Authors:Yohtaro Takano & Eiko Osaka (高野陽太郎・纓坂英子)

Title:Comparing Japan and the United States on individualism/collectivism: A follow-up review

Journal:Asian Journal of Social Psychology

doi:10.1111/ajsp.12322

論文URL:https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12322

Abstract:It has been long believed that the Japanese are typical collectivists whereas Americans are typical individualists. To examine the validity of this common view, we formerly reviewed 15 empirical studies that compared Japanese and Americans regarding individualism/collectivism (I/C), and found that the overwhelming majority of those studies had not supported the common view (Takano & Osaka, 1999). In this follow-up, we reviewed 20 additional empirical studies (7 behavioral studies, 13 questionnaire studies), most of which had been published after the former review. When combined with the formerly reviewed 15 studies, 19 studies reported no clear difference, and 11 studies reported that Japanese were more individualistic than Americans. These 30 studies are inconsistent with the common view. Only 5 studies supported the common view, even when we included 3 studies whose validity was questionable. After it was formerly found that the common view was not supported empirically, a variety of alternative accounts were presented regarding the reason for this finding. We examined three major accounts in light of the reviewed studies and found that none of them was congruent with the empirical data. Thus, it seems to be reasonable to conclude that the common view is not valid.

著者のContact 先のemail:yohtaro.takano[at]gmail.com([at] を@に置き換えてください)

日本語によるコメント:日本人論では、長らく「日本人は集団主義的、アメリカ人は個人主義的」だと論じられてきました。20年前、私たちは日本人とアメリカ人を比較した実証的研究を探索し、見つかった15件の研究がこの通説を支持していないことを報告しました(Takano & Osaka, Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 1999)。今回は、その後に発表された研究を中心に、新たに20件の実証的研究を調べ、やはり全体としては通説を支持していないことを見出しました。また、前回の報告について、通説を支持する立場から提出された主な別解釈を3つ取り上げ、それらが実証的研究とは一致しないことも明らかにしました。