Individualism and Collectivism

According to the textbook, “most Western cultures are highly individualistic, whereas traditional other cultures – most Asian ones, for example – are much more collective.” Based on my experiences, cultures in most of East Asian countries are usually collectivistic while cultures in American and most European countries are relatively individualistic. I believe myself as half individualistic and half collectivistic because I have had chances to experience both Eastern and Western cultures while growing up. My nationality is based in South Korea and whole my family and cultural background would be classified as collectivistic because my parents had lived in Korea for more than 40 years, and my brother and I had lived there for 14 years. cultural identities of a certain nation are not determined by a single fact but various aspects including education and parental care.

Being a kid of typical Asian family, I believe most of my attitudes, communication style, and actions are influenced by collectivistic ideas from my parents and school education. For example, a group, or a society, carries more value than a single person. Relating this idea to Fundamental Human Rights, an individual person's rights often need to be sacrificed in order to fulfill group rights which would be suitable for majority even if they are not suitable for minority. This is often described as a decision by majority as one of democratic ideas. In collectivistic society with high contextual environment, everyone is required to collaborate with others in order to elicit a harmony of group he or she belongs to. Thus, minorities often cannot claim their rights. One of my classmates in communication class described this problem, saying that “one weakness I can see with collectivism is a little less freedom and privacy.” Another classmate talked about seniority-based wage systems that are held in most of Japanese business terms. Same as in Korea, one's wage and position in the business is determined by his or her age and chronological contribution for the company, not by achievements. This case shows an outstanding example as one of collectivistic cultures described in the textbook, “High value on duty, order, tradition, age, group security, status, and hierarchy.”

If I have continued to live in Korea, I would have become totally collectivistic person. However, my family has moved to America where individualism in more supported in general. I have been living in America for more than 8 years now including childhood and adolescence. Through my high school and college life, I have learned the ideas of individualism through interacting with Americans. Not just described in the textbook, I could see a difference between individualism and collectivism. Coming to the United States from a collectivistic society, I was very surprised that status here is very different than status from my country at the first time.  For instance, I was assigned to work on a chemistry group project with five American classmates in high school. We had to take a video that shows a difference between the ideas of normal mixture and chemical combination. We then tried to figure out a day everyone could meet up after class. Five of us, including myself, brought about an agreement to meet on Tuesday. However, one friend said he would not be able to make it because he had a personal tutoring schedule on that day. I told him to cancel that meeting since it was not an important issue which he could not miss. He admitted that he knows it's not important even if he misses it, but he said he won't cancel it because he wants to have that tutoring in scheduled time. He even said, “I have my privacy along with my own schedule, why do I have to give that up to meet up with you guys?” At that time, what I really could not understand was reactions from other group mates. They were disappointed because he would not show up but they did not force him to cancel the tutoring.  Instead, they rather tried to find another day. I then thought of him as very selfish because other five members had to change their schedule to fit in with his. Although I still think his attitude was selfish, I am fine with his issue now because I understand his individualistic characteristics, “self is separate, unique individual, should be independent, self- sufficient,” and “high value on autonomy, change, youth, individual security, equality.” I believe that he would have tried to find an alternative day if one of the other group members could not make his or her schedule work with everyone.

Now, I often behave collectivistic when I am with people in the same cultural background; however, I often behave individualistic when I am with American friends.  Although to me it was not unwanted immigration to the United States, I am glad that I can adapt myself with hybrid on both in individualistic and collectivistic cultures.

- Sunghyun Kim