A Contrast And Analyses Between American Individualism And Chinese Collectivism

After the world entered the new millennium, globalization has accelerated the flow of cultural communication. The ongoing process of globalization has been promoting the interdependence between China and the United States, the two important countries in the world. Since the close of the Cold War, especially in 1993, when American sociologist Samuel P. Huntington stated in his book The Clash of Civilization that the clash on civilizations"between the west and several Islamic-Confucian States"will be"a central focus of conflict for the immediate future", the clash of civilization and culture in the West and East, instead of ideology's clash has triggered off a new attention all over the world and reached a climax. Mutual impacts between the Eastern and Western cultures are beginning to be recognized as a fundamental force directing the international life pattern.Like an iceberg, only some of culture is visible. Most of it is below the surface of our awareness. It is not easily observable. When we only learn visible culture, we are missing the bigger part that is below the surface. It is likely for people to have a misunderstanding from the visible and superficial part, to form stereotypes and prejudices, to have an absolute thinking, even to compare which is superior to the others. So in fact a contrast of different cultures is not an easy work. The base of intercultural communication is to understand the differences of cultures. Its aim is to learn from each other rather than comparing which one is better than another.The individualism-collectivism dichotomy is an important element to understand the Western and Eastern cultures, because it can reveal a major difference between the two cultures. Collectivism and individualism actually affect social interactions and communications. As the principles underlying individualism and collectivism between the West and East are entirely different, the communication patterns, behaviors, and styles between the two sides are also entirely different. A lack of awareness and misinformation are the causes of many cross-cultural conflicts. A deep understanding of the individualism or collectivism of another culture helps us to predict the behaviors of people from it and then enable people to decide and adjust their approach to ensure a successful intercultural communication. Therefore the individualism-collectivism dichotomy has been widely used to explain cultural differences in behaviors.In American study, no concern is more centered than that with the status of individual in America. As described by Tocqueville, individualism remains the key factor to characterize the American tradition. Historians have attributed American prosperity and its promotion of democracy to the spirit of self-reliance and individualism. In the case of China, the core of its mainstream philosophy is the idea of Confucius, which attracts overwhelming importance to the interest of the group. In short, analysis on American individualism and Chinese collectivism can reveal the essence of the two cultures and the roots of the critical problems encountered by the two societies. A contrast and analysis of American individualism and Chinese collectivism can help us understand more about American and Chinese societies and cultures,to avoid cultural clash more effectively.Cultural difference and different values in America and China constitute factors of cultural clash respectively. On the one hand, the clash of both countries'culture has various forms, and most of them are due to acute collision of individualism and collectivism in a certain condition. But on the other hand, diversity between cultures in America and China also promotes them to learn from other's strong points to offset one's weakness, reconciliation and cooperation. So the research of different values in American individualism and Chinese collectivism has theoretical and realistic significance.Many scholars and experts have devoted a great many efforts to explore this field from various perspectives, and they have got a lot of achievements. However, with the increasing understanding of American society and culture in the process of study, as a MA Candidate focusing on American Studies, the author of this thesis is more interested in the differences of national characters and values of American and Chinese cultures. But the topics are too big and wide for this thesis. Based on Hofstede's individualism-collectivism theory, through a comparative study, the author selects collectivism and individualism of the two countries as research perspective to contrast and analyze them. The primary purpose of this thesis is to open a window in two cultures, to dig a hole in cultural icebergs, hoping to explore the intrinsic implication in American and Chinese culture and the most central part of values from superficial surface so that the people of both two countries can understand the cultural differences and avoid cultural clash.This thesis is divided into seven chapters. Chapter one gives an introductory account of the whole thesis, including review of literature, hypothesis and structure of the paper. Chapter two mainly introduces definitions and Hofstede's theories of individualism and collectivism, which serve as the theoretical framework of this research. Chapter three puts emphasis on the comparison of individualism and collectivism in broad and general surroundings—American and Chinese society, ranging from extending self and equality which Americans highly value to the Chinese humility, hierarchy and so on. Chapter four observes and compares personal attitudes and behaviors of collectivism and individualism in small and specific surroundings—working groups to explore subtle differences. Chapter five focuses on the contrast of American individualism and Chinese collectivism in daily life as the supplementary of chapter three and chapter four's comparisons. Chapter six presents the root-causes of these differences, including religion and philosophy, history and population, geography and economy of China and America. And finally, chapter seven concludes this thesis with a summary of the paper, in which some suggestions are also included.The final part of this thesis proceeds to the conclusion that the United States and China stand on almost opposite ends of the continuum of individualism and collectivism, and respectively represent Western and Eastern values. We can not directly assert that America is an absolute individualistic society and without change, in individualism of America there is team spirit, and we cannot say that China is an absolute collectivistic society, because under the influence of western culture, there is also privacy in China recently. Although there are significant differences in Chinese and American cultures and these differences constitute a key reason behind the two countries'disagreement on series of questions, the two countries have important common interests in many fields, which decide that they should have mutual cooperation instead of conflict. The important thing is to promote mutual understanding through contact and dialogue so as to reduce disagreements and expand common ground. The author of this thesis sincerely hopes that China and America may increase cultural communication and cooperation and the two people may walk hand in hand into a bright future.