Individualism vs. Collectivism
One of the distinguishing factors in describing a culture, society, community, or groups is whether its members and the individuals in that organization adopt an individualistic or collectivist with regards to their roles and functions and their relationship with the other members of an organization. These two concepts, that is, individualistic and collectivist groups are important to discuss because they help other people understand an individual or a group about their culture and values as a group/organization. Individualism and collectivism are often included in discussions about particular cultures and societies, and this paper will discuss the concept and nature of an individualist or collectivist culture or society, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of adopting one of these culture values to individuals and other people.
Individualistic culture is defined as "a culture in which people view their primary responsibility as being to themselves" (Rosenfeld 1998 423). Collectivist culture, meanwhile, is defined to be "a culture whose members feel loyalties and obligations to an in-group, such as family, community, or... organization..." (Rosenfeld 1998 420). Through the definitions given, it is evident that individualist cultures tend to be self-dependent, while collectivist ones are group-dependent. These two culture dichotomies affects a wide range of activities and interactions among people, such as family relations and social interactions, education...
These elements will be used to compare these two cultures, and determine what culture is best suited and has the optimum positive result to these elements.
The first element that is affected by these cultures is the family institution and social interactions of an individual. A person cultivated under an individualist culture will be more self-sufficient and will interact with other people based on shared interests and activities, while an individual who grew up in a collectivist society will be the opposite of the individualist person, since as a collectivist, an individual will give more importance to creating a harmonious relationship with the members of his/her in-group, and will forego self-sufficiency for the welfare of other people, which can be a step towards a harmonious relationship. It doesn't mean that since individualists are more self-sufficient and self-focused, they'll establish less strong relationships than the collectivists. On the contrary, the collectivists experience greater stress in establishing relationships because the need to make harmonious relations become an obligation and an imperative thing to do in most collectivist cultures, resulting to 'unnatural' and an uncertain relationship with other people. Individualists are free of this responsibility, since they are not expected to maintain strong relations with other people, especially in the group one might belong to.
In education and work, individualists are often…
