Collectivism

This study was an attempt to examine the validity of the view that the constructs of individualism and collectivism (I-C) are coherent "cultural syndromes." It was hypothesized that different "probes" of these syndromes within the psychological domain of attribution patterns could show divergent I-C characters in a culture under conditions of social change. Ninety-eight university students from the United States and Puerto Rico were administered the Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, and Gelfand I-C Scale, Rotter's I-E Scale, and Miller and Luthar's (1989) justice-related moral accountability vignettes. Contrary to expectation, the Puerto Rican sample was found to be less external in locus of control than the United States sample, and there were no cultural differences in moral accountability. In addition, no strong relationships were found among the variables at the individual level of analysis. Possible causes for these results discussed are sample unrepresentativeness, the non-equivalence of the levels of analysis, and social change.