Collectivist Japan? Really?

In a well-known scene in the 2004 film Sideways, the main character Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, says, “If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am NOT drinking any (expletive) Merlot!” Such was the intensity of the sentiment and the popularity of the film that for several years Merlot sales actually decreased in a downward drift known as “the Sideways effect”. I’m partial to Merlot, and I felt a bit discomfited by the force of Mile’s dislike, but I recognized the passion. Many times, I’ve felt, “If anyone mentions Japanese collectivism, I’m leaving.”

The notion of Japanese collectivism took off with the publication of “Culture’s Consequences” by the social psychologist Geert Hofstede in 1980. On the basis of large-scale employee surveys he carried out for IBM, Hofstede posited that cultures could be placed on a continuum in terms of six dimensions, including power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism. But the employee surveys were related to workplace satisfaction vs. personal satisfaction, and many questions had nothing to do with collectivism. As the psychologists Yohtaro Takano and Eiko Osaka have rather scathingly noted, the relationship between “good ventilation and lighting” and collectivism is hard to configure.

In 1999, in a paper published in the Asian Journal of Social Psychology, Takano and Osaka examined 15 articles related to collectivism in the U.S. and Japan that were published between 1970 and 1997. Of the 15, only Hofstede’s concluded that Japan was a more collectivist culture, nine had neutral results, and two found that the U.S. was more collectivistic. Then, in 2018, Takano and Osaka published a follow-up in the same journal, examining an additional 20 papers that had come out after their first paper. Combined with their former findings, 19 reported neutral results, 11 found the U.S. more collectivist, and only five found Japan more collectivist. Of these five, three had dubious validity. This has not stopped some researchers from blithely toeing the collectivism line, as in these excerpts from three papers in reputable academic journals, all published within the last decade, more than 30 years after “Culture’s Consequences”:

“…will be more strongly correlated in Japan than in the U.S., mainly because of higher collectivism attributed to the Japanese culture.”

“Given the importance of conformity to social norms in the collectivistic Japanese society, …”

“On the other hand, people in collectivist societies (e.g., Japan, China, Philippines), put greater emphasis on interpersonal harmony.”

In 2022, social psychologist Brett Pelham and four colleagues published a study of collectivism in the academic journal Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, based on a new gauge, which they call the Global Collectivism Index (GCI), based on six indicators: 1) total fertility rates; 2) collective living arrangements; 3) marriage to divorce rates; 4) religiosity; 5) motor vehicles per capita; and 6) ingroup favoritism. The data was obtained from various sources, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) website, the Gallup World View, the World Bank, and the World Values Survey.

Pelham and his co-researchers wanted to make the study a “truly global, non-WEIRD examination of collectivism” – “WEIRD” meaning “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic”. They examined 204 nations, but only 82 had data for all six indicators. However, 188 nations had data for at least three indicators. The paper included a ranking of these 188 countries, from most to least collective. Here are the 15 least collective nations, according to their GCI scores:

• 174 Austria

• 175 Belgium

• 176 France

• 177 Australia

• 178 United States

• 179 Japan

• 180 Netherlands

• 181 Finland

• 182 Norway

• 183 Luxembourg

• 184 Germany

• 185 Estonia

• 186 Denmark

• 187 Sweden

• 188 Monaco

Japan is the 10^th least collectivist nation. Following the “General Discussion” section of the paper, Pelham and his colleagues include another section titled “A final look at Japan’s low collectivism score.” In it, they note that believers in Japan’s collectivism remain unconvinced regarding the GCI’s ability to accurately identify collectivist cultures, but they assert that such skeptics are unable to suggest any measure that would shift Japan’s score. Pelham and his colleagues even note that if attitudes regarding child obedience were added, Japan’s collectivism score would in fact drop further.

It is often the case that we see what we expect to see. If you look for collectivist behavior in Japan, you’ll certainly find instances of it. What makes collectivism my “Merlot” is the unthinking carelessness of the label. Try looking for individualist behavior and values and you’ll find plenty of those as well. And as always, consider the measure.