The authors argue that other perspective-taking deficits involving overuse of the self in judgments of others should also be exacerbated by the self-other merging that is associated with HC.

Past research has examined the stress resiliency of individuals high in sense of personal-mastery. However, it has been theorized that within more collectivist cultures, a sense of shared efficacy, which we call communal-mastery, may be more central to people's resiliency in the face of challenging life circumstances. We compared the impact of sense of self-mastery (i.e., 'I am the key to my success') to that of communal-mastery (i.e., 'I am successful by virtue of my social attachments') in a prospective study among a group of rural 103 Native American women residing on Indian Reservations in Montana. We found that women high in communal-mastery experienced less increase in depressive mood and anger, especially when faced with high stress circumstances, than women who were low in communal-mastery. In addition, the beneficial impact of communal-mastery was found to be more effective than self-mastery for these women. KEY WORDS: mastery; collectivism; stress; depression; anger.

This study examined the effects of psychological separation-individuation on adjustment to college among 170 Korean American students in the contexts of collectivism and individualism. The results showed that the two dimensions of psychological separation-individuation measured by the Psychological Separation Inventory (PSI; J. Hoffman, 1984) related to the cultural variables differently and showed contrasting relationships to college adjustment: Conflictual independence from parents related negatively to individualism and was associated positively with college adjustment, whereas general independence from parents related negatively to both collectivism and college adjustment. Additionally, collectivism was found to be positively associated with college adjustment. Individualism functioned as a moderator, as a low degree of individualism strengthened the positive relationship between collectivism and college adjustment.

Analyzing national and ethnic differences in individualism and collectivism, D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeier (2002) showed that small differences in scales or samples produce markedly divergent results, challenging the validity of these constructs. The author examines the following limitations of research on individualism and collectivism: It treats nations as cultures and culture as a continuous quantitative variable; conflates all kinds of social relations and distinct types of autonomy; ignores contextual specificity in norms and values; measures culture as the personal preferences and behavior reports of individuals; rarely establishes the external validity of the measures used; assumes cultural invariance in the meaning of self-reports and anchoring and interpretation of scales; and reduces culture to explicit, abstract verbal knowledge.

D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeir (2002) offered a comprehensive literature review on individualism and collectivism that forwards valuable suggestions for ways to enhance future research conducted within this framework. The author argues that although their criticisms of much contemporary social psychological research on individualism and collectivism are valid, even more fundamental problems need to be recognized as characterizing work within this tradition, such as the insufficiently subtle nature of the views held of culture, the limited attention given to meanings, and the downplaying of contextual variation. The author suggests adopting more nuanced and process-oriented conceptions of culture and more contextually grounded views of its impact on psychological functioning as a way of realizing the promise of cultural psychology to broaden and provide insight into basic psychological theory.

M. H. Bond (2002), A. P. Fiske (2002), S. Kitayama (2002), and J. G. Miller (2002) joined D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeier (2002) in highlighting limitations of the individualism-collectivism model of culture. Concern is warranted; nevertheless, individualism-collectivism helps structure discourse on the influence of culture on the mind. To avoid level-of-analysis entanglements, Oyserman et al. propose an integrative model that includes distal, proximal, and situated cultural features of societies and internalized models of these features, highlights the importance of subjective construal, and uses evolutionary perspectives to clarify the basic problems cultures address. Framed this way, it is clear that, depending on situational requirements, both individualism- and collectivism-focused strategies are adaptive; thus, it is likely that human minds have adapted to think both ways.

D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeier (2002) provide a most comprehensive review of empirical studies that used attitudinal surveys to capture cultural variations in individualism and collectivism. In the present article, the author suggests that the cross-cultural validity of attitudinal surveys can no longer be taken for granted. Moreover, the meta-theory underlying this literature (called the entity view of culture) is called into question. The author presents an alternative meta-theory (called the system view of culture) and discusses its implications for future work in cultural and cross-cultural psychology.

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.

The results from this research supported our primary hypothesis that the adoption of avoidance (relative to approach) personal goals varies as a function of individualism-collectivism (across representations of this distinction). Interdependent self-construals were positively related and independent self-construals were negatively related to adoption of avoidance goals (Study 1), Asian Americans adopted more avoidance goals than non-Asian Americans (Study 2), and persons from South Korea and Russia adopted more avoidance goals than those in the United States (Studies 3 and 4, respectively). Studies 3 and 4 investigated and found support for our secondary hypothesis that avoidance personal goals are a negative predictor of subjective well-being in individualistic (the United States), but not collectivistic (South Korea and Russia), countries. The findings are discussed in terms of other approach-avoidance constructs and motivational processes.

This article investigates the effects of the collectivist black self-construct on political and social orientations in African American adults. Findings indicate that the self-construct, which includes African self-consciousness and ethnic identity, influences perceptions of social issues like race relations and affects levels of identification with political figures and celebrities.

In a sample of 59,169 persons in 42 nations, relations between marital status and subjective well-being were found to be very similar across the world. Although cultural variables were found to alter the size of certain relations between marital status and subjective well-being, the effect sizes were very small. Specifically, in terms of life satisfaction, the benefit of marriage over cohabitation was greater in collectivist than in individualist nations. In terms of positive emotions, the benefit of being married over being divorced or separated was smaller in collectivist than in individualist nations. In addition, in terms of negative emotions, the benefit of being married over being divorced or separated was smaller in nations with a high tolerance for divorce. Finally, the relations between marital status, culture, and subjective well-being did not differ by gender. Because of the small size of the effects of the cultural variables, the authors concluded that the relations between marital status and subjective well-being are very similar across the world.

Issues related to the psychological benefits of collectivism as opposed to individualism are examined, focusing on study of 84 African Americans and 122 European Americans. Results indicate collectivism provided greater incidence of subjective well-being for African Americans than for Europeans.

Subjective well-being of young adults was studied as affected by parental marital status, marital conflict, individualism-collectivism and divorce rate. Results show that the subjective well-being of adolescents who do not have remarried or divorced parents is negatively influenced by marital conflict. It was also observed that collectivism reduces the impact of divorce or remarriage on the psychological well-being of young adults.

Five models of collectivism and individualism, which varied by ingroup and measurement specification, were tested with confirmatory factor analyses. The sample consisted of 493 college students from South Korea and the United States, with U.S. students divided between Asian Americans and European Americans. Results indicated that collectivism and individualism are best represented by a 4-factor model with the latent variables Kin Collectivism (KC), Kin Individualism (KI), Nonkin Collectivism (NC), and Nonkin Individualism (NI). KC and KI were strongly inversely related, but NC and NI were only moderately so. Whereas KC and NC were moderately related within each of the 3 student groups, KI and NI were moderately related only among Koreans and Asian Americans, and not among European Americans. Thus, the meanings of collectivism and individualism vary with ingroup and culture. Measurement, methodological, and conceptual implications are discussed.

Individualism and collectivism in Mexico and the United States of America were investigated. It was hypothesized that Mexican university students would be more collectivistic than university students in the United States. Specifically, this difference was expected to be found in relationships with parents, spouses, extended family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and classmates. University students in Mexico and in the United States completed the Individualism-Collectivism Scale (Hut, 1988), which measures the degree of individualistic or collectivistic tendencies in various interpersonal relationships. Analysis of variance revealed a country difference on the general Collectivism Index; students in Mexico were significantly more collectivistic than students in the United States. A multiple analysis of variance revealed country differences on the Parents, Spouse, and Co-Workers/Classmate subscales, with Mexican students' responses again significantly more collectivistic than those of the U.S. students., THE INDIVIDUALISM-COLLECTIVISM DIMENSION has been identified as one of the major aspects of culture (Hofstede, 1980; Mead, 1967; Triandis, 1990) and is perhaps one of the most important ways in [...]

The individualism/collectivism distinction led to hypotheses that Saudis, in comparison with Americans, would engage in 1) fewer internal attributions, 2) less self-serving bias, 3) more in-group-serving bias (both family-serving and in-group nationality-serving), and 4) more out-group-derogating bias. It was also predicted that in both cultures, immoral behavior and successful achievement would result in more internal attributions than would moral behavior or failure. A sample of university students in each country made attributions from eight vignettes. As expected, Americans were more internal and Saudis showed more out-group-derogating and intergroup bias. Both cultures also showed the predicted difference in attributions for morality and achievement. Although individual-level measurements showed Saudis to be more collectivistic than Americans, these measures had no significant effect on attributions, once culture was controlled.

People from collectivistic cultures draw clearer distinctions between ingroups and outgroups than those from individualistic cultures. Members of collectivistic cultures follow a different mode of communication with members of ingroups and outgroups while people from individualistic cultures use the same pattern of communication with both groups. Data from Hong Kong and Japan represented collectivism while data from Australia and the US illustrated individualism.

An understanding of the differences between individualism and collectivism (Triandis, McCusker, & Hui, 1990) is necessary for multicultural awareness. Individualists, who reside in industrialized, commercial, urban societies, are socialized for [...]

Research examines conceptions of self and the relationship between self and community in African American community college students, focusing on how individuals locate their personal power within a social context. Topics include how the communal and religious aspects of African American life may impact harmony control.

Previous studies have found cross-cultural variation in field dependence. In this study, cross-cultural differences were expected depending on the degree of individualism or collectivism of the respective cultures. Samples were taken from two prototypically individualist cultures, the United States and Germany, and two collectivist cultures, Russia and Malaysia. As predicted, field dependence did not differ between those samples that represented the same type of culture, either collectivist or individualist. However, a clear difference could be found between the two types of cultures; that is, U.S. and German participants were more field independent than were Russian and Malaysian participants.

ABSTRACT. People from collectivist cultures may have more concrete and interdependent self-concepts than do people from individualist cultures (G. Hofstede, 1980). African cultures are considered collectivist (H. C. Triandis, 1989), [...]

Possible differences in social comparison choices between individualistic and collectivistic cultures and individuals were explored among a sample of 235 student participants from the United States and China, focusing on [...]

Americans (individualists) and Japanese (collectivists) were asked to rate their conflict experiences in terms of goal orientation, goal attainment, tactics, and outcome satisfaction. Individualists preferred assertive tactics, whereas collectivists preferred avoidance tactics. The results regarding goal orientation showed that individualism were strongly oriented toward achieving justice, but collectivists were more motivated by a concern for relationships with others. The finding that attainment of a justice goal did not strongly satisfy the Americans suggests that justice is an instrumental value and not a terminal value in conflict situations., Research indicates that a culture's structural form is an accurate predictor of how it handles social conflict. Individualistic societies such as the US emphasize personal justice and assertive methods, while collectivist societies like Japan focus on group interrelationships and avoid confrontational approaches. Gender role structures indicate women are influenced by justice goals, while men are motivated by power-hostility goals.

Measures of collectivism-individualism from samples of college students in eight nations were not associated with national rates of suicide or homicide.