Individualistic Backgrounds Research Articles

How Cultural Factors Influence Empathy Levels in Specific Contexts: A Comparision Between Individualism and Collectivism

As one of the opposite cultures, people who live under individualistic and collectivistic cultures always have diverse ideologies. Basic on this, this article aims to explore the empathy difference between these two cultures. The first part of the essay provides a literature review to clarify different terminology and points out the hypothesis. Secondly, an experiment was designed to interview culturally diverse respondents. This essay selected China and Australia to represent collectivism and individualism. To get a more prosperous answer, the interviewees in this experiment are mainly undergraduates or above. The interview is scheduled mainly in two parts, one is to quote GLOBE methods to test whether the experiments are representative of individualism/collectivism. In addition, the various emphases were measured based on the progressive test. The final comparison showed that people from collectivist backgrounds have a more significant role in empathy when they encounter things and show slightly more compassion for different things than people from individualistic backgrounds.

Cross-cultural differences in emotion suppression in everyday interactions.

Previous research suggests that in collectivistic cultures, people tend to suppress their emotions more than in individualistic cultures. Little research, however, has explored cross-cultural differences in emotion regulation in everyday interactions. Using a daily social interaction method, we examined whether people from collectivistic backgrounds (Chinese exchange students and immigrants from the Moluccas, Indonesia) living in the Netherlands differed from those from individualistic backgrounds (Dutch natives) in emotion suppression during everyday interactions. We also examined whether this depended on their relationship with the interaction partner(s). We found that Chinese participants suppressed positive and negative emotions more than Dutch and Moluccan participants and that this was related to differences in interdependent and independent self-construal across the samples. We also found that Chinese participants suppressed positive emotions less in interactions with close others, whereas Dutch participants suppressed negative emotions more with non-close others. No such differences were found for Moluccans. Our findings support the idea that people from collectivistic cultures suppress emotions more than those from individualistic cultures, but they also suggest that this depends on who the interaction partner is. Furthermore, they suggest that emotion suppression may change when people with collectivistic backgrounds have been raised in individualistic cultures.