The Influences Of Marketization On Individualism And Collectivism In China

Individualism refers to a set of cultures,values,goals,and behaviors that emphasize individual autonomy,independence,self-reliance,and individual achievement.In contrast,collectivism refers to a set of cultures,values,goals,and behaviors that emphasize ingroup cooperation,harmony,interdependence,and group achievement.Individualism and collectivism are important economic themes.Specifically,the individualistic culture has demonstrated to promote national economic growth and individual competitive preference more than the collectivistic culture.By contrast,the collectivistic culture has been shown to increase social compliance in societal emergencies,encourage the provision of public goods,and enhance subjective well-being as compared with the individualistic culture.Given the importance of individualism and collectivism,substantial theoretical and empirical studies have attempted to reveal the sources of individualism and collectivism.One line of research has considered that individualism/collectivism depends on economic and social factors such as economic development or societal change,whereas another stream of research has demonstrated the role of the ecological factors such as climate suitability or agricultural production mode on individualism/collectivism.However,previous research ignores the effects of institutional change on individualism and collectivism.Since the economic reform in 1978,China has experienced a dramatic marketization.Such institutional transformation is likely to bring changes in individualism and collectivism,but there has been no direct evidence on this issue.Thus,this article focuses on individualism and collectivism among the Chinese population and explores the impact of the marketization on individualism and collectivism.Investigating this issue would help evaluate the cultural consequences of China’s marketization and provide a basis for the subsequent reform of the socialist market economy system and the construction of a psychosocial service system.This doctoral dissertation consists of nine chapters that combine theoretical analysis and empirical research,attempting to investigate the impact of China’s marketization process on individualism and collectivism at both macro and micro levels.Chapter 1 is Introduction,which focuses on the background and significance of the thesis and the definition of core concepts.Chapter 2 is the Literature Review,which reviews the literature closely related to this article and comments the advances and limitations of the previous literature.Chapter 3 is the Theoretical Foundation and Research Hypotheses.This chapter reviews the theoretical models on the influence of market/marketization on culture from the perspectives of western economics,Marxian economics,anthropology,and psychology.Based on these models,we propose a theoretical framework and research hypotheses on how the marketization process affects individualism and collectivism in China.Chapters 4 to 8 are the Empirical Research section.Specifically,Chapters 4 and 5 explore the correlation between national and provincial marketization and individualism and collectivism at the macro level using text analysis,largescale survey,and archival data methods.Furthermore,Chapters 6 to 8 investigate the impacts of market identity and market participation on individualism and collectivism at the micro level using experimental methods,respectively.Chapter 9,entitled “Comprehensive Discussion,Main Conclusions,and Policy Recommendations,” compares our results with previous literature.In addition,we summarize the main research findings,and propose economic policy recommendations for China’s market reforms,as well as public policy recommendations for the construction of public cultural values.In this article,Chapters 4 through 8 include five studies whose research objectives,designs,and conclusions are elucidated later.Study 1 consists of two studies.Study 1a examined China’s cross-temporal trends of individualism and collectivism since 1978,after which it explored whether national marketization explained these trends.Study 1a is a text-analysis study that used the Google Chinese Book Database from 1978 to 2019 to construct an individualism index and a collectivism index,revealing that the individualism index remained stable between 1978 and 1992,increased between 1992 and 2016,and decreased between 2016 and 2019;the collectivism index showed the opposite trend during the same period.Using five years of data from the World Values Survey in China(1995,2001,2007,2013,2018),Study 1b attempted to isolate the age,period,and birth cohort effects of individualism and collectivism changes.Results showed that,from 1995 to 2018,Chinese people’s individualistic values increased,and their collectivistic values decreased;these cultural changes were more of a period effect than a birth cohort and age effect.More importantly,the results of Studies 1a and 1b together suggest that the marketization index can explain the changing trends in individualism and collectivism.Specifically,the marketization process significantly predicted the rise in individualism and the decline in collectivism.Study 2 examined the explanatory role of the province-level marketization on individualism and collectivism.This study used the unique data of a nationally representative survey in 2021,where a standardized individualism and collectivism scale was employed to gauge the individualism and collectivistic values among the people from different provinces in China.Results found that the province-level marketization positively predicted individualistic culture/values,but it exhibited no significant relationship with collectivistic cultures/values.Further analyses found that the province-level marketization increased autonomy,independence,and achievement—the three core elements of individualism.In addition,the province-level individualistic culture/values were positively predicted by the two elements of marketization,i.e.,the relationship between the government and marketization as well as the development of the non-state-owned economy.Study 3 consists of two experimental studies to revise and validate the private-public goods game paradigm to measure individualism and collectivism.Study 3a is a multiple-shot,privatepublic goods game.The results showed that market identity significantly and positively predicted individualistic behavior and negatively predicted collectivist behavior.This study provided preliminary,relevant evidence to study 4.Study 3b is a one-shot,private-public goods game.The results showed that individualistic values positively predicted individualistic behavior and negatively predicted collectivistic behavior.Moreover,collectivistic values negatively predicted individualistic behavior and positively predicted collectivistic behavior.These findings suggest that the one-shot,private-public goods game can validly assess individualistic and collectivistic behaviors.Therefore,Studies 4 and 5 used this paradigm to measure individualistic and collectivist behaviors.Study 4 is a behavioral experiment to examine whether the market identity salience impacted individualistic and collectivist behavior,in which market identity is restricted to consumer identity.This study included a total of 216 employees as participants.The participants in the experimental condition answered embedded survey questions(e.g.,“on average,how long did you spend shopping every day in the past week”),which are designated to make their consumer identity salient.On the contrary,the participants in the control condition answered questions unrelated to the salience of consumer identity(e.g.,“on average,how long did you spend watching TV every day in the past week”).Subsequently,all participants participated in a private-public goods game.Their strategic choice and goal achievement represent individualistic and collectivistic behaviors in the game.The results indicated that participants in the experimental condition exhibited a significantly higher investment in the private pool and significantly lower investment in the public pool than those in the control condition.Furthermore,the participants in the experimental condition were more likely to achieve individualistic goals and less likely to achieve collectivistic goals than those in the control condition.Taken together,the salience of consumer identity reduced collectivist behavior and enhanced individualistic behavior.Study 5 is a behavioral experiment to test whether market participation affected individualistic and collectivistic behavior.The participants included 264 employees.The participants in the control condition participated in the market trading activities of four different items,while the participants in the experimental condition participated in four graphic test tasks.Then all the participants participated in a private-public goods game.Their strategic choice and goal achievement represent individualistic and collectivistic behaviors in the game.The results yielded that the participants in the experimental condition invested more in the private pool and less in the public pool than those in the control condition.Additionally,the participants in the experimental condition were more likely to achieve individualistic goals and less likely to achieve collectivistic goals than those in the control condition.Altogether,market participation inhibited collectivistic behavior and triggered individualistic behavior.This article has innovations in the theoretical perspective,research data,and measurements.First,in terms of theoretical perspective,there has been no research on the impact of China’s marketization on individualism and collectivism.This article addressed this research gap in two ways.At the macro level,the present research demonstrated that marketization was accompanied by or even led to the prevalence of individualistic culture and emphasized the institutional economic roots of individualism and collectivism.At the micro-level,we found that activating market identity and participation promoted individualistic behavior and inhibited collectivistic behavior.By integrating the macro and micro perspectives,this article provided complementary evidence for the branches of economics such as behavioral economics,institutional economics,and cultural economics.Second,in terms of research data,previous studies have primarily used proxy indicators to measure individualism and collectivism,lacking representative cross-temporal data,cross-sectional data,and experimental behavioral data.Compared with prior literature,the current research provided the latest and most comprehensive data to measure individualism and collectivism,consisting of the time-series data,nationally representative survey data,and individual-level behavioral experimental data.In this way,we offered reliable data sources for future empirical studies.Third,in terms of measurements,prior research in cultural and institutional economics lacks the standardized scales of individualism and collectivism,while few studies in behavioral economics have used a behavioral game paradigm to measure individualistic and collectivistic behaviors.This article revised a standardized individualism and collectivism scale and validated a recently published privatepublic goods game,thereby providing a standardized scale and an economic game for future empirical studies.