Effects of Collectivistic and Individualistic Cultures on Imagination Inflation in Eastern and Western jobs are interdependent, collectivism is preponderant,
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Cultures
By Iulia O. Basu-Zharku 2011, VOL. 3 NO. 02 | PG. ½
ABSTRACT Part I
Previous research suggests that culture influences our autobiographical memories. This study sought to
determine if the collectivism/individualism dimension of culture influences the process of imagination
inflation. Forty college students were given an Life Events Inventory (LEI) with individualistic and
collectivistic events, and had to rate their confidence that each event happened or not in their childhood.
Afterwards, they were asked to imagine a set of predetermined individualistic and collectivistic events and
a week later they rated their confidence on a new LEI. Participants showed imagination inflation for the
probed events. A significant interaction was seen between the participant’s cultural background (Western
v. Eastern) and the type of event (individualistic v. collectivistic). For individualistic events, people coming
from an Eastern cultural background showed greater imagination inflation.
What do we remember from the vast quantity of events happening to us, involving us, and relevant to our
life-story? For example, the fact that you went on a trip with your classmates in the 5th grade and the
details of the trip might be relevant to your life-story if many of your current friends were still some of the
children that back then were your classmates. People’s memories for their experiences are not a veridical
recording of such experiences, however (e.g., Schacter, 2001), and can be influenced by many factors. An
important and influential theory focusing on the emergence and content of autobiographical memory is the
social cultural developmental theory (Nelson & Fivush, 2004), which emphasizes the role of society and
culture in shaping people’s memories of their autobiographical past.
In essence, autobiographical memory is about defining the self in time and in relation to others, so that
individuals gain a sense of who they are by relating to others within a culture and creating a shared past.
This theory views autobiographical memory as a function of various socio-cultural factors that interact with
basic memory systems, such as the acquisition of language, talk with parents, the style of parental talk,
and psychological understanding. Autobiographical memory emerges gradually and is influenced by
cognitive developments and social interactions, thus becoming a social-cultural-cognitive system.
One area that has received attention from researchers is the influence of cultural differences in
collectivism/individualism on autobiographical memory. This introduction presents the definitions for
collectivism and individualism and some of the studies that illustrate the particularities of collectivistic
societies and individuals, as well as those of individualistic societies and individuals. The influence of the
socio-cultural background on people’s autobiographical memory is then depicted in studies that show the
influence of the linguistic and cultural environment on children’s autobiographical memories in Western
(e.g., American) and Eastern (e.g., Chinese) cultural backgrounds.
Some studies look at the conversational style between mother-children dyads of different ethnicities, and
others are more specifically focused on autobiographical remembering and look at the content and
characteristics of the children’s and adult’s autobiographical memories. Studies focusing on bicultural
individuals will be examined to show that these individuals integrate the norms of both cultures and apply
them accordingly. Finally, the phenomenon of imagination inflation is discussed and evidence towards it is
brought through studies that show its effect on past events and future expectations, for both children and
adults. Moreover, it is noted that imagination can also create false memories, particularly if the events
imagined are highly plausible or if the participants are children
Differences Between Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultures
One important dimension of culture is the extent of individualism or collectivism exhibited (Desai, 2007).
Collectivism puts an emphasis on distinguishing between in-groups and out-groups, engaging in
cooperative tasks, and focusing on what people have in common. Conversely, individualism is
characterized by engagement in competitive tasks, by public situations, and by an emphasis on what
makes the individual distinct. In general, in societies in which agreeing on social norms is important and
affluence, independence, and differences are emphasized, individualism is preponderant.
In particular, individualism is mostly seen in the cultures of Western Europe and North America, whereas
collectivism is mostly seen in the cultures of Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe and Latin America (Triandis,
1993; Nelson & Fuvish, 2004). The emphasis on one or another starts in the family, even with the very
structure of the family: a large, multigenerational one emphasizes collectivism, whereas a smaller, nuclear
family emphasizes individualism (Triandis, 1993). Studies examining differences in collectivistic and
individualistic cultures often use either Asian Americans or people from Asian cultures, such as
Vietnamese or Filipino and compare them to Caucasians or Americans (Skillman, 2000; Desai, 2007).
These studies on families and intergenerational conflict show how individualistic societies value self-
reliance, independence, autonomy, personal achievement (Skillman, 2000), and a definition of self apart
from the group and personal goals (Desai, 2007).
Collectivistic societies value family cohesion, cooperation, solidarity, and conformity (Skillman, 2000), and
thus people is these societies tend to make more references to others, emphasize group goals, and follow
the expectations and regulations of the group (Desai, 2007). Such cultural differences mean that people in
different cultures have fundamentally different construals of the self and others. For more collectivistic
societies, interdependent construals are the norm: The self is a part of a community, defined relative to
others, concerned with belongingness, dependency, empathy, reciprocity and focused on small, selective
in-groups at the expense of out-groups. The interdependent self exercises control to the interior, so that
cognition and representation involve attentiveness to others, and personal attributes and actions are
situationally bound. Autonomy becomes secondary, whereas relationships with others are emphasized,
being ends in themselves.
Thus, it is crucial to be aware of other people’s desires, needs, and goals and to work towards them to help
the other, even read their minds (Mark & Kitayama, 1991). For more individualistic societies, independent
construals are the norm: The distinctiveness of people, the uniqueness of a person, autonomy, and
independence are emphasized. This requires construing oneself as an individual and speaking one’s mind.
Social responsiveness is determined by the need to assert and express the self, and thus the independent
self exercises control to the exterior. The consequence is that larger, more inclusive but superficial in-
groups are the norm, as opposed to the small, selective in-groups of the interdependent self construals
(Mark & Kitayama, 1991).
Socio-Cultural Influences on Memory
According to the socio-cultural developmental theory, socio-cultural influences can be seen both in the
formation and content of autobiographical memories (Nelson & Fivush, 2004). Research has examined this
in several ways. One line of research has looked at cultural differences in autobiographical memory by
comparing Caucasian Americans with various Asian ethnicities (e.g., Korean, Chinese, and Japanese). An
analysis of conversations about reminiscing about one’s experiencess in Caucasian mother-child dyads
and Korean mother-child dyads (the children’s age ranged between 3-4 years of age) revealed that
Caucasian dyads talked on average as much as three times more than the Koreans dyads (Mullen &
Soonhyung, 1995).
In addition, Caucasian mothers talked more during their turns and were more likely to portray the child as
the protagonist in the talk, and to emphasize the child’s and others’ feelings and thoughts, whereas Korean
mothers focused on norms, social roles, and emphasized behavioral expectations. This suggests that
children’s linguistic experiences are related to the development of autobiographical memories, and that the
latter are culturally modeled (Mullen & Soonhyung, 1995).
Another study that suggests the influence of the socio-linguistic environment on autobiographical memory
at the early stages of childhood looked at conversations about children’s past experiences between
American mother-child dyads and Chinese mother-child dyads (the children were 3 years old). The
analysis of these conversations revealed that American mother-child dyads had an elaborative,
independently oriented conversational style in which the focus was on the child’s predilections and
opinions, whereas Chinese mother-child dyads had a low-elaborative, interdependently oriented
conversational style in which the mother repeated factual questions and emphasized moral rules and
behavioral expectations (Wang et al., 2000).
Part II
These results show that parent-child talk focuses on what types of events are considered memorable, on
what aspects of those events are more important, on how to organize events in a temporal fashion, and on
how to make inferences about people and causality. All these differ according to the values of a specific
culture (Mullen & Soonhyung, 1995; Wang et al., 2000). Child talk appears to be more valued in Western
societies, where children are encouraged to talk more about their experiences and talk more about
themselves (Mullen & Soonhyung, 1995).
Other research also showing how the socio-linguistic environment in which children grow shapes their
autobiographical memories has focused on memory specificity and the amount of detail found in young
children’s memory reports. When American children (4 and 6 year old) were interviewed about a story
presented to them a day before, they gave more voluminous and elaborate accounts for both their own
experiences and for the story than did Korean children (Han, Leichtman & Wang, 1998). In addition,
American children were more specific and descriptive about specific past events than both Korean and
Chinese children, and the American children referred to emotions more and categorized negative
emotions, whereas Asian children tried to emphasize the positive aspect of an event and talked more
about other people than American children did.
This suggests that the content of memory differs with the cultural background of the individual (Han et al.,
1998). Research involving preschoolers describing autobiographical events shows that American children’s
memories are generally focused on specific events, individual experiences, and feelings (Wang, 2004). In
addition, American children’s memories tend to be expressive, detailed and lengthy, and they focus on the
child as being the protagonist in the narrative and present the child in a positive light. In contrast, Chinese
children’s memories were found to be general, skeletal, less emotional, more neutral in their expression,
and focused on routine events, on collective activities, on social interactions, on others or relations with
others.
These patterns are seen because Western cultures promote autonomy and put an emphasis on the
individual’s qualities, and children in these cultures are encouraged to stand out and talk about themselves,
whereas Eastern cultures promote cohesiveness and put an emphasis on the group, and children in these
cultures are discouraged to talk about themselves and the past and focus more on those around them
(Han et al., 1998).
Cultural influences on memory persist into adulthood. In one study, American and Chinese college
students were asked to recollect early childhood experiences, and they showed the same biases as
American and Chinese preschoolers (Wang, 2001). In the study, the American and Chinese college
students were asked to recollect their earliest childhood memories and provided self-descriptions. Results
indicated that the American participant’s earliest childhood memories were from around the age of 3.5
years, whereas the Chinese participant’s earliest childhood memories were dating from approximately 4.1
years of age.
In addition, American college students’ memories were discrete, focused on specific events, and the
individual’s feelings, whereas Chinese college students’ memories were more general, about routine
activities, and focusing on family and in-groups. Americans also stressed personal preferences and
autonomy in lengthier narratives than the ones reported by the Chinese.
When considering the influence of culture on autobiographical memory, it is important to realize that people
can internalize more than one culture, in equal measure, so as to form a bicultural identity (Devos, 2006).
For example, young adults in the United States in a Chinese family might be competitive and expose their
achievements in the society at large, but inside their community and/or family, they will be respectful to
their elders and try to blend in. Studies have primed bicultural individuals with one cultural identity or
another, in order to see how that influences their behavior and cognition (Hong, Ip, Chiu, Morris & Menon,
2001; Wang, 2008). In one such study, Chinese Americans were primed with their Chinese cultural identity,
by being given collective, Chinese-related statements. Results showed that the participants became more
aware of their duties (e.g. “I ought to understand Chinese history,” “We have to pay taxes”).
However, Chinese Americans primed with their American cultural identity, by being given individualistic,
American-related statements, they tended to become slightly more aware of their rights (e.g. “I can vote
when I’m 18”) (Hong et al., 2001). Moreover, when Asian Americans were primed with their American self
before recalling important autobiographical events, they were more likely to recall personal experiences in
which they were the protagonists and they tended to emphasize their own perspective (e.g., “I got the
acceptance letter for Cornell. I did not like my high school at the time and most of the people in, so this was
very good news for me. […] I was getting out of town”) (Wang, 2008). However, when Asian Americans
were primed with their Asian self before recalling important autobiographical events, their recollections
were more likely to focus on social interactions, and persons from in-groups (e.g., “The day I got my letter
of acceptance to Cornell gave me a sense of relief. […] So it’s not the fact of accomplishing that makes my
parents happy […]. It’s the ability to plan”). These results point to an influence of the cultural dimension of
collectivism/individualism on the mechanism of retrieval (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Wang, 2008).
Thus, previous research provides strong evidence that the cultural dimension of collectivism/individualism
influences autobiographical memories, starting with their formation in early childhood and continuing its
influence into adulthood, when it influences the retrieval of autobiographical memories.
Imagination Inflation
In autobiographical memories, connections between self and the past are made. The self, as a personality,
is considered as having three levels: traits, characteristic adaptations (cognitive, motivational,
developmental components), and a life story (McLean & Fournier, 2008). But how do we know that these
memories that compose our life story are actually events that we experienced? Was it really me that had a
costume party for my 10th birthday? Did I really go the museum on a class trip as I think I went to? How do
people differentiate between events that really happened and events that they only thought about, inferred,
or imagined?
Research shows that memories of experienced events generally have more sensory and perceptual details
than memories for events that did not really occur but were products of the imagination (Sporer &
Sharman, 2006). Such qualitative details allow people to differentiate between memories of events that
actually happened versus those that they only imagined happening (Johnson, Hashtroudi & Lindsay,
1993), and apparently people use the same criterion to judge the life-story narratives of other people
(Sporer & Sharman, 2006).
Nonetheless, imagining events that never happened can have consequences, as the phenomenon of
imagination inflation shows. Imagination inflation refers to an increase in confidence that a fictional event
that was imagined actually happened (Garry, Manning, Loftus & Sherman, 1996; Garry, Sharman, Wade,
Hunt & Smith, 2001). The classic way of testing imagination inflation is with the Life Events Inventory (LEI),
and the methodology consists of three steps. First, participants complete an LEI consisting of a long list of
possible childhood events that they rate their confidence that each event has or has not happened