In social sciences, the term collectivism has three distinct meanings, i.e., it denotes three different concepts. The first use of collectivism refers to an ontological, epistemological, and methodological approach in social sciences. In this sense, collectivism refers to the view that collective phenomena – society, culture, organizations, institutions – are more important and/or dominate over individuals and their behavior. The best examples of theoretical approaches that use collectivist epistemology and methodology are Marxism, functionalism, and the Durkhemian approach. In opposition to the collectivist approach stands methodological individualism.

The second use of the term collectivism is to denote important aspects of certain political ideologies. Some of those ideologies believe that individuals should sacrifice self-interests for the benefit of the whole (e.g. conservatism, nationalism, and traditionalism), while others focus their attention on the area of economy and argue that all means of production and other valuable items should be owned by the whole community (e. g. communism, anarcho-communism, and anarcho-syndicalism). As an example of an author who ideologically supported collectivism, we can point to Mikhail Bakunin who envisioned a society with voluntary cooperation between free federations of producers. He advocated for the collectivization of all private property that would be given to freely federated workers’ associations and workers’ cooperatives. One of the most notable opponents of ideological collectivism is Karl Popper, who, in his book The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) argues that theories of the organization of the state and society championed by authors like Plato, Hegel, and Marx are antithetical to freedom as they favor collectivistic and organismic whole and represent philosophical precursors of political totalitarianism. All those ideas about radical social transformations have two great deficiencies, first, they require for unelected minority with supposedly superior knowledge to impose their will on everybody else, at second social arrangements they propose may lead to unintended and unforeseen negative consequences that are hard to correct.

The third way to use the term collectivism is to designate a set of values present in individuals or whole societies, regardless of whether those individuals and societies support any specific ideology. At the end of the 19th century sociologists Ferdinand Tönnies and Émile Durkheim, independent of each other, introduced two-fold classifications of types of human groups. Tönnies’ concept of "community", and Durkheim’s concept of "society of mechanical solidarity” describe well aforementioned set of collectivist values.

Ferdinand Tönnies is best known for his work Community and Society (1887), in which he presented the dichotomous classification of types of human association. The two main ideal types of human groups are "community" (Gemeinschaft) and "society" (Gesellschaft - also sometimes translated as „association“). The community is the first, in the historical sense, and it is created by the „natural will“ (Wesenwille). The community is a place of common life, and the best examples of the community are household and family, neighborhood, village and rural life, and ethnic communities (which are connected by customs, language, and religion). The community is similar to a living organism and people in it share collectivist values. A community is formed spontaneously through long-term "organic" development and is determined by emotions, customs, traditions, solidarity, trust, and intimacy. The relations and order in the community are maintained through tradition and solidarity. Tönnies sees the origin of the relationships in the community in the very fact of birth within the community, and the factors that affect the relationship are gender and origin. The strongest ties are those between mother and child, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters. The maternal relationship is based on pure love, while the relationship between the spouses can lead to the one-sided submission of the woman. To avoid this subordination, it is necessary to build a lasting relationship of mutual affirmation, while care and love for common children and property can help in that. The attitude of the father towards the children best expresses the attitude of domination in the community. As patriarchy proved to be better in war and economic activities, it became a general cultural form. Apart from biological kinship, the greatest sources of the community are common life, common religion, common language, and intellectual closeness. Organic or natural will, in the community, is based on understanding and harmony.

Émile Durkheim's book Division of Labor in Society (1893), observes the development and evolution from primitive to civilized societies, and pays special attention to the relationship between the type of economy and the division of labor, on the one hand, and the type of solidarity and morality is society, on the other hand. To explain this relationship, he introduces a division into two basic types of solidarity in society - "mechanical solidarity" and "organic solidarity". In societies of mechanical solidarity, the division of labor is very limited, societies consist of segments that are functionally the same, while kinship relations govern relations within and between segments. This way of life and work influence the creation of "collective consciousness" which is completely within the individual consciousness, so individuals blindly obey the opinion of the majority and live following traditional rules. Individuals, among themselves, share collectivist values, and have the same patterns of actions, emotions, and attitudes, so they do not form separate personalities. The legal system is aimed at retributive sanction, that is, at punishing those who violate collective rules. The goal of the regulatory system is to establish moral balance. Moral and legal responsibility falls on the entire collective, while social status is mostly hereditary.

Margaret Mead studied Japanese mentality in the book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946) and found that collectivist values are widespread and entrenched there. The most important values in Japanese society are concepts of hierarchy and indebtedness, which are in stark contrast to the most important American values of equality and freedom. Japanese people see family and social relationships as grounded in indebtedness and hierarchy, and the greatest imperative for any Japanese individual is to fulfill their familial and social duties, as a form of repayment of debt to the supreme authority, whether in the family or the society. A sense of self-respect is tied to the execution of these duties and subjugation to authority. 

                                    Measuring Collectivism

There have been many empirical studies that tried to conceptualize and measure collectivist values. We will present the three most famous and widespread of those studies. In order to conduct a series of empirical studies of values ​​around the world, Ronald Inglehart founded the World Values ​​Survey in 1981, a network of scientists and institutions that have been conducting surveys in over 80 countries for decades. Inglehart, together with Christian Welzel, created the so-called Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World. They classified all the countries from which they had empirical data on a chart with two dimensions: 1) first dimension places individuals on the spectrum, where on one end of the spectrum are traditional values, and on the other end are secular rational values ​​and 2) second dimension places individuals on the spectrum, where on one end of the spectrum are values ​​of self-preservation and on the other end are values ​​of self-realization. Traditional values in the first dimension correspond to collectivist values. Using empirically gathered data they classified countries into nine major cultural areas: Confucian, European-Protestant, Catholic-European, Orthodox, Islamic, African, Latin American, South Asian, and English-speaking. 

Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede conducted a study of 117,000 employees of IBM company worldwide. He presented the results of this study in the book Culture’s Consequences (1980). Hofstede identified four dimensions as most relevant for understanding differences in values across the world. Those dimensions are: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and masculinity. After the publication of the book, Hofstede co-founded and became the first Director of the Institute for Research on Intercultural Cooperation. Through this institution, he and his colleagues continued to research values in over 90 countries, both on the cultural and individual levels. Of his four dimensions, one that relates to opposition between individualistic and collectivistic values has proven to be the most important for further studies of cross-cultural differences. When researching values on the level of individuals Hofstede uses the concepts of “idiocentrism” (individualism) and allocentrism (collectivism). He found that the collectivistic self is interdependent and relational, stresses the importance of harmony, respectfulness, cooperation, and conformity, and is susceptible to strong emotional responses relating to positive and negative feedback from others. Conflicts and completion are seen unfavorably within the group but are seen as acceptable in dealings with outsiders.

American psychologist Harry C. Triandis conducted several cross-cultural studies focused on attitudes, norms, and values. He showed the results of those studies in the book Individualism and Collectivism (1995). Triandis defines collectivism as: ‘‘Collectivism means greater emphasis on (a) the views, needs, and goals of the in-group rather than oneself; (b) social norms and duty defined by the in-group rather than behavior to get pleasure; (c) beliefs shared with the in-group rather than beliefs that distinguish self from in-group; and (d) great readiness to cooperate with in-group members.’’ He asserts that collectivistic ethos is characterized by ‘‘interdependency, succor, nurturance, common fate, and compliance’’. Triandis developed the scale with fifty items to measure the various aspects of individualism and collectivism. He also introduced two new dimensions, horizontal and vertical, where horizontal dimension relates to egalitarian social commitments, and ‘vertical refers to social hierarchies.

Books and articles:

Bakunin, Mikhail. Bakunin: Statism and Anarchy (1987);

Ball, R. “Individualism, Collectivism, and Economic Development”, in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2001);

Durkheim, E. Division of Labor in Society (1893);

Gregory, Paul R., and Robert C. Stuart. Soviet Economic Structure and Performance. 2nd ed. (1981);

Inglehart, Roland.The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics (1977);

    -    Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (1990);

    -    Value Change in Global Perspective (1995);

    -    Human Beliefs and Values: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook based on the 1999-2002 values Surveys (2004);

Inkeles, Alex. Social Change in Soviet Russia (1971);

Kropotkin. Fields, Factories, and Workshops (1899);

    -     Modern Science and Anarchism (1901);

    -     Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902);

Markus, H. R. & Kitayama, S. “Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation”, in Psychological Review (1991);

Mead, Margaret. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946);

O’Neill, J. (ed.). Modes of Individualism and Collectivism (1973);

Oyserman, D., Coon, H. M., & Kemmelmeier, M. “Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-Analysis”, in Psychological Bulletin (2002);

Popper, Karl. The Open Society and its Enemies (1945);

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China (1990);

Tönnies Community and Society (1887);

Triandis, Harry C. Individualism and Collectivism (1995);

Triandis, H. C. “Individualism Collectivism and Personality”, in Journal of Personality (2001);