AN EXPLORATION OF INDIVIDUAL AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

The dissertation is based on the following original publications which will be referred to in the text by their respective Roman numerals.

I Realo, A. (1998). Collectivism in an individualist culture: The case of Estonia. Trames, 2, 19-39.

II Allik, J., & Realo, A. (1996). The hierarchical nature of individualism-collectivism: Comments on Matsumoto et al. (1996). Culture and Psychology, 2, 109-117.

III Realo, A., Allik, J., & Vadi, M. (1997). The hierarchical structure of collectivism. Journal of Research in Personality, 31, 93-116.

IV Realo, A., & Allik, J. (1999). A cross-cultural study of collectivism: A comparison of American, Estonian, and Russian students. Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 133-142.

V Kants, L., & Realo, A. (1999). Meta-level collectivism in Estonia and Finland. 3, 3-18.

VI Allik, J., & Realo, A. (1997). Emotional experience and its relation to the Five-Factor Model in Estonian. Journal of Personality, 65, 625-647.

VII Realo, A., & Allik, J. (1998). The Estonian Self-Consciousness Scale and its relation to the Five-Factor model of personality. Journal of Personality Assessment, 70, 109-124.

The main conclusions of this dissertation are the following:

• Collectivism could be defined as a hierarchical concept consisting of at least three related subtypes focused on relations with family, peers, and society (Study II, III).
• Various socio-cultural groups within a society may have different patterns of collectivism being very collectivistic in one domain of social relations but relatively non-collectivistic in some other domain (Study II, III).
• The hierarchical tripartite structure of collectivism is generalizable across different languages and cultures (Study IV).
• All three types of collectivism (Familism, Companionship, and Patriotism) share a common core in two relatively stable personality traits-Openness to Experience and Agreeableness. Agreeable persons, who are also closed to experience, are compared with others more predisposed to absorb collectivistic elements from their own culture into their own cognitive schemes. Consequently, the variability of collectivistic attitudes is determined by a particular combination of general (personality trait-like) and specific (cultural-situational) factors (Study III).
• The collectivistic attitudes are not related to public self-consciousness as measured by the Estonian Self-Consciousness Scale (Study VII). The lack of correlation can be explained either by cultural differences in the self-construal or the validity of the Self-Consciousness Scale.
• Collectivists tend to inhibit the expression of negative emotions (measured by the General Affect scales; Study VI) toward their close others (ingroup members) but not toward strangers (outgroup members).
• A seeming controversy concerning the Estonians' collectivism can be resolved by assuming that concepts of collectivism and individualism presuppose the existence of one another. According to the results of several recent cross-cultural studies (Study IV, V), Estonia (as many other cultures) could be best described as an individualist culture with a certain degree of collectivism (Study I).