"Japanese collectivism" and "American individualism": Reexamining the dominant view.

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  • Takano Yohtaro
    Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo
  • Osaka Eiko
    Department of Psychology, College of Humanities and Sciences, Nihon University

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  • “日本人の集団主義”と“アメリカ人の個人主義”　　通説の再検討
  • ニホンジン ノ シュウダン シュギ ト アメリカジン ノ コジン シュギ ツウ
  • Reexamining the dominant view
  • 通説の再検討

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To assess the validity of the dominant view that the “national character” of the Japanese is more collective than that of the Americans, this paper reviews ten recent empirical studies that compared these two nations regarding individualism/collectivism. Two experimental studies on conformity and five questionnaire studies found no substantial differences. Two experimental studies on cooperation and one questionnaire study found that Japanese college students were more individualistic than American counterparts. The only study that supported the dominant view (Hofstede, 1980) is found to have little validity because its “individualism factor” is virtually unrelated to the common definition of individualism/collectivism. It is shown that the past collective behavior of the Japanese can be interpreted as a universal reaction to the international situations that required cooperation inside Japan and have recently changed drastically. A review of the past literature that produced the dominant view suggests that it was formed through the fundamental attribution error and other judgmental biases.

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