The measurement of the etic aspects of individualism and collectivism across cultures

TLDR

The dimension of individualism‑collectivism, as identified by Hofstede (1980), was studied using items developed both theoretically and emically in nine diverse cultures. This approach enables the measurement of individualism‑collectivism in each culture as well as across cultures, and shows that different methods for measuring individualism‑collectivism converge. The study identified four orthogonal etic factors—Individualism (Separation from Ingroups, Self‑Reliance with Hedonism) and Collectivism (Family Integrity, Interdependence with Sociability)—and found that a collectivism score derived from these factors correlated r = +0.73 with Hofstede’s 1980 collectivism scores across nine cultures.

Abstract

The dimension of individualism-collectivism, as identified by Hofstede (1980), was studied using items developed both theoretically and emically in nine diverse cultures. The dimension was found to be analysable into four stable etic factors: Individualism had two aspects (Separation from Ingroups and Self-Reliance with Hedonism) and collectivism had two aspects (Family Integrity and Interdependence with Sociability). These four factors are orthogonal to each other. The location of nine cultures on these four factors was used to compute a "collectivism" score which correlated r = + · 73 with Hofstede's (1980) collectivism scores for the nine cultures. This approach enables the measurement of individualism-collectivism in each culture as well as across cultures, and shows that different methods for measuring individualism-collectivism converge.