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Individualism‐collectivism and self‐concept: Social or contextual?
Author(s) -
Parkes Louise P.,
Schneider Sherry K.,
Bochner Stephen
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
asian journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-839X
pISSN - 1367-2223
DOI - 10.1111/1467-839x.00046
Subject(s) - collectivism , interdependence , psychology , individualism , social psychology , self construal , self , dimension (graph theory) , sociology , social science , mathematics , political science , pure mathematics , law
The cultural constructs of individualism and collectivism (I‐C) have been closely identified with different conceptions of the self. In contrast to autonomous, abstract self‐concepts, it has been argued that collectivists have concepts of self which are interdependent with others and connected with particular contexts. This study investigated the extent to which spontaneous social and contextual self‐concepts were connected to each other and to individual‐level I‐C measures. Questionnaires were administered to adult employee samples in Australia and South‐East Asia (N = 581). Although closely intertwined, social and contextual statements were able to be independently tested in relation to I‐C. I‐C was primarily related to the social‐autonomous dimension of self. Controlling for social self‐responses, contextual self‐concepts were not independently related to any of the measures of I‐C.