Defining collectivism as duties in relationships rather than generalized warmth improves predictive validity in 100 cultures

Abstract

Experts widely agree that East Asian cultures are more collectivistic than Western cultures. Yet 76 survey studies found no reliable difference. Our explanation is that the most-used surveys are contaminated with ‘warm fuzzy’ items, which describe warmth and prosociality towards everyone near and far. We argue that collectivism is better understood as ‘responsibilism’, which emphasizes responsibilities in close relationships. A survey found that many cultural psychologists expect collectivistic cultures to agree with warm fuzzy items. Then we developed a responsibilism scale and tested 12,247 people in 100 cultures. Results showed large cultural differences (d = 3.98 [2.50, 5.43]) that were previously obscured by flawed measurement. Responsibilism predicted differences across societies (such as family ties and corruption) and individuals (social class and politics) that most earlier scales missed. This study offers a solution to previous puzzling findings by distinguishing warm fuzzy prosociality from responsibilism and introducing a scale with stronger predictive validity.