Toward measuring individualism and collectivism in two cultures (China, United States).

摘要

A new instrument was developed to measure specific components of individualism and collectivism in the People's Republic of China and the U.S. Three components of individualism were assessed: independence, competitiveness, and uniqueness, and three components of collectivism were assessed: consideration of one's decisions on others, sharing of positive outcomes, and sharing of negative outcomes. Collectivism was measured with respect to three groups: parents, friends, and general others. The components of individualism were strongly related to each other except in U.S. females, for whom the relationship between competitiveness and other two components was only moderately strong. The relationship between the components of collectivism was a function of social distance. Although collectivism was a multidimensional construct with distinct components with close relations, the components became less differentiated as social distance moved toward general others. Individualism and collectivism were two distinct constructs, and the pattern of the correlations changed as social distance increased. Individualism and collectivism were positively related to each other when parents were the reference group, but the relationship approached zero when friends and general others were the reference groups. Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test measurement invariance across gender within each culture as well as across culture at the configural, factor loading, and intercept levels. Factor loading invariance was achieved for all subscales of individualism and collectivism across gender with each culture. Factor loading invariance was also achieved for all but two subscales of individualism and collectivism across culture. Intercept invariance was achieved for some of the subscales across gender or culture. Chinese participants reported being less unique and more independent than American participants. Chinese participants and U.S. males were more competitive than U.S. females. Chinese participants were also more likely to consider the implications of their decisions for parents, to think their parents would be proud of their achievements, to think their parents would be ashamed of their misconduct, to think their friends would be ashamed of their misconduct, to consider the implications of their decisions on others, to feel ashamed of others' misconduct, and to think others would be ashamed of their misconduct.