Lyla: Individualism in a Social Setting
After completing my undergraduate degree, I got a job working in primary schools in France as an Assistante de Langue Étrangère (foreign language assistant) for a duration of two years. Working and living in another country is quite a different experience than visiting, and as a result I was able to feel immersed in the culture in an intimate way. That being said, there were definitely times when I felt very much outside the culture, and I couldn’t help but view my experiences through a social psychologist’s lens.
In the evenings after work, I would often get together with friends for an “apéro”—a quintessential part of French culture. An apéro is an evening comprised of food, drinks, and friends, with nary a curfew in site. One night in particular, the guy I was dating and I attended an apéro at a friend’s house. The evening progressed as usual, people sitting around drinking and talking, and then at one point someone brought out a board game and starting passing cards around to everyone. I didn’t know this particular game, but I happen to have a particular dislike for make-believe games with complicated rules, especially in this case since everyone there already knew the rules, so suffice it to say that I didn’t want to play. As the dealer came over to give me some cards, I politely said no thanks, and that I didn’t want to play. After a small silence-filled pause and looks of surprise, everyone started trying to convince me to please play, saying that they wanted me to play and that I would have fun, and they started explaining the rules “all you have to do is…” (and as expected, never as simple as it sounds). I said no, please, really, that I was fine just watching, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer, and the entire group seemed genuinely distressed that I did not want to play. I thought perhaps that they feared I was not enjoying myself, so I tried to assure them that I would really enjoy watching, but they wouldn’t give up so finally I found myself with cards in my hand, begrudgingly half-listening to rules I knew I wouldn’t remember and would have to ask for help every time my turn came around. I played a few rounds and then insisted I was done, and at that point they acquiesced in my decision to watch. I enjoyed the rest of my time with everyone, and the evening ended well.
Or so I thought. As we were walking home, my boyfriend turned to me and said “I can’t believe you did that!” Confused, I asked what he meant, and he said, “You Americans! You can never do anything for the sake of the group. You always have to stand out!” And I was genuinely surprised at this reaction. To me, this simple act of not wanting to take part in a group activity seemed like it had harmed no one; I didn’t do it to stand out, I just didn’t understand why I should do something that didn’t seem fun to me. I said so, and he responded, “That’s the thing. You don’t realize that part of the fun is having everyone participate!” To him, me not participating was actually taking something away from the experience for the group. For me, I did not see how declining to play should affect the group’s experience at all. It occurred to me that this was a perfect example of individualistic versus collectivist ideals. Collectivism values group harmony at the potential expense of the individual, whereas individualism values personal values at the potential expense of group harmony. Another component of individualism versus collectivism is interdependent self-construal versus independent self-construal. I truly could not see how not playing was taking away anything from the group harmony, which could be an example of my independent self-construal; I see my identity as separate from others/the group, and so I didn’t see my choice as having an effect on the group in any significant way. But, if you already see your identity in terms of its relation to the group, dissenting from the group is a direct disservice to the well-being of the whole as well as a threat to one’s personal identity via social relationships. I should note that France is by no means a fully collectivist culture—they are quite individualistic in many ways—but they do score higher on collectivism than the United States does (https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/france,the-usa/). It was surprising to me how this small difference showed up in a big way.
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