"Journal of Education Culture and Society" 2015_2

Cultural dimension of individualism and collectivism and its perceptual and cognitive correlates in cross-cultural research

Jiří Čeněk

Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno

Žerotínovo nám. 617/9, 601 77 Brno, Czech Republic

and

Mendel University in Brno

Zemědělská 1/1665, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic

E-mail jiricenda@centrum.cz

Abstract

This paper reviews the current findings on the dimension of individualism/collectivism, which might be a useful tool for the comparison of different cultures and for the investigation of the effect of culture as a psychological concept on individual mental processes. The validity and reliability of the concept of the dimension of individualism/collectivism is discussed. The related theory of analytic and holistic thinking is introduced within a framework of extensive comparative research in the field of cross-cultural psychology. Several interesting research designs on cross-cultural differences in cognition and perception are described. The empirical part contains a short report of research conducted on a sample (N=92) of Czech and Czech Vietnamese university students using a scale of horizontal and vertical individualism/collectivism (Bartoš, 2010). The results do not fully support the traditional view of individualistic Europeans and collectivistic Asians.

Key words:

individualism,collectivism, holistic thinking analytic thinking, culture

DOI: 10.15503/jecs20152.210.225    pdf full version