Thomas Talhelm, Liuqing Wei, Rui Sun, Danila Medvedev, Alvaro San Martin, Mai Helmy, Adil Samekin, Alejandra; id_orcid 0000-0001-7239-3200 Zaragoza Scherman, Alexander English, Andreea Ursu, Séamus A. Power, Chia‐Wen Chen, Qionghan Zhang, Ali H. Al‐Hoorie, Annabella Osei-Tutu, Laura Vuillier, Katija Khan, Amanda Atwood, Luxi Shen, Muhammad Rizwan, Serigne Abdou Lahat Ndiaye, Oumar Barry, Tengku Nila Fadhlia, Igor Grossmann, Jordan Axt, Nicholas Calbraith Owsley, Salome Njambi, Illia Yahiiaiev, Karine Malysheva, Serhii Lytvyn, Ирена Сариева, Xuemin Zhang, Chen Zhao, Robert Ritz, BoKyung Park, Maria Constantinou, Mário José Chanja, S. Arzu Wasti, Synne Marit Kjelling Skagseth, Jonas R. Kunst, Tuong Van Vu, Isaraphorn Pratumchai, Phakkanun Chittham, Narendra Singh Thagunna, Jyotshna Dangi, Tulips Yiwen Wang, Vassilis Pavlopoulos, Michal Kohút, Freyr Halldórsson, Deborah Shulman, Anita Deák, Watcharaporn Boonyasiriwat, Bojana Većkalov, Ricardo B. Rodrigues, Rui Costa‐Lopes, Patricia Gale, William J. Chopik, Lusanda Sekaja, Orla Muldoon, Donna-Maria B. Maynard, Ashley Foster-Estwick, Amy H. Du, Rabi’ah Aminudin, Edna Kabala, Marcus Eugênio Oliveira Lima, Eunkook M. Suh, Michael Muthukrishna, Jinseok P. Kim, Kazi Nur Hossain, Arobindu Dash, Stefan Agrigoroaei, Takeshi Hamamura, Mahsa Amirzadeh, Liliya Sultanova, Rocío A. Rivera Crespo, Ying Lin, Kara Lord, Yuri Miyamoto, Valeria Vitale, Masaki Yuki, Yugo Maeda, Hamidreza Harati, Amirhossein Abdollahzadeh, Nara Pratumchai, Jonathan C. de la Cerna, Erik Chavez, Solenne Carof, Elizabeth A. Gilbert, Nelson Molina-Valencia, Tobias Ebert, Pepi Pandiloski, Frank Ephraim Kaphesi, Kalliopi Ioumpa, Adi Shaked, Rebecca Namatovu, Samuel Dawa, Adam L. Putnam, Othman Alkhadher, Eugene Ohu, Agustín Espinosa
Abstract Experts widely agree that East Asian cultures are more collectivistic than Western cultures. Yet 76 survey studies found no reliable difference. Our explanation is that the most-used surveys are contaminated with ‘warm fuzzy’ items, which describe warmth and prosociality towards everyone near and far. We argue that collectivism is better understood as ‘responsibilism’, which emphasizes responsibilities in close relationships. A survey found that many cultural psychologists expect collectivistic cultures to agree with warm fuzzy items. Then we developed a responsibilism scale and tested 12,247 people in 100 cultures. Results showed large cultural differences ( d = 3.98 [2.50, 5.43]) that were previously obscured by flawed measurement. Responsibilism predicted differences across societies (such as family ties and corruption) and individuals (social class and politics) that most earlier scales missed. This study offers a solution to previous puzzling findings by distinguishing warm fuzzy prosociality from responsibilism and introducing a scale with stronger predictive validity.