Individualism and Collectivism between Eastern and Western Cultures - Term Paper Example

? Individualism and Collectivism between Eastern and western cultures This paper explores various books and with respect to individualism and collectivism cultures. It explores on the similarities, differences and relationship between these two distinct alignments in the society. The books however argue differently on individualism and collectivism in Eastern and Western cultures depending on circumstances of the society. (Berns, 2001) argues that the westerners enjoy the full rights to life with all the good thing that come with it whereas the Easterners right to life comes with a responsibility and is achieved by effectively accomplishing their responsibilities. Other Authors argue that Eastern culture is more organized with respect to the society, lifestyle as compared to the Western culture where everyone for himself and God for as all. Nonetheless all this books show the relationship between Eastern and Western Culture and their views toward life as it is the primary goal of human being to coexist irrespective of the ideological background. Individualism and Collectivism between Eastern and Western Cultures In the world to-day, people have aligned themselves into two divergent ways of life that are distinct among the many societies. One type of alignment is depicted by concepts of individualism, which also means independence and autonomous. The other type of alignment is collectivism which by its antonym also means interdependence or communal that is it involves the entire society (Bakan 1966). Thus individualism is usually reflected with independent versus interdependent. In spite of these concepts being used to define the cultural and gender differences, a dimension of cultural evolution suggests it is unlikely. Specialization within the society may introduce the aspect of difference in gender. But this cannot be used to explain the difference in culture. A study of individualism in countries such as United States, Australia and Japan depicts the differences between the cultures and are captured in the way people see themselves as independent agents, while gender differences is shown by the extent to which people are emotionally attached to each other. The Eastern and western cultures reflects on the philosophical, social, cultural and political orientation. (Siegrist, 2006) states that a comparison of western and Eastern cultures shows a striking difference in the value of orientation. The western culture places its main point of value on choice, uniqueness of a person, self assertion and Ego of an individual. In the contrary, Eastern culture downplays individuality and stresses on the values and totality of the cosmos. The leading principles in individualism are based on the individual desires, needs and responsibilities, whereas the leading principles in Eastern culture are relationships, maturity, conformity, harmony and security. Thus are based on the satisfaction of collective responsibility and goals. Dragun (1990) developed a theory that showed the relationship between the Hofstedes (1980) cultural differences of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power and the beliefs and attitude towards the treatment of modalities. For instance, Dragun(1996) states that “counseling is concentrated in an individual at the individualistic culture and a relationship at the collective culture. Where power is of a high distance, emphasis will be placed on an individual expertise or credentials. Whereas where there is low power, culture values will be awarded to personal qualities of the counselor”. In addition, in individualistic culture, the counselor is expected to be a figure head to others but a nurturing and a keeper to the collectivism culture. The Triandis(1995) and Hofstedes concepts of individualism and collectivism are similar yet each has a unique feature in it. Hofstedes models the concepts of individualism and collectivism, as opposite polls in a single continuum. Triandis models individualism and collectivism as two separate entities that coexists and are influenced by contextual factors. The Triandis model of horizontal and vertical concepts of social hierarchy is substituted by the Hofstedes concept of power. In a study by Neuliep (2009), putts to task the assumption that Chinese, in spite of their country of origin are all alike, but they match up to the grouping of a single unit. Nevertheless, despite these ideological differences between individualism and collectivism, many countries send their students a broad for further studies. For instance countries such as the United States and Australia keep receiving an overwhelming number of students from Asian and international students for various reasons, such as many developing countries do have the necessary equipment and facility to accommodate the growing number of knowledge seekers. The United States and Australian colleges are not producing capable students with interests in competitive fields such as Medicine, engineering and business that are highly regarded in these countries. Thus with this in mind, the Universities in developed countries such as United states , Australia and Canada have enrolled students from eastern and southern Asia of whom are from different ideological background, precisely of collectivism. These developed countries have used this method of enrollment as means to compensate for the reduction of government subsidies. According to the Commonwealth department of Education Science and Training (2002), the number of international students in Australian Universities has steadily increased from 4.8 percent to approximately 15 percent. Fig1. International number of students enrolled in Western countries The figure above describes the number of international and Asian students enrolled in western countries such as United States and Australia in 1993 to 2005 which is in Thousands of students. This number increased gradually until the last reporting period despite the difference in ideological backgrounds. From the figure above it is observed that students from Arab origins, Africans and Asian leave there mother countries to the western culture in quest for knowledge, yet they have absolutely different Ideological background. With this increased number of students, it has created a diverse society in this developed countries giving rise to complex political and socio-cultural problems or issues. A student’s adjustment to this new school environment is directly proportional to the similarity in their environment and that of the host environment (sheehan, 1995). Thus due to this adjustments, international students tend to have more problems than the other students in University. A Chinese student encountering America for the first time identifies the difference between individual freedoms exercised in America against their own in China. Qian (2000) describes this scenario as individualism freedom is haunted by loneliness and helplessness. In the collectivism society, people might feel that thing are literary not going well but they rarely felt depressed due to the presence of the community who are there to support. Thus describes why Many people in America are suffering from depression or a suffering from brain problems, as this is contributed by each individual handling their own responsibilities that might be too heavy to bear. In the case of Chinese student scenario, the loneliness was enhanced by the separation from the parents, relatives and friends, and with the inability to effectively communicate and make new friends fast enough, then the fundamental principles of individualism creeps in and loneliness is heavily felt. Economic globalization has made western products to be of household such Coca cola, movies such Predator, terminator, jeans which have allowed effective interaction between the two ideologies, allowing either of the sides to loosen up on their culture and values. For instance it is nowadays a common thing to see people from the Asian culture wearing jeans and a T-shirt without feeling out of place and easily interacts with the fellow people. Individualism emphasizes on me and me alone with my stomach whereas collectivism emphasizes on the well being of the society and the welfare of the people in the society. That is, most things in collectivism is shared by every one for the welfare of the society. For example if one person purchases something then it is for the good of owner who has bought it as well as for the society. Triandis (1995) identifies the present Middle East as the drawing line between the east and the western culture. He describes that people in the west were primarily hunters and gatherers as this was their main economic activity whereas the people in the East were primitive farmers who used primitive methods to farm. He bases his argument that Western people were already living competitively by hunting as each hunted for himself. This aspect defines the fundamental principal of individualism. Whereas people in the Eastern front planted by sharing resources such as labor for effective planting thus defining another fundamental principal of collectivism. This allowed them to develop settlements that turned out to communities who then developed culture that became more and more complex. Corey and Corey (1998) stipulated that “individualism and collectivism is the major factor that causes difference in culture among the societies”. However, as exempted by the lack of consensus between the two concepts, individualism and collectivism causes problems to the societies at large. In addition to the problems associated with the inadequacies of research on the two concepts, then it is imperative for the researchers to come to terms with the dynamic nature of culture, as it keeps on evolving with the never ending needs of human beings. Albeit individualism is associated with modern culture and collectivism is regarded as an old traditional culture, it is imperative to point out that the main difference between the modern cultures and collectivism culture is that modern cultures are required to be innovative, creative and develop new routines faster than the traditional one of collectivism (Hebsbawm, 1985). A comparison between the Australian and American culture is that the two countries share a core language that is universal, an Anglo ethnicity that is rapidly changing. These two countries are of highly individualistic cultures though Australia is more egalitarian. Triandis (1995) supports this sentiment by describing the Australian culture as Horizontal individualistic while that of the United States as Vertical individualistic. This implies that the Australian individualistic is more human in the sense that they can accommodate others regardless of their origin or culture. Furthermore they can tolerate new comers in the society and develop them to their own culture. However the United States is more individualistic as they are comfortable with certain inequalities, that is they value self reliance as there is expectations attached to self reliance. This arises from the belief that all people in the United States have an equal chance in the society to make it irrespective of their social background since it is a land of opportunities. In contrast to the individualistic culture of Australia and the United States, the Eastern culture in countries such as East Asia are collectivism and accept the social inequalities. The Chinese culture is mostly associated with the collectivism as they mainly belief in the hierarchy of the society, with prominent people given at most respect irrespective of their financial background. The United States and other western countries encourage the importance of the rights of the citizens, whereas Eastern cultures argues that citizenship comes with duties and it is made meaningful by responsibly fulfilling those duties. For instance a great writer (Berns, 2001) describes that Americans are born and raised in a country that all have the right to life liberty and ability to pursue happiness. That it is up to the people to decide and define these laws on rights of life. Nonetheless, Eastern countries such Singapore defined core values of the society called “shared values”. That is community before oneself. Those families are the building blocks of the society. That people have to settle disputes by discussions and consensus, and the role of the religion was more emphasized as it gave direction to the society. This principle illustrates the expectations placed on individuals in the society that defines collectivism. Consequently, these values describe the subordinate placement of individual’s relatives to the society. The overall understanding of an individual duties and obligation to the family is well stipulated and is mostly rooted in the Chinese culture. In a typical scenario to depict the difference in individualism and collectivism culture is that of the expectations of the two cultures. For example, in the United States setting, it is basically what parents provide for their children. That is the society expect each parent to provide for their children with their needs to maturity, where as in the Eastern culture, it is all about what the children do for their parents. Thus in the Eastern culture children are regarded as servants to their parents and they are expected to obey and serve their parents irrespective of their age. The Eastern culture provides families as model roles played out in the society, for example teachers in a high power society assume the role of parents and takes control of the school and all the children. According to Ai (1996) Easterners teachers, on public schools contact parents on a regular basis to provide progress information of their children in school, which is very productive and efficient as the students can maximize on the available resource and opportunity, as compared to the western form of learning where student depict teachers as their sages who share in their wisdom. Students from Eastern culture are more organized and concerned with the well being of their brothers, a character that is rarely seen in individualism cultures as it transferred from their previous life of collectivism. It is quite difficult to draw a clear line between the individualism culture and the collective culture, as they seem to be dependent to each other. As described earlier with the overflow of students moving to the western cultures to get education despite the ideological differences, can entirely be depicted as a result of globalization of academics. Albatch(1999), applauds this by stating that the movement of international and Asian students was motivated primarily by profits rather than governmental issues. Thus this paper has described the similarities the differences and the relationship between these two cognitive alignments. That despite these differences in ideology, people can still interact, share ideas for the better development of nations. All that is required is a mutual respect for another ideology and focus on objectivity of important issues at stake. Refferences: Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence: An essay on psychology and religion. Chicago: Rand McNally. Siegrist, H. (January 01, 2006). Comparative history of cultures and societies. From cross€??societal analysis to the study of intercultural interdependencies. Comparative Education, 42, 3, 377-404. Triandis, H. C. (1980). Handbook of cross-cultural psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Neuliep, J. W. (2009). Intercultural communication: A contextual approach. Los Angeles: Sage. Berns, R. (2001). Child, family, school, community: Socialization and support. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers. Corey, M. S., & Corey, G. (1998). Becoming a helper. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole. Read More