Individualism vs. Collectivism Defined

Individualism in cultures implies loose ties; everyone is expected to look after one’s self or immediate family but no one else. Collectivism implies that people are integrated from birth into strong, cohesive groups that protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

Hofstede found that individualistic cultures value personal time, freedom, challenge, and such extrinsic motivators as material rewards at work. In family relations, they value honesty/truth, talking things out, using guilt to achieve behavioral goals, and maintaining self-respect. Their societies and governments place individual social-economic interests over the group, maintain strong rights to privacy, nurture strong private opinions (expected from everyone), restrain the power of the state in the economy, emphasize the political power of voters, maintain strong freedom of the press, and profess the ideologies of self-actualization, self-realization, self-government, and freedom.

At work, collectivist cultures value training, physical conditions, skills, and the intrinsic rewards of mastery. In family relations, they value harmony more than honesty/truth (and silence more than speech), use shame to achieve behavioral goals, and strive to maintain face. Their societies and governments place collective social-economic interests over the individual, may invade private life and regulate opinions, favor laws and rights for groups over individuals, dominate the economy, control the press, and profess the ideologies of harmony, consensus, and equality.

collectivism, individualism, business culture, national cultures