New study redefines collectivism as social duty rather than general warmth

Researchers led by Thomas Talhelm of Arizona State University, Liuqing Wei of Hubei University, and Alexander S. English of Wenzhou-Kean University conducted a global study of 12,247 people across 100 cultures to redefine how psychologists measure collectivism.

The team argues that previous surveys failed because they mixed "warm fuzzy" feelings toward everyone with the specific obligations people feel toward close friends and family.

The researchers call this duty-based focus "responsibilism." The study found that East Asian cultures score much higher on responsibilism than Western cultures, a gap that older surveys often missed. To prove their point, the team first asked 40 psychology scholars to predict how people in different countries would respond to various statements. The scholars were mostly wrong about "warm fuzzy" statements, such as whether people in China would prioritize relationships over personal accomplishments.

However, they were highly accurate when predicting duty-based behaviors, such as the expectation to keep aging parents at home. The researchers then used a new 14-item responsibilism scale to measure behaviors like staying loyal to a critical friend or being cautious about sharing information with an unfamiliar coworker. These scores matched real-world data, including larger household sizes and higher rates of blood donations to family members.

The study also linked high responsibilism to higher levels of perceived government corruption and lower rates of democracy and economic freedom. While the study primarily used university students to keep samples consistent, the results suggest that understanding the distinction between general warmth and specific duties can help people better predict social behavior across different nations.