Is Individualism Globalizing? Exploring Global Culture’s Impact on Worldwide Attitudes and Their Ideological Configuration, 1994-2012

• In Event: 4366 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 9. Global Norm Formation

Abstract

An elite-level global culture is sometimes described as including endorsement of individualism as an organizing principle. This study asks whether exposure to global culture has influenced national populations to adopt individualism as an organizing principle. I ask: are average attitudes becoming more individualistic in response to exposure to global culture? And is an individualistic principle increasingly coming to organize the inter-relationship between people’s attitudes? Drawing on data from the integrated World Values Survey/European Values Survey (1994-2012), I use a longitudinal multilevel design to model worldwide variation in (1) societal support for individualism, as measured by attitudes across relevant survey items and (2) the extent to which an individualist principle organizes attitudes, as measured by the intercorrelation of responses across these items. In line with theory, I find some support for the positive over-time influence of exposure to global culture on popular support for individualistic attitudes. Attitudes were also more individualistic in Western and traditionally-Protestant nations, where the global cultural principle of individualism is thought to have originated. However, and perhaps contrary to theory, I find no substantial support for the influence of exposure to global culture on the interrelationship between attitudes. While varying markedly across societies, individualism’s organizing power was primarily influenced by the society’s world regional membership. Individualism’s organizing influence was greatest in Western countries and least in Asia and Africa, where alternate organizing logics may have played a greater role.

Author

• Louisa Roberts, University of South Dakota