Connor Symons, Individualism

According to Hofstede's cultural dimensions, Individualism is "the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups". In a culture with a high Individualism score, a person is expected to stand up for themselves, their immediate family, and their individual rights. The emphasis in these cultures is on personal achievement and responsibility, values held in high regard in the United States and Western Europe. In these cultures, people are generally told to take responsibility for their actions and are rewarded or punished on an individual basis. In contrast, as we saw in the video we watched in class, countries in East Asia tend to have lower Individualism scores, focusing more on the group than the individual.

This cultural dimension can help explain a lot in a culture, particularly attributions of success and failure. For instance, in United States politics, politicians try to put faces and names to bills and policies they oppose. This associates the negative or positive feelings with the individual rather than the Congress, the House or Senate, or even the individual's party. In America, it's more widely received to have a scapegoat, one person who can take the fall for an unpopular action, rather than a group being given the blame. In American economics, frustration with corporations, which are founded on the idea of limited liability of the individual, is vented at CEOs. Rather than putting a corporation's board in poor regard, which makes most decisions with the CEO, we focus on placing the blame in the most prominent, and usually most involved individual. When a sports team does well, we attribute it to the coach, captain, goalie, leading scorer, or other prominent team member. Very few spectators will attribute their success or failure to the team as a whole. This focus on an individual is explained by individualism.