Individualistic

Individualism and society

Individualism versus collectivism is a common dichotomy in cross-cultural research. Global comparative studies have found that the world's cultures vary in the degree to which they emphasize individual autonomy, freedom, and initiative (individualistic traits), as opposed to conformity to group norms, maintaining traditions, and obedience to in-group authority (collectivistic traits). Cultural differences between individualism and collectivism are differences in degree, not in kind. Cultural individualism is strongly correlated with GDP per capita and venture capital investment. The cultures of economically developed regions such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, North America, and Western Europe are among the most individualistic in the world. Middle income regions such as Eastern Europe, South America, and mainland East Asia have cultures that are neither highly individualistic nor highly collectivistic. The most collectivistic cultures in the world are from economically developing regions such as the Middle East and Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia, Central Asia and Central America. Against this background, a number of prominent authors from various disciplines (e.g., Louis Dumont, Geert Hofstede, Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Ronald Inglehart) have supported the influential thesis that the modernization of a society goes hand in hand with an increasing degree of individualization. However, this thesis has also found its critics, who point out, among other things, that the cultural-historical development of individualism from antiquity to the present has not proceeded in a straight line, that some societies with a more collectivist orientation are nevertheless highly modernized and that the concepts of individualism, collectivism and modernity lack conceptual clarity so that an appropriately differentiated analysis of the alleged connection is still lacking.