A reduced version of the horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism scale: A four-country assessment☆
Section snippets
Individualism/collectivism and horizontal/vertical constructs
The construct of individualism–collectivism expresses the distinction between prevalent cultural orientations that value the importance of an individual versus those that value group harmony. People with individualist values tend to see themselves as independent of others and generally behave according to personal attitudes and preferences, whereas people with collectivistic values see themselves as interdependent with others and usually behave according to social norms (Triandis, 1995). In
Singelis et al. scale: a problematic measure
The Singelis et al. (1995) scale was developed to examine individual differences in HI, VI, HC, and VC. The four dimensions were measured according to individuals' responses to 32 attitudinal items on an agree–disagree Likert scale. Each cultural dimension was measured with eight items. The intent of the scale was to better explain cultural differences and patterns of social relationships than was possible using the Individualism and Collectivism dimensions alone.
However, the scaling question
Studies 1 and 2: U.S. and China
Study 1 took place in the U.S., where data were collected from two hundred undergraduate business students enrolled in an introductory marketing class at a large Midwestern University. The students received extra credit for participating in the paper-and-pen study, which took about 15 minutes to complete. The 32-item (8 items each for HI, HC, VI, and VC) nine-point scale developed by Singelis et al. (1995) was administered in conjunction with questions asking respondents to rate purchase
Study 3: Denmark sample
The 32-item scale in conjunction with other measures that measured value orientations of respondents was administered to 82 Danish undergraduate students at a university in Denmark. The questionnaire was translated into Danish and back translated by two bilingual volunteers. The questionnaires were handed out and completed in-class. The final sample size was 80 as two responses were omitted because of significant outliers or missing values.
Study 4: U.S. and India samples
The 32-item Singelis et al. scale and some other scale items were administered to (N = 149) American undergraduate marketing students at a large Midwestern university. The questionnaire was answered in-class, and students were given extra course credit for participation. The same study was also administered to (N = 123) undergraduate and post-secondary students at a regional university located in southern India. Professors affiliated with several colleges in the university administered the in-class
Discussion of reduced versus full-set of items: sampling the domain of the construct
As a snapshot of the four cultural orientations, Triandis (1995, p.47) offers an exemplar scenario, “If you had to describe yourself to another person, which of the following descriptions would you choose?” with the following response categories: (1) achievement oriented (vertical individualism); (2) cooperative (horizontal collectivism); (3) dutiful (vertical collectivism); and (4) unique (horizontal individualism). In other words, those who rate high on horizontal collectivism, as described
Study 5: test of the reduced scale
The objective of Study 5 was to test the 14-item scale on its own. Seventy-three undergraduate marketing majors at two American universities were administered the 14-item modified scale as well as some other scale items. The questionnaire was completed in-class. Table 4 reports the results from the confirmatory factor analyses. The chi-square was significant (129.95, df = 71, p = .000), and the fit indices were mediocre. GFI = 0.82, AGFI = 0.73, RMSR = 0.33, CFI = 0.82, NFI = 0.69, RMSEA = 0.091. However, all
Comparison of the reduced 14-item scale with the full 32-item and the Triandis and Gelfand (1998) 16-item reduced version
Triandis and Gelfand (1998) used a 27-item scale in four studies reported in that paper. However, in Table 2 (p.120), they report the factor loadings for only 16 of those 27 items. Even though Triandis and Gelfand (1998) used the full 27-item scale in studies 2, 3, and 4 of that paper, other researchers have tended to use the 16 items reported in Table 2 of that paper with mixed results. In Lalwani et al. (2006) four studies were conducted where the 16-item scale was used. In the first study
Country profiles on the four dimensions
Although the four countries were chosen a priori to represent certain cultural dimensions (e.g., China: HC, Denmark: HI, India: VC, U.S.: VI), the results of mean scores on the dimensions show a more complicated composite of culture. China appears to be a VI country while USA appears to be a HI country across three samples. India scores highest on the HC dimension. Denmark is clearly a horizontally inclined culture but exhibits both HC and HI characteristics in equal measure. Table 6 reports
Limitations and research implications
In this study we have been able to take an inconsistent 32-item scale and successfully winnow it down to a more easily administered 14-item scale. We have shown that this 14-item scale is robust in a test in four countries that were chosen to represent the four cultural orientations. Even though a fairly homogenous sample is ideal when comparing across cultures as a means of controlling for confounding factors, the limitation of an undergraduate student sample prevents generalizability across
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The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Sharon Shavitt and Barbara Stern at the earlier stages of this project.