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FutureLearn offers courses in many different subjects such as. This article is from the free online. Our purpose is to transform access to education. Read: Love in the time of individualism. For example, does your workplace demand a suffocating degree of conformism in its culture? Are you uncomfortable in the way you are expected to dress, talk, and act? It might be a good idea to look at the job market. Similarly, if you are a student, does your school value and protect a diversity of viewpoints, or is only one way of thinking acceptable?
Second, do think for yourself. In a world that is moved by ideas, there is arguably no greater force for progress than intellectual nonconformism. We have no other way to solve previously unsolvable problems, and the adventure of doing so is boundless.
This requires allowing others to think for themselves as well. Each of us can do this by defying those who would curb free speech in politics, in business, and on campuses. It is especially effective when we stand up to bullies on our own side of the debate. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. This goes too far in my view, insofar as we co-create our happiness through faith, family, and friendship. One reason is because individuals could overcome negativity by actively constructing interpersonal relationships.
In contrast, people in East Asian cultures do not have such strategies to overcome the negative impact of individualistic systems, leading to decreased well-being. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the relationship between individualistic values, number of close friends, and subjective well-being SWB.
Study 1 indicated that individualistic values were negatively related with the number of close friends and SWB for Japanese college students but not for American college students. Moreover, Study 2 showed that even in an individualistic workplace in Japan, individualistic values were negatively related with the number of close friends and SWB.
We discuss how cultural change toward increasing individualism might affect interpersonal relationships and well-being. Theories and evidence have repeatedly suggested that individualism or independence is more frequently observed in European American cultural contexts whereas collectivism or interdependence is more frequently observed in East Asian cultural contexts.
Globalization enables greater mobility of people, objects, money, and information across countries. Especially since the s, international trade by transnational companies and enterprises has been expanding, and the ongoing developments in improved transportation and information technologies have created a globalized world.
Globalization is not only making societies more international, but also more Westernized or European-Americanized. Indeed, globalization is sometimes called Americanization or Westernization e.
This means that European American culture is one of the most potent cultures in the world that has a strong influence on other cultures due to the political and economical strengths of Western cultures, which continue to export not only products, technologies, and economic systems but also values, ideas, and beliefs.
As a result, there have been many cultural changes, especially in East Asian cultures, that have been affected by the spread of westernized cultural values, ideas, practices, and systems. In this research, we investigated how psychological tendencies might be affected by cultural changes, with a specific focus on the spread of individualism.
Importantly, individualism has long been fostered in European American cultural contexts. For instance, previous studies suggested that individualism is fostered over time by economic systems i.
Individualistic systems or environments are believed to have positive influences on individuals e. For example, individualistic systems enable individuals to act autonomously and choose freely Triandis, , with high social mobility such as being able to choose desirable persons to interact with e.
Furthermore, people in individualistic cultures can have strong sense of self-efficacy Kitayama et al. However, such individualistic systems or environments can also have potentially negative effects. In particular, individualistic systems urge people to pursue personal achievement, which creates competition between individuals Triandis, These systems can also result in high social mobility, which lead to high social anxiety Oishi et al.
In addition, the focused attention on personal achievements can bear a significant cost on interpersonal relationships Park and Crocker, Even though having costs, individualism brings benefits such as enjoying free choice and strong sense of self-efficacy. One strategy to buffer against the negative affects of individualistic systems is developing interpersonal skills, usually employed in European American cultures, contexts, including seeking new interpersonal relationships Oishi et al.
In short, in European American cultures, people are independent from each other Markus and Kitayama, , but still actively seek interpersonal relationships. Such interpersonal skills are probably acquired over an extended period through socialization, and allow people in these cultural contexts to enjoy interpersonal relationships while maintaining their independence.
Through globalization, Japanese society has been influenced by European American cultures. This is especially true for the aspects of Japanese society that are adopting the individualistic systems imported from European American cultures.
For example, the number of companies introducing pay-per-performance systems in Japan has increased Institute of Labor Administration, With the increase of individualistic environments in Japan, people have also become more individualistic in certain respects 1.
For instance, the average family size has decreased, the divorce rate has increased, and independence in child socialization has been increasingly prioritized Hamamura, However, it has been argued that individualism in Japan might be qualitatively different from the individualism in the European American cultural contexts Kitayama, Individualism in these cultural contexts means being independent from others but still actively making social relationships.
Indeed, connotations of individualism in Japan are more negative than are those in the U. Specifically, in the U. Unlike in European American cultural contexts, relational mobility is relatively low in East Asian cultural contexts; that is, people tend to interact with others with whom they already have a connection Yuki and Schug, Hence, the Japanese are more likely to commit to a long-term relationship rather than to seek new relationships Yamagishi and Yamagishi, However, long-term, pre-existing interpersonal relationships can bind and restrict individuals because these relationships are often rule-based, not autonomy-based.
Therefore, it might be necessary for Japanese individuals to cut off traditional relationships to be independent. Moreover, once these relationships are cut off, it is difficult for the Japanese to develop new relationships.
Even under the motivation to be independent, the Japanese do not actively create new relationships because they are not equipped with appropriate strategies for making and constructing new social relationships, such as actively engaging in self-disclosure Schug et al.
In European American cultures, individualism has been fostered over a long period, so people have adequate strategies which have been acquired through socialization. In contrast, Japan was not an individualistic culture and the exposure to individualization is comparatively recent.
Therefore people in Japan might not have the strategies which are appropriate in an individualistic culture. As a result, under individualistic systems, Japanese tend to cut off interpersonal relationships but do not actively build new close interpersonal relationships. Thus becoming more individualistic might decrease Japanese happiness because interpersonal relations are an important source of happiness in Japan e.
We examined the relationship between individualistic values, subjective well-being SWB , and number of close relationships in Japan and the U. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that individualistic values would be associated with a decrease in the number of close friends and SWB in Japan, but not to close friends and SWB in the U. Furthermore, to examine the effect of individualistic values and structural systems, Study 2 tested if decreases in the number of close relationships and SWB would be found in a sample of adults working in an individualistic environment in Japan.
We predicted that even in a workplace that has individualistic systems and requires individualistic values, individualistic values would be negatively related to the number of close friends and SWB for Japanese workers. Study 1 investigated whether individualistic values would have different effects on SWB across cultures. This scale assesses 11 domains of self-worth e. Factor analysis in each culture indicated that 9 of the 11 domains fell into two factors, namely, individualistic orientation e.
The other two domains support of family and virtue were dropped from the analysis because of the low factor scores. Participants completed four scales to assess their SWB. Second, the Interdependent Happiness Scale Hitokoto et al.
Third, we assessed positive and negative affect. Positive affect was measured with 11 items e. Fourth, we measured somatic symptoms 11 symptoms; e. All of these items have been successfully used in a survey of Midlife Development in the U. All of these scales had satisfactory internal consistency 0. The number of close friends was measured using a sociogram Kitayama et al.
Participants were asked to draw circles representing themselves and their friends on a paper and to connect related persons with lines within 10 min.
After this was done, they were asked to identify the friends with whom they feel comfortable. The average raw scores of individualistic and collectivistic orientations are shown in Figure 1. The individualistic orientation score was significantly higher for the U.
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