Title: Individualistic Practices and Values Increasing Around the World – Association for Psychological Science – APS
Headings: Individualistic Practices and Values Increasing Around the World
Individualistic Practices and Values Increasing Around the World
Content: Individualistic Practices and Values Increasing Around the World – Association for Psychological Science – APS
Individualistic Practices and Values Increasing Around the World
July 17, 2017
Tags: Cross Cultural Differences
Culture
Personality/Social
Psychological Science
Sociocultural Factors
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Individualism is thought to be on the rise in Western countries, but new research suggests that increasing individualism may actually be a global phenomenon. The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, show that increasing socioeconomic development is an especially strong predictor of increasing individualistic practices and values in a country over time. “Much of the research on the manifestation of rising individualism—showing, for example, increasing narcissism and higher divorce rates—has focused on the United States. Our findings show that this pattern also applies to other countries that are not Western or industrialized,” says psychology researcher Henri C. Santos of the University of Waterloo. “ Although there are still cross-national differences in individualism-collectivism, the data indicate that, overall, most countries are moving towards greater individualism.” Drawing from national census data and data collected for the World Values Survey, Santos, senior study author Igor Grossmann (University of Waterloo), and study co-author Michael E.W. Varnum (Arizona State University) were able to examine 51 years’ worth of data detailing individualist practices and values in a total of 78 countries. In general, individualist cultures tend to conceive of people as self-directed and autonomous, and they tend to prioritize independence and uniqueness as cultural values. Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, tend to see people as connected with others and embedded in a broader social context – as such, they tend to emphasize interdependence, family relationships, and social conformity. To measure individualistic practices across cultures, the researchers examined data on household size, divorce rates, and proportion of people living alone.