Individualism and Collectivisim

Individualism and collectivism

What is Individualism and collectivism is the first question that we should make us. According to Hofstede, Individualism is the emotional independence of individual's persons from groups, organizations or other collectivities.

The Individualisms stresses in the self- reliance or autonomy (related expressions in the English language: "stand one's own two feet". "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps", do your own thing, do it yourself, the world is your oyster, "I did it my way"), the right of every man to his own opinion and to equality (UK citizens are against ID cards), the responsibility of each individual for his own acts ( the word "accountability" have a word for "responsibility").

The individualism sees society as "a large number of individuals working together" to improve their individual and collective welfare.

But Individualism is not selfishness. It is not disregard for the community. Individualists want to free every single person from collective control. Yet and individual may be a conscientious "altruist". (In Desperate Housewives, four totally different women come together every week to play cars and try to look after the interests of their neighborhood).

Instead, we can define Collectivism as prime orientation to common goals and objectives. Individuals are encouraged to work for consensus in the interests of the group.

If we think now in terms of countries, we can make a ranking according to their tendency toward individual or collectivism. We can do it for two points of view. According Tromp and Hampden Turner's study, the most individualistic countries are Israelis, Romanians, Nigerians, Canadians and Americans, and the collectivistic countries are Japan, India, Egypt and Mexico.

According Hofstade's study, we find similar results. For him the individualistic country for excellence is USA, following by Australia, Gran Britain, Canada and Netherlands. And the most collectivistic countries are Japan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Colombia and Venezuela.

Consequences of high Individualism and Collectivism are also present in the workplace.

Individualistic cultures encourage, people thinking care of themselves, (pay bay performance). They make decisions based on individual needs (young people can be promoted easily, since salaries depend directly on individual performance, skills). Individualistic is based in the "I" mentality (a Swede will introduce himself first them his role in his company). And their types of contract are based in the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods, before a purchase is made.

Instead, Collectivist countries, people have primary loyalty to group (group responsibility of negligence at a Japanese reprocessing/ recycling plant, Tokaimura, there was a leak. So as not to lose face, and not to blame any one individual, total silence was kept regarding the culprits of the accident. The entire group and managers of these groups took the blame for the lake of proper training and safety precautions).

Also Collectivistic countries are different from individualistic countries in terms in how they take decisions. These countries make decisions based on what is best for the group (for instance, in France for a "plan social" to bet set up by worker"). The decisions depend on organizations and institutions, with the expectations that these will take care of individual (e.g., huge deficit in social security/ welfare budget in France).

The mentality of these countries are the "We" mentality. (Japanese will first present his company; derives a sense of security and pride from being this co's representative). And their types of contracts are based in long term relationships. (No singular contract should be taken literally at face value).

USA and Japan are the models to illustrate this Individualism and Collectivism. Is because of that we have to analyze this two countries separately.

On the one hand we have USA. The Americans are probably the people who are most "individualistic". The individualism is part of their values, they are not been trained to see themselves as members of a group: religion, tribe, nation our other collectivity.

Americans think that everyone has been educated with the same grade of collectivism as them, and they sometimes can't understand why the act so depend for other people.

Indeed, the idea of freedom has strong positive connotations, and is because of that, other cultures, used to perceive some of the behavior Americans to be self centered and lacking in consideration for others, sometimes even immoral.

Other characteristic of Americans are that they admire people who have overcome adverse circumstances (for instance poverty or a physical handicap) and succeeded in life (for instance Charles Linderbegh who made the first solo non- stop transatlantic flight).

Another way that we can see the devotion for Individualism that the Americans have, is seen the relations with their parents. They consider them as short of historical or biological accident that put them in hands of particular parents, and when they get the age of independence, they start their life apart, paying for room a board is a way of showing independence, self- reliance and responsibility for oneself.

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