“Common view” that Japanese are typically collectivists is not supported by data

I'm curious by what metric? One reason I choose to live in Japan is the respect for others. Drop your wallet you're more likely to get it back and with all cash that was in it. People generally don't party loud in their apartments but in support of that it's easy to find a bar or restaurant you can rent for the night for your party and places than can seat parties of 8 to 20 people without notice are abundant (izakaya). Places to practice instruments are also easy to find. Cleaning up after a picnic or at the beach seems better than most other places.

Whether or not that's evidence of collectivism I have no idea.

> This common view has persisted for decades despite prior influential reviews refuting it (Matsumoto, 1999, 2002; Matsumoto, Kudoh, & Takeuchi, 1996; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002; Takano & Osaka, 1997, 1999)

Odd they don't cite sources promoting the common view (Except for Hofstede, later).

> The common view is problematic because it takes this country-level difference and interprets a cultural dimen- sion of the country—for example, that American culture is individualistic and that Japanese culture is collectivis- tic—and then further applies that culture-level difference to individual members of those cultures. American indi- viduals are treated as if they are all individualistic and Japanese individuals are treated as if they are all collec- tivistic; that is, the common view essentially imposes a country-level effect (I/C) onto individual members of those nation cultures.

So they are saying that Japanese culture is collectivist, but Japanese individuals aren't. Makes sense to me. I litter more when in China than when in Japan.

Seems that you need credentials to access the full article.

Based on the abstract it sounds a good read. Japanese phrase “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down” might need to be changed to “The nail that sticks out gets to see further”

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/07/21/national/scienc...

"At 88 Japan scores as one of the most Long Term Orientation oriented societies. Japanese see their life as a very short moment in a long history of mankind."

I think the real difference is somewhere else. Japanese aren't individualists neither. Like other Asian people they tend to make a profound distinction between family and the world outside of the family. In other words, they think "we" and exclude you if you aren't part of the family.

"Common view" is usually very inaccurate.

More principled cultural measures like Hofstede's don't measure individuality of individuals (sic). They measure relative differences in a group of people from another in the terms of the culture and values as they are collectively represented in institutions and behavioral norms.

In Hofstede's cultural dimensions Japanese uncertainty avoidance may be interpreted and perceived as 'low individuality' because it restricts expression of expressing ideas and individual behavior. It does not mean that Japanese are drones without ideas as individuals. They must express new ideas using different channels when working inside Japanese culture.

Hofstede's ranking for individualism for select countries:

    US      91
    Japan   46 
    China   20

Japan ranks culturally quite high in individualism when compared to other East Asian nations. Japanese society does not have extended family system which forms a base of more collectivistic societies such as China and Korea. Where they really separate from the rest is masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, low indulgence and power distance. In contrast, Chinese uncertainty avoidance is very low. Lover than in the US.

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Short definitions to avoid confusion from literal interpretation of the terms (these terms don't mean exactly the same what the common meaning is):

individualism: the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after themselves and their direct family only. In Collectivist societies people belong to ‘in groups’ that take care of them in exchange for loyalty.

power distance: the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.

masculinity: indicates that the society will be driven by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner / best in field – a value system that starts in school and continues throughout organizational life. A Feminine society is one where quality of life is the sign of success and standing out from the crowd is not admirable (Sweden is opposite of Japan in this axis).

uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. Strong uncertainty avoidance means maintaining rigid codes of belief and behaviour, and are intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas.

indulgence: the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses. Culturally less emphasis on leisure time and control the gratification of their desires.

This kind of stereotyping perpetuates myths in both directions and encourages the 'fetishization' of others. It creates gross generalizations about things like individualism, collectivism and shame that are not in sync with reality.

Slut shaming, unemployment, deviant behavior, low status jobs are about shame. 13 reasons why and slew of other media explore slut shaming in modern society. Hn commentators never fail to remind macdonald and wallmart workers about their status. Go back just a couple of decades and its even more pronounced.

Any one who has been to school here will know status and class consciousness is predominant in society. This raises questions about the value and accuracy of these kind of distinctions.

Differences seem to come more from relative wealth levels that allow better infrastructure, facilities, less frenzy for survival, leisure, some degree of independence and opportunities for self improvement. In Palo Alto people wait for pedestrians while in New York its completely different, you can do some deep analysis on culture for this or put it down to crowding and heavy traffic patterns.

I'm not going to say I can absolutely refute this paper but I can say that in my day job, which is an international not for profit in the Asia Pacific, with a strong Japanese sub presence I see collectivism and individualism, but I see a lot more collectivism. I'm told in the domestic equivalent circuit they fight like cats and dogs, but outside? It's a party line.

I also think there is a strong Confucianism element to things. Collectivism is a sister to respect for collective and hierarchical authority sometimes.

Recent news:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-tokyo-me...

This university was caught penalising women test scores due to a belief they would "waste" chairs, since women may drop out school with pregnancy.

That's textbook example of collectivism over individual to me, and a pretty extreme one.

Can anyone give an example of how the "common view" could be true at culture-level but not at individual-level?

This editorial spends a page and a half talking about it without a single example.

I have troubles accessing the full article.

Lots of anecdotes without reading the article (which is par for the course in 99% of HN threads). Anyway, here's a quick summary:

* Culture level effects do not necessarily translate to the individual. That is, Japanese culture may be collectivist without any individual being collectivist.

* Other countries are more collectivist than Japan.

* Concepts like "collectivist" and "individualistic" are not binary or mutually exclusive. (People can switch from one to another depending on context or day of the week.)

All of the examples in this thread fit perfectly into the article's section on why the common view persists despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary: confirmation bias. For instance (not an example from the article): Americans are "individualistic" even though 51% of Americans go to church (the ultimate in collectivism) at least once a month. But that massive groundswell of collectivism isn't seen as such. Even the much disliked growth in partisan politics is just another form of collectivism.

"Common view" by whom? Academics who needed to make things up to in order to make a name for themselves? Media who needed to fetishize to get views?

The only way we say one culture is "collectivist" and another "individualistic" is if we cherrypick data or history?

How we branded ourselves as an "individualistic" culture when for 500 years, our identifying cultural contribution was collectivist racism. The fact of the matter is that the west conquered the world because we were far more collectivist than anyone else. It wasn't the "rugged individual" who conquered africa, america, asia, etc. It certainly wasn't the "rugged individual" that wiped out natives, enslaved africans, etc.

It's funny how we took 500 years of our collectivism and then dumped it on the japanese, chinese, etc and branded ourselves as "individualistic".

All nations are individualists and collectivistic at the same time.

Collectivism is the denial of the individual; it is inherently rude.