Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Understanding the Individualism-Collectivism Cleavage and Its Effects: Lessons from Cultural Psychology

  • Chapter
Institutions and Comparative Economic Development

Part of the book series: International Economic Association Series ((IEA))

Abstract

The central role of culture on economic development has been recognized at least since Max Weber who, in his classic work ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, argued that the protestant ethic of Calvinism was a very powerful force behind the development of capitalism in its early phases. Recently economic historians such as Landes (1998) and Mokyr (2010) have emphasized the crucial role of culture in explaining the industrial revolution.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Baland, J. M., C. Guirkinger and C. Mali (2007) ‘Pretending to Be Poor: Borrowing to Escape forced Solidarity in Credit Cooperatives in Cameroon’, mimeo, Université Notre Dame de la Paix Namur.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banfield, E. C. (1958) The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (New York: Free Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., P. Menozzi and A. Piazza (1994) The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Choi, I. and Y. Choi (2002) ‘Culture and Self-concept Flexibility’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 28, no. 11, pp. 1508–1517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Comola, M. and M. Fafchamps (2010) ‘Are Gifts and Loans between Households Voluntary?’, Oxford Economics Paper, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, at: www.economics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/papers/details/csae_wps_2010-20/

    Google Scholar 

  • de Mooij, M. (2003) Consumer Behavior and Culture. Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications)

    Google Scholar 

  • Earley, P. C. (1993) ‘East Meets West Meets Mideast: Further Explorations of Collectivistic and Individualist Work Groups’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 319–348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fearon, J. (2003) ‘Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country’, Journal of Economic Growth, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 195–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glaeser, E., D. Laibson, J. Scheinkman, and C. Soutter (2000) ‘What Is Social Capital?’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 65, no. 3, pp. 811–846.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gorodnichenko, Y. and G. Roland (2010) ‘Culture, Institutions and the Wealth of Nations’, CEPR Discussion Paper No 8013 (London: CEPR).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gorodnichenko, Y. and G. Roland (2011) ‘Which Dimensions of Culture Matter for Long-run Growth?’, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, vol. 101, no. 3, pp. 492–498.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grosjean, P. (2009) ‘The Contributions of Spatial Proximity and History to Cultural Integration: A Gravity Approach’, mimeo, UC Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guiso, L., P. Sapienza and L. Zingales (2006) ‘Does Culture Affect Economic Outcomes?’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 23–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guiso, L., P. Sapienza and L. Zingales (2008) ‘Social Capital as Good Culture’, Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 6, no. 2–3, pp. 295–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guiso, L., P. Sapienza and L. Zingales (2009) ‘Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 124, no. 3, pp. 1095–1131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heine, S. J. (2008) Cultural Psychology (New York: W. W. Norton & Company).

    Google Scholar 

  • Heine, S. J. (2010) ‘Cultural Psychology’, in S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert and G. Lindzey (eds), Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 2, pp. 1423–1465.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heine, S. J., T. Takemoto, S. Moskalenko, J. Lasaleta and J. Henrich (2008) ‘Mirrors in the Head: Cultural Variation in Objective Self-awareness’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 34, no. 7, pp. 879–887.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heine, S. J., S. Kitayama, D. R. Lehman, T. Takata, E. Ide, C. Leung and H. Matsumoto (2001) ‘Divergent Consequences of Success and Failure in Japan and North America: An Investigation of Self-Improving Motivations and Malleable Selves’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 81, no. 4, pp. 599–615.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hofstede, G. (2001) Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, and Organizations Across Nations, 2nd edition (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoppe, M. H. (1990) A Comparative Study of Country Elites: International Differences in Work-related Values and Learning and their Implications for Management Training and Development, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, School of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iyengar, S. S. and M. R. Lepper (1999) ‘Rethinking the Value of Choice: A Cultural Perspective on Intrinsic Motivation’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 76, no. 3, pp. 349–366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jakiela, P. and O. Ozier (2011) ‘Does Africa Need a Rotten Kin Theorem? Experimental Evidence from Village Economies’, mimeo, UC Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ji, L. J., K. Peng and R. E. Nisbett (2000) ‘Culture, Control, and Perception of Relationships in the Environment’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 78, no. 5, pp. 943–955.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ji, L. J., Z. Zhang and R. E. Nisbett (2004) ‘Is It Culture or Is It Language? Examination of Language Effects in Cross-Cultural Research on Categorization’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 87, no. 1, pp. 57–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kanagawa, C., S. E. Cross and H. R. Markus (2001) ‘“Who Am I?”: The Cultural Psychology of the Conceptual Self’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 90–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kashima, Y. and E. S. Kashima (2003) ‘Individualism, GNP, Climate, and Pronoun Drop: Is Individualism Determined by Affluence and Climate, or Does Language Use Play a Role?’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 125–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, H. S. and H. R. Markus (1999) ‘Deviance or Uniqueness, Harmony or Conformity? A Cultural Analysis’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 785–800.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kitayama, S., S. Duffy, T. Kawamura and J. T. Larsen (2003) ‘Perceiving an Object and Its Context in Different Cultures: A Cultural Look at New Look’, Psychological Science, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 201–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kitayama, S., H. R. Markus and M. Kurokawa (2000) ‘Culture, Emotion, and Well-being: Good Feelings in Japan and the United States’, Cognition and Emotion, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 93–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knack, S., and P. Keefer (1997) ‘Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 112, no. 4, 1251–1288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kühnen, U., B. Hannover and B. Schubert (2001) ‘The Semantic-Procedural Interface Model of the Self: The Role of Self-knowledge for Context-dependent Versus Context-independent Modes of Thinking’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 80, no. 3, pp. 397–409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landes, D. S. (1998) The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (New York: W. W. Norton).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ma, V., and T. J. Schoeneman (1997) ‘Individualism versus Collectivism: A Comparison of Kenyan and American Self-concepts’, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 261–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Macfarlane, A. (1978) The Origins of English Individualism: Family, Property and Social Transition (Oxford: Blackwell).

    Google Scholar 

  • Markus, H. R. and S. Kitayama (1991) ‘Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion and Motivation’, Psychological Review, vol. 98, no. 2, pp. 224–253

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Masuda, T., R. Gonzalez, L. Kwan, L. and R. E. Nisbett (2008) ‘Culture and Aesthetic Preference: Comparing the Attention to Context of East Asians and European Americans’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 34, no. 9, pp. 1260–1275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Masuda, T. and R. E. Nisbett (2001) ‘Attending Holistically versus Analytically: Comparing The Context Sensitivity of Japanese and Americans’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 81, no. 5, pp. 922–934.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merritt, A. (2000) ‘Culture in the Cockpit: Do Hofstede’s Dimensions Replicate?’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol. 31 no. 3, pp. 283–301

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mezulis, A. H., L. Y. Abramson, J. S. Hyde and B. L. Hankin (2004) ‘Is There a Universal Positive Bias in Attributions?: A Meta-analytic Review of Individual, Developmental, and Cultural Differences in the Self-serving Attributional Bias’, Psychological Bulletin, vol. 130, no. 5, pp. 711–747.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morling, B., S. Kitayama and Y. Miyamoto (2002) ‘Cultural Practices Emphasize Influence in the United States and Adjustment in Japan’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 311–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mokyr, J. (2010) ‘Culture, Institutions and Modern Growth’, presentation at the conference Understanding Institutions and Development: The Legacy and Work of Douglass C. North, St Louis, 4–6 November.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miyamoto, Y. and N. Schwarz (2006) ‘When Conveying a Message May Hurt the Relationship: Cultural Differences in the Difficulty of Using an Answering Machine’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 540–547.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norenzayan, A., I. Choi and R. E. Nisbett (2002) ‘Cultural Similarities and Differences in Social Inference: Evidence from Behavioral Predictions and Lay Theories of Behavior’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 109–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oyserman, D., H. M. Coon and M. Kemmelmeier (2002) ‘Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-analyses’, Psychological Bulletin, vol. 128, no. 1, pp. 3–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peng, K. and R. E. Nisbett (1999) ‘Culture, Dialectics, and Reasoning about Contradiction’, American Psychologist, vol. 54, no. 9, pp. 741–754.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Platteau, J.-P. (2000) Institutions, Social Norms and Economic Development (Harwood: Academic Publishers).

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, R. D. (1994) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Roland, G. (2004) ‘Understanding Institutional Change: Fast-moving and Slow-moving Institutions’, Studies in Comparative International Development, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 109–131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, S. H. (1994) ‘Beyond Individualism/Collectivism: New Cultural Dimensions of Values’, Individualism and Collectivism: Theory Method and Applications, vol. 18, pp. 85–119.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, S. H. (2006) ‘A Theory of Cultural Value Orientations: Explication and Applications’, Comparative Sociology, vol. 5, pp. 136–182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shane, S. (1995) ‘Uncertainty Avoidance and the Preference for Innovation Championing Roles’, Journal of International Business Studies, First Quarter, pp. 47–67.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suh, E. M. (2002) ‘Culture, Identity Consistency,and Subjective Well-being’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 83, no. 6, pp. 1378–1391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suh, E., E. Diener, S. Oishi and H. C. Triandis (1998) ‘The Shifting Basis of Life Satisfaction Judgments across Cultures: Emotions versus Norms’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 74, no. 2, pp. 482–493.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabellini, G. (2008) ‘Institutions and Culture. Presidential Address European Economic Association’, Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 6, pp. 255–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tardif, T. (1996) ‘Nouns are Not Always Learned before Verbs: Evidence from Mandarin Speakers’ Early Vocabularies’, Developmental Psychology, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 492–504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uslaner, E. (2005) ‘Trust as a Moral Value’, in D. Castiglione, J. W. van Deth and G. Wolleb (eds), The Handbook of Social Capital (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 101–121.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Nimwegen, T. (2002) Global Banking Global Values (Delft: Eburon)

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamagishi, T. and M. Yamagishi (1994) ‘Trust and Commitment in the United States and Japan’, Motivation and Emotion, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 9–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Gérard Roland

  2. NBER, USA

    Yuriy Gorodnichenko

  3. CEPR, UK

    Gérard Roland

Authors
  1. Yuriy Gorodnichenko
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gérard Roland
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University, USA

    Masahiko Aoki

  2. Duke University, USA

    Timur Kuran

  3. University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Gérard Roland

Copyright information

© 2012 International Economic Association

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Gorodnichenko, Y., Roland, G. (2012). Understanding the Individualism-Collectivism Cleavage and Its Effects: Lessons from Cultural Psychology. In: Aoki, M., Kuran, T., Roland, G. (eds) Institutions and Comparative Economic Development. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137034014_12

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation