Situational Preference for Different Types of Individualism-Collectivism

Abstract

One hundred and fifty postgraduate students of Patna University responded to 16 scen arios followed by four alternatives, indicating dominant preference for different typres of individualism-collectivism that is, Horizontal Collectivism, Horizontal Individualism, Vertical Collectivism, or Horizontal Individualism. The observations were compared with the findings of an earlier cross-cultural study by Verma and Triandis (1999), who used the scenarios for measuring the dominant cultural dimensions of American and Indian students. In the present study, minor changes were made for making the situ ations appear more familiar to the Indian respondents. The results proved that the four types of individualism-collectivism were significantly different but there was no significant difference in the percentage of respondents who preferred to choose these in the two studies. Furthermore, the most and the least preferred types were Vertical Collectivism and Vertical Individualism respectively. It appeared that the students pre ferred to be collectivist in social interactions, in matters concerning the pleasure of friends and seniors and in maintaining family ties. However, in situations with direct reference to their personal and individual causes, they preferred to take an individualist stand. Taken in totality, the scenarios appeared to be a reliable instrument for measur ing the preference for dominant cultural dimensions.