Collectivism and interdependent self-construal describe people’s relationships with other people and whether people think of themselves as more connected to other people or independent from other people. People who score high on collectivism and interdependence place more emphasis on relationships, responsibilities in those relationships, adapting the self to the context, and interdependence in relationships. People who score high on individualism and independence place less emphasis on responsibilities in relationships and more emphasis on individual traits, freely chosen relationships, and autonomy in those relationships. 

 

Background

Researchers often use “collectivism” and “interdependence,” as well as “individualism” and “independence” interchangeably (Keller, 2013). However, some researchers use “interdependence” and “independence” to refer only to self-construal—how people think about the self (Giacomin & Jordan, 2017). Much of the research and theorizing has focused on interdependence in East Asian cultures and independence in Western cultures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Researchers use collectivism and interdependence scales to measure differences between individuals and cultures. Most researchers agree that collectivism is both a stable trait and responsive to different situations. For example, many studies have used methods to temporarily put people into a more collectivistic or individualistic mindset (Oyserman & Lee, 2008).

 

Measurement

Singelis (1994) independent/interdependent self-construal scale: This scale uses 12 items to measure independence (such as “I act the same way no matter who I am with”) and 12 items to measure interdependence (such as “It is important to maintain harmony within my group”). The original study found individual-level reliability alphas of .73 and .74 in its two samples (Singelis, 1994, p. 585).

Singelis et al. (1995) horizontal/vertical individualism-collectivism scale: This scale divides individualism and collectivism into horizontal and vertical versions of each dimension, for a total of four dimensions. Horizontal versions emphasize equality and similarity between people. Vertical versions accept inequality and hierarchy between people. Each of the four scales has 8 items, such as “I hate to disagree with others in my group” (vertical collectivism) and “I am a unique individual” (horizontal individualism). A large international study found an omega reliability of .74 at the individual level and .65 at the culture level (Talhelm et al., Under Review).

 

Responsibilism scale: The responsibilism scale is a newly developed scale with scores for 100 cultures around the world (Talhelm et al., Under Review). The scale has 14 items that describe concrete behavioral responsibilities and duties in close relationships. The items use concrete behaviors with detailed situations in order to avoid problems with using vague, abstract wordings that people across cultures may interpret differently. Responsibilism demonstrates divergent validity from earlier collectivism scales and stronger criterion validity correlations with external metrics of collectivism, such as living with extended family and kinship systems. The scale is available in 45 languages and includes a brief 5-item version. The omega reliability was .52 at the individual level and .83 at the culture level (Talhelm et al., Under Review). Reliability is a bit low at the individual because the scale asks about a wide range of concrete scenarios rather than redundant abstract questions. 

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Vignoles et al. (2016) self-construal scale: This scale breaks interdependence down into seven components: difference versus similarity; self-containment versus connectedness to others; self-direction versus reception to influence; self-reliance versus dependence on others; self-expression versus harmony; consistency versus variability; and de-contextualized versus contextualized self. Each component has six items, such as “You behave in a similar way at home and in public” (consistency versus variability) and “You usually give priority to others, before yourself” (self-interest versus commitment to others). However, the different components are uncorrelated and even negatively correlated in some cases both at the individual level and the culture level (Vignoles et al., 2016, p. 17). For example, cultures that score higher on self-direction score lower on self-reliance (r = .25). Thus, Vignoles does not advocate combining the components into an overall interdependence score. The components had omega reliabilities ranging from .71 to .89 in a sample of 100 college students in the UK (Talhelm et al., Under Review) and .65 to .85 in a sample of students and adults in the Czech Republic (Lacko et al., 2021).

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Gudykunst et al. (1996) individualism-collectivism scale: This scale has 14 individualism items (such as “I try not to depend on others”) and 14 collectivism items (“My relationships with others are more important than my accomplishments”). In a study of over 3,000 people, omega reliability was.81 at the individual level and .88 at the culture level (Talhelm et al., Under Review).

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Earley (1993) collectivism scale: This scale has 8 items that measure collectivism. Several items mention work and teams, with items such as “Employees like to work in a group rather than by themselves.” Omega reliability was .57 at the individual level and .58 at the culture level (Talhelm et al., Under Review). The Earley scale lower reliability because it has fewer items than most scales and because the items sample a broader range of characteristics and situations.

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Hofstede (2003) individualism-collectivism scale: Hofstede was an early pioneer of measuring cultural differences through surveys. The individualism country scores he created from surveys of IBM employees in the 1960s around the world are widely used today, although psychologists do not often use his individualism scale. This could be because the items are specific to work and because researchers have criticized the face validity (Talhelm et al., Under Review). For example, one item asks employees to rate the importance of “good physical working conditions (good ventilation and lighting, adequate work space, etc.).” According to Hofstede, agreement with good ventilation and lighting reflects collectivism. Studies have found a wide range of reliabilities at using different samples and different versions of the scale, such as .68 at the individual level for the 1994 (Taras et al., 2023, p. 6) and .04 for the 2013 version across 56 countries (Gerlach & Eriksson, 2021, p. 5).

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Cross et al. (2000) relational-interdependent self-construal scale: This scale asks 11 questions about the importance of people’s relationships in their identity, with items such as “my close relationships are an important reflection of who I am” and “if a person hurts someone close to me, I feel hurt as well.” A large international study found an omega reliability of .81 at the individual level and .88 at the culture level (Talhelm et al., Under Review). In a study of 50 cultures, the omega reliability was .84 at the individual level and .84 at the culture level (Talhelm et al., Under Review).

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Limitations/strengths

One fundamental critique of the interdependence/collectivism scales is that much of the theory was built on the contrast between East Asia and the West (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), yet several meta-analyses found that the scales routinely fail to find the theorized East-West differences (Heine et al., 2002; Matsumoto, 1999; Takano & Osaka, 1999). For example, one meta-analysis found that people in the US score significantly higher on collectivism than people in Japan (Oyserman et al., 2002). 

 

Failing to find East-West differences may not be a problem. Two surveys of cultural experts found they nearly unanimously expect East-West differences on these dimensions, but expert expectations could simply be wrong (Heine et al., 2002; Peng et al., 1997). However, a recent study tested people across 50 cultures with the top five most-cited collectivism scales and compared the scores to external markers of collectivism, such as living with extended family and the prevalence of kinship and clans (Talhelm et al., Under Review). The scales showed poor correlations with these markers, with several scales correlating in the wrong direction on average. These results suggest the scales are not tapping into collectivism. One reason this happens is that most of the scales were developed and tested in one or two cultures, rather than across many cultures. 

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Researchers have offered different explanations for these puzzling findings. Researchers have attributed the discrepancy to vague, abstract wordings in surveys (Peng et al., 1997), response style differences across cultures (Schimmack et al., 2005), and the idea that people are implicitly comparing themselves to the people around them (called the “reference group effect”; Heine et al., 2002). 

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A more recent explanation is that the scales confused concrete, behavioral responsibilities in close relationships with vague, “warm fuzzy” collectivism (Talhelm et al., Under Review). Items that mention behavioral duties to specific close relationships tend to match expert expectations across cultures, such as the item “we should keep our aging parents with us at home.” In contrast, items that use vague words like “group” and “others” along with unspecific warmth and pro-sociality tend to produce results in the opposite direction from researcher expectations. For example, people in the US are more likely than people in China to agree with the item “to me, pleasure is spending time with others.” 

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Existing gaps in the field: Researchers still disagree about how many sub-dimensions collectivism has. Another ongoing debate is whether individualism and collectivism are in opposition to each other (opposite ends of a single continuum) or whether it’s possible to score high on both individualism and collectivism at the same time (two independent dimensions). 

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Related Concepts

Two concepts that are closely related to individualism and collectivism are relational mobility and tightness-looseness. Relational mobility describes whether cultures have lots of opportunities to meet new people and freedom to choose and leave their relationships and groups (Thomson et al., 2018). Tightness-looseness describes whether cultures have tight, binding social norms or loose, flexible social norms (Gelfand et al., 2011). Collectivistic cultures tend to score lower on relational mobility and higher on tightness (Gelfand et al., 2011; Talhelm & English, 2020; Thomson et al., 2018). Researchers disagree about whether to think of relational mobility and tightness as components of collectivism or as separate from collectivism (Talhelm & English, 2020).

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Author(s) and Reviewer(s): Prepared by Thomas Talhelm, PhD. Reviewed by Shige Oishi, PhD. Please direct suggestions and feedback to Dr. Talhelm (talhelm@uchicago.edu).

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Version date: March 2025.

 

References

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