Comparing Japan and the United States on individualism/collectivism: A follow‐up review

Abstract

It has been long believed that the Japanese are typical collectivists whereas Americans are typical individualists. To examine the validity of this common view, we formerly reviewed 15 empirical studies that compared Japanese and Americans regarding individualism/collectivism (I/C), and found that the overwhelming majority of those studies had not supported the common view (Takano & Osaka, 1999). In this follow-up, we reviewed 20 additional empirical studies (7 behavioral studies, 13 questionnaire studies), most of which had been published after the former review. When combined with the formerly reviewed 15 studies, 19 studies reported no clear difference, and 11 studies reported that Japanese were more individualistic than Americans. These 30 studies are inconsistent with the common view. Only 5 studies supported the common view, even when we included 3 studies whose validity was questionable. After it was formerly found that the common view was not supported empirically, a variety of alternative accounts were presented regarding the reason for this finding. We examined three major accounts in light of the reviewed studies and found that none of them was congruent with the empirical data. Thus, it seems to be reasonable to conclude that the common view is not valid.

Time to rethink the common view

“…Takano and Osaka's () review, along with others cited above, provide convincing evidence that presumed I/C differences on the country level do not necessarily translate to IC‐related differences on the individual level, at least in a U.S.–Japan comparison. Notably, all the studies Takano reviewed collected data from individuals and analysed those data using individuals, not cultures, as the unit of analysis.…”

“…Despite the clear reasoning and the growing evidence that the common view is not supported on the individual level (Takano & Osaka, ), researchers have continued to impose culture‐level differences onto individuals, which is problematic because of the reasons described earlier. One may even argue that such an unwarranted extension of country‐level effects onto individual members within a culture is tantamount to the imposition of group‐level stereotypes onto individual members of those groups.…”

“…One domain of study that has contributed strongly to this genre of research has involved U.S.–Japan cross‐cultural comparisons documenting differences between these two nation cultures. Within this domain, a view concerning the nature of those cultural differences is what Takano and Osaka () referred to as the “common view”—that Japanese are typically collectivists whereas Americans are typically individualists.…”

“…This common view has persisted for decades despite prior influential reviews refuting it (Matsumoto, , ; Matsumoto, Kudoh, & Takeuchi, ; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, ; Takano & Osaka, , ), at least on the level of the individual. Takano and Osaka () pounded another nail into the coffin of this common view, providing strong and irrefutable empirical evidence that the common view is simply not supported by data. They also argued convincingly that issues concerning student sampling, possible reference‐group effects, response and publication biases, and the dimensionality of the I/C construct do not alter their main conclusions.…”

I/C: Individualism/collectivism or individuate/categorise?

“…One way is to examine whether I/C is a single bipolar dimension or two relatively independent dimensions. Takano and Osaka (, ) examined comparisons between Japanese and Americans on both bipolar and unipolar I/C scales, but sidestepped the dimensionality issue on the grounds that in the “common view,” I/C is bipolar. It is unlikely that treating I/C as two dimensions would produce any support for the common view, but there is support for the two‐dimensions view.…”