An Arab proverb says that you must “smell the breath” of a man in order to know if he can be trusted. But in the United States, Americans get very uncomfortable when other people stand “too close” to them. Americans also tend to knock on a closed door before entering and usually ask the person inside if it’s OK to enter or if she would like to join the group for lunch. But in Lesotho (a tribal culture in South Africa), people’s rooms often have no doors at all; people go in and out freely, and if someone sees you, they will grab you and assume you want to have lunch with the group. Such differences in the value of personal space and independence versus belonging and group loyalty illustrate our second cultural value: collectivist and individualist orientations.

Individuals from collectivist cultures perceive themselves first and foremost as members of a group—and they communicate from that perspective (Triandis, 1986, 1988, 2000). Collectivist cultures (including many Arab and Latin American cultures as well as several Asian cultures, such as Chinese and Japanese) value group goals and emphasize group harmony and cooperation. Communication in such cultures is governed by a clear recognition of status and hierarchy among group members, and loyalty to the group and the honor of one’s family are more important than individual needs or desires (Wang & Liu, 2010). In addition, collectivist communicators are generally concerned with relational support; they avoid hurting others’ feelings, apologize, and make efforts to help others to maintain the group’s reputation and position of respect (Han & Cai, 2010). For example, if an individual attending a business meeting discovers a financial error, she will not likely mention who made the error, nor will she call attention to her own success in discovering it. Instead, she will emphasize the group’s success in correcting the error before it became a problem for the company.

Conversely, individualist cultures value each person’s autonomy, privacy, and personal “space.” They pay relatively little attention to status and hierarchy based on age or family connections. In such cultures, individual “self-esteem” is important, individual initiative and achievement are rewarded, and individual credit and blame are assigned. Thus, an individual who notes an error—even one by her superiors—will probably be rewarded or respected for her keen observation (as long as she presents it sensitively). The United States is a highly individualist culture—American heroes are usually those celebrated for “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps” to achieve great things or change the world. Other Western cultures, such as Great Britain, Australia, and Germany, are also at the high end of the individualism scale.