Individualist and collectivist values: evidence of compatibility in Iran and the United States

Abstract

This study examined claims that a collectivistic allocentrism is incommensurate with an individualistic idiocentrism and that the Western psychological promotion of individualism necessarily occurs at the expense of communal commitments. Individualist and Collectivist Values Scales were administered to Iranian and American university students along with a Commitment Scale. Commitment recorded one aspect of a healthy personality as described within the largely individualistic perspectives of Maddi's (1998) existential personality theory. Empathy, attributional complexity, identity, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression scales were presented as well. In both samples, Collectivist and Individualist Values correlated positively. Both values also predicted a form of adjustment that included greater Commitment in Iran. In the United States, Collectivistic but not Individualistic Values correlated positively with Commitment. Partial correlations demonstrated that Collectivist Values explained many associations of Individualist Values with adjusted personality functioning, but not vice versa. Collectivist Values fully mediated the relationships of Individualist Values with Commitment and depression in both samples. Idiocentrism, therefore, was compatible with allocentrism, even in a society as different from the United States as Iran, and the individualism of Western psychological theory did not preclude a sensitivity to the positive potentials of allocentrism.