Individualist Culture and the Collectivist Culture

INDIVIDUALIST VS. COLLECTIVIST CULTURE

SOURCE: https://todaysweather.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/00-respect.jpg


INDIVIDUALIST. Identifies primarily with self, with the needs of the
individual being satisfied before those of the group. Looking after and
taking care of oneself, being self-sufficient, guarantees the well-being of
the group. Independence and self-reliance are greatly stressed and valued.
In general, people tend to distance themselves psychologically and
emotionally from each other. One may choose to join groups, but group
membership is not essential to one’s identity or success. Individualist
characteristics are often associated with men and people in urban
settings (Shwartz, 1994).

SOURCE: http://research-methodology.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Individualism-versus-Collectivism.jpg


Individualist culture is not much celebrated here in Papua New Guinea.
However, I want to present to you few individuals that I perceived to be individualists. Meet Mr. Ole, the
school administrator from the former school of my kids here in Papua
New Guinea. He is an Australian perhaps in his 50s. Coming to school
three times a day during school days, we hardly see Mr. Ole doing
nothing within the premises of the school. Sometimes, he is outside,
talking to the guards, and giving directions on where private vehicles and
where official vehicles should park. He even at times man the parking
and neaten the orange parking cones himself, to the parents’ amusement
who are by standing in school. More so, there is this one instance where
I saw him talking to the gardener, briefing what groom he prefers the
plants must be. He even demonstrated to the gardener how to cut the
bushes. To my surprise he was talking to the gardener in Pidgin (local
language of Papua New Guinea). It was helpless to grin in discreet
hearing a white man talking a different language apart from their one and
only English language.

Then, there is Wayne. Wayne is the landlord of an apartment that we
leased during our short vacation trip in Cairns Australia. He is of course,
an Australian probably in his 40s. May I also note that Wayne has a very
strong Australian accent that not in few occurrences with my
conversations with him that I needed to ask him to repeat what he said
so I can understand him. I vividly remember when we check in he was
asking me “How many keys do you need?”, but he pronounced the word
keys as “case”. I frowned and was trying my very best to decipher what
I understood he just said. My husband whose more acquainted with the
accent came to the rescue when he saw my confusion and took over the
conversation. Going back to Wayne, for two weeks that we stick around
that apartment, we hardly see this guy smile. Everyday, we see him
circling the place riding a scooter, but never initiated once a “hi” or
“hello”. By the way, I forgot to mention that he never helped us with our
multiple heavy baggages when he sent us to our room at the 2nd floor of
the building. He just said, “I think your luggage is heavy.” This is how
things work here in Australia when renting a self-contained apartment.
Even if you’re a guest, you have to transport your own baggage without
the help of hotel boys or concierge, you likewise have to collect and put
your rubbish in the bin outside the building . They don’t even have
security guards to look after the place and the parking. They never
needed it in the first place. Many places in Australia are relatively safe.

As I was saying about Wayne, it is a common view to see him in long
face. As days came to pass, we observed that Wayne is a one-man staff.
He is the owner, the receptionist, the cleaner, the guard, and the travel
organizer. One morning, we visited the reception to get some flyers, but
it was closed. We decided to just give it a ring, and Wayne answered. He
said, he was out of the office for a while because he was in one of the
apartments tidying the room that was just vacated. Then one time we
were at the pool area where my kids were swimming, he came in, without
a word or a nod or a smile. He checked the barbecue area if it was used
or clean. Then walked out without a word again.

What I was attempting to endeavour here as regard to the topic of
Individualist culture, is that Australians being next in line to the United
States as the most Individualist countries, are sometimes arrogant, selfcentered,
and never practice the “beating around the bush” approach. I
recount one day, when Mr. Ole was so pissed with the guards for reasons
we were not aware of, when he walked past us, he pointed his temple
referring to the guards who are Papua New Guineans, similarly saying
“these people have no heads or not thinking.” This is to emphasize how
straightforward Australians are, unmindful even if he was pertaining to
the nationals of the country where he’s earning his fortune at. I don’t
think Filipinos are like that nor will ever do that. Then in one rare
instance where Mr. Ole and I accidentally were on the same flight from
Sydney via Cairns to Port Moresby (capital of Papua New Guinea), it
was a delayed flight. Then I saw him in the check-in counter so
distressed because of the delay, he was raising his voice to his fellow
Australian lady. He was not aware I was there as I didn’t approach him
to say hi. When we chanced upon each other in school, I told him, we
were on the same flight and I saw him. Then, he started telling me a
story that some “bloody Australian” threw a cigarette butt in the rubbish
bin on that day that I saw him, then it smoked and caused the alarm to
went off, the reason why the flight was delayed. It was an interesting
narration, however, I was surprised with the uttered “bloody Australian,”
so I asked him, "are you not Australian?" He said, "yes I am," that is why I
am allowed to say so. We shared a good laugh afterwards.

Hence, Individualists are more likely to prejudge people based on
obvious personal attributes. In Western cultures people enjoy more
personal freedoms, take greater pride in individual accomplishments,
enjoy more privacy, and live with more spontaneity than people in
collectivist cultures. However, individuals in western culture are also
suffer from more loneliness and depression, higher divorce and homicide
rates, and are more vulnerable to stress related diseases.

Individualists such as Mr. Ole and Wayne being Australians are dominant
in nature, but we should not forget that Australia is a first world country.
Australians are focused, goal-oriented, determined, independent, and
hard worker. These attributes of Individualist culture are the underlying
ingredients for a successful economic growth and holistic development of
a country.

COLLECTIVIST. One’s identity is, in large part, a function of one’s
membership and role in a group, e.g., the family or work team. The
survival and success of the group ensures the well-being of the
individual, so that by considering the needs and feelings of others, one
protects oneself. Harmony and the interdependence of group members
are stressed and valued. Group members are relatively close
psychologically and emotionally, but distant toward non group members.
Collectivist characteristics are often associated with women and people
in rural settings (Shwartz, 1994).

SOURCE: http://thearticulateceo.typepad.com/my-blog/2011/09/cultural-differences-individualism-versus-collectivism.html

Here in Papua New Guinea, where many expatriates from different parts
of the world are drawn to help their country become globally
competitive, RACISM is becoming an inevitable practice. Racism is the
view that there is a race of people, usually determined by skin color and
appearance, and that they're all basically the same. Racism is
fundamentally collectivist.

In Royal Papua Yacht Club Gym where I used to teach physical fitness
class, my students there are inter-racial. There are Australians, Indians,
Filipino, and Malaysians. These set of girls are generally stay at home
Moms like me, and wives of the most affluent expat families here in Port
Moresby (capital of Papua New Guinea). They are wives of CEOs,
Presidents, and Owners of huge businesses and tradings here.
And then there is Life Gym. A gymnasium where I also used to teach the
same physical fitness class owned by a British national and is located
inside a well-known hotel here in Port Moresby. My students here are in
large number Papua New Guineans. There are also Filipinos, and
Malaysians. They are all in the working class or employed.

The difference of both places is, in Royal Papua Yacht Club, sessions of
physical fitness are exclusively available only for the members. Nonmembers
are prohibited to attend the class. Membership in this club is
significantly expensive as members are mostly sponsored by the
company. Membership is as much as K4000 Kina (P80,000pesos) a year.
Yacht club members are dominantly Australians as they own yachts and
small boats as their usual weekend hobbies. Wherein Life Gym, you can
attend class without membership, like a pay-and-enter type of class with
a minimal fee of K20 Kina (P400 pesos).

When I talk to my students in Yacht Club and they will learn I teach in
Life Gym as well, they blatantly say that many of them never like it there
as many Papua New Guineas are attending the class, whose emitting foul
smell as they perspire. On the other hand, when my students from Life
Gym learned that I am teaching in the Yacht Club, they will say that they
don’t like it there neither, because there are many expats there who are
arrogant and airy.

Truly, this kind of orientation are Collectivist in nature. This is clearly an
example of racial discrimination. Instead of viewing individuals by their
own actions, values, or attributes, the group is judged and the outcome is
arbitrarily assigned to the individuals. They made a judgment base on the
venue, as Yacht Club is for the elite groups, and Life Gym is for the
mass. They both made judgment base on the race, as expats are proud,
and locals are ill-smell. In other words, you get praised or blamed not by
your own actions, but by the actions of someone else (or more than one
person). Racism therefore, is a huge injustice, and turns the whole
concept of moral judgment upside down.

CONCLUSION

Regardless of culture, most persons carry both individualistic and
collectivistic tendencies to some degree. One definite example is my
very own self. I consider myself as Individualist when I decided to enroll
and pursue my Masters in Development Communication through distance
learning program of Open University. I have decided to invest on my
individuality by earning additional academic degree. Further, I fall on
being a Collectivist when I settled at my own discretion to be a full time,
stay-at-home mother. Despite the fact that I believe I could have had a
promising career as I was a consistent dedicated student with honors in college,
however, I chose to be a full pledged mother to my kids for the reason
that my husband is an overseas Filipino worker since the time that we got
married until the present.  I chose family over money, which I have no regrets in doing so.
 

SOURCE: http://www.2ndmanunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Individualism.jpg

The point has been made now that variations of individualism and collectivism can be seen within any culture. Therefore, no culture is purely and entirely individualistic or collectivistic.


FURTHER READINGS:

http://cranepsych.edublogs.org/files/2009/07/individual_vs_collectivist.pdf

http://thearticulateceo.typepad.com/my-blog/2011/09/cultural-differences-individualism-versus-collectivism.html


CITATION:

Schwartz, S. H. (1994). Beyond individualism/collectivism: New cultural dimensions of values. In U.    Kim,       H. C. Triandis, C. Kagitcibasi, S.-C. Choi, & G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism and collectivism: Theory, method and applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.