Contextualism as an important facet of individualism-collectivism: Personhood beliefs across 37 national groups Article

Owe, E, Vignoles, VL, Becker, M et al. (2013). Contextualism as an important facet of individualism-collectivism: Personhood beliefs across 37 national groups . JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, 44(1), 24-45. 10.1177/0022022111430255

cited authors

  • Owe, E; Vignoles, VL; Becker, M; Brown, R; Smith, PB; Lee, SWS; Easterbrook, M; Gadre, T; Zhang, X; Gheorghiu, M; Baguma, P; Tatarko, A; Aldhafri, S; Zinkeng, M; Schwartz, SJ; Des Rosiers, SE; Villamar, JA; Mekonnen, KH; Regalia, C; Manzi, C; Brambilla, M; Kusdil, E; Çaǧlar, S; Gavreliuc, A; Martin, M; Jianxin, Z; Lv, S; Fischer, R; Milfont, TL; Torres, A; Camino, L; Kreuzbauer, R; Gausel, N; Buitendach, JH; Lemos, FCS; Fritsche, I; Möller, B; Harb, C; Valk, A; Espinosa, A; Jaafar, JL; Yuki, M; Ferreira, MC; Chobthamkit, P; Fülöp, M; Chybicka, A; Wang, Q; Bond, MH; González, R; Didier, N; Carrasco, D; Cadena, MP; Lay, S; Gardarsdóttir, RB; Nizharadze, G; Pyszczynski, T; Kesebir, P; Herman, G; de Sauvage, I; Courtois, M; Bourguignon, D; Özgen, E; Güner, UE; Yamakoǧlu, N; Abuhamdeh, S; Mogaji, A; Macapagal, MEJ; Koller, SH; Amponsah, B; Misra, G; Kapur, P; Vargas Trujillo, E; Balanta, P; Cendales Ayala, B; Schweiger Gallo, I; Prieto Gil, P; Clemares, RL; Campara, G; Jalal, B

authors

abstract

  • Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultural collectivism. A brief measure was developed and refined across 19 nations (Study 1: N = 5,241), showing good psychometric properties for cross-cultural use and correlating well at the nation level with other supposed facets and indicators of I-C. In Study 2 (N = 8,652), nation-level contextualism predicted ingroup favoritism, corruption, and differential trust of ingroup and outgroup members, while controlling for other facets of I-C, across 35 nations. We conclude that contextualism is an important part of cultural collectivism. This highlights the importance of beliefs alongside values and self-representations and contributes to a wider understanding of cultural processes. © The Author(s) 2013.

publication date

  • January 1, 2013

published in

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 24

end page

  • 45

volume

  • 44

issue

  • 1