Further Support of the Reliability and Construct Validity of the Horizontal and Vertical, Individualism and Collectivism Framework

摘要

The search for an acceptable model to explain cultural differences in value orientations has led the present author to the constructs of individualism and collectivism (I-C). These two constructs have attracted the attention of scholars from a variety of disciplines since the 1800s (Watson & Morris, 2002), and I-C has been used to explain cultural differences in family dynamics, conflict resolution, communication, leadership and resource allocation (Voronov, 2002). The characteristics of individualism and collectivism have been described by Singelis et al. (1995) as follows: Individualists focus on 'self concepts that are independent from groups and have personal goals that may, or may not coincide with the group, whereas collectivists define themselves as part of the group and that the goals of the group have priority over personal goals. Moreover, relationships are extremely important to collectivists, while individualists will forgo the relationship if the costs outweigh the benefits.