Collectivism and Individualism as Cultural Syndromes

A cultural syndrome can be identified when shared attitudes, be liefs, norms, roles, values, and other such elements of subjective cul ture, identified among those who share a language, historic period, and geographic location, (a) are organized around a theme, (b) there is evidence that the within-culture variance of these constructs is small relative to the between-cultures variance, and (c) there is a link between these patterns of subjective culture and geography. This article reviews evidence suggesting that the collectivism and individualism constructs are cultural syndromes.