Which type of play is most representative of the play in collectivist societies?

Variable

The HVIC was developed to measure the horizontal and vertical subtypes of individualism and collectivism. Both individualism and collectivism have a horizontal and a vertical subtype (Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, & Gelfand, 1995; Triandis, 1995). Horizontal cultures refer to cultures that emphasize equality. People in horizontal cultures tend to regard others as having more or less the same self, as is typically found in homogeneous cultures. Vertical cultures refer to cultures that tend to accept inequality (Triandis, 1995). Thus, a culture can be characterized by the extent to which it rewards horizontal collectivism (HC), vertical collectivism (VC), horizontal individualism (HI), and vertical individualism (VI).

Abstract

Collectivism is a cultural pattern found in most traditional societies, especially in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. It contrasts with individualism, which is a cultural pattern found mostly in Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The dimension of collectivism–individualism is also a psychological one that has been examined as a personal and social value. This article describes some of the characteristics of this cultural pattern, its geographic and demographic distribution, and its antecedents and consequences. It also describes collectivism as a psychological phenomenon. It ends with an examination of the implications of globalization and economic development for changes in this cultural pattern, which may involve a weakening of some of its aspects. Especially important are the implications of these changes for well-being and social control. An evaluation of this cultural pattern depends on the criteria that one wishes to maximize.

4 Applications

Draguns and Marsella investigated culture and psychopathology relationships. Culturally invariant and variable components of psychopathology, especially depression and schizophrenia, have been identified. Some symptoms appear only in one or a few cultures. Psychopathology is manifested in different cultures somewhat differently and the dimension of collectivism-individualism seems promising in organizing and integrating the findings. Pedersen and Leong explored the relationship between culture and counseling.

Bhawuk, Brislin, Landis, as well as Triandis, published extensively about cross-cultural training. For example, culture assimilators have been developed to aid in such training. They consist of scenarios that describe the interaction of members of two cultures, the culture of the trainee, and the target culture. The trainee reads the scenarios and picks one of four or five attributions that may explain why members of the target culture acted the way they did in the scenario. After selecting an attribution, the trainee receives feedback that explains why the attribution is correct or incorrect from the perspective of the target culture. This way the trainee learns to make attributions that resemble the attributions that members of the target culture make when they think of the scenarios. Thus, trainees learn to give the same meaning to behaviors that occur in the target culture as members of the target culture do, and that increases the effectiveness of the trainee's work abroad, as well as reducing the culture shock experienced by the trainee. Culture-general assimilators describe events in many cultures. Culture-specific assimilators are limited to a particular culture, and sometimes to specific demographic categories, e.g., a European-American supervisor working with African-American first-time employees.

Adler, Earley, Erez, and Wilpert investigated the effects of culture on organizational behavior. The main topics included differences in motivation, the meaning of work in different cultures, organizational commitment, communication, the effectiveness of ethnically heterogeneous groups, leadership in different cultures, participative management and industrial democracy in different cultures, reward schemes and their effectiveness in different cultures, organizational development, and intercultural negotiations.

10.01.3.3 Collectivism

The collectivism syndrome has been studied more extensively than most of the other syndromes (Kim, Triandis, Choi, Kagitcibasi, & Yoon, 1994; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1990, 1995). It has received a central position in most reviews of cultural differences in social behavior (e.g., M. Bond & Smith, 1996). Triandis (1994) has speculated that maximum collectivism occurs in simple tight cultures, such as theocracies. He also argued (Triandis, 1995) that in collectivist cultures individuals define themselves as aspects of groups (i.e., I am a member of …), place the goals of their collectives ahead of their personal goals, behave under the influence of norms and roles imposed by their groups, and relate to in group members by paying attention to the needs of others rather than to their own needs. Many East Asian societies are collectivist, as are many traditional societies in Africa and Latin America. In the US, Hispanics and Asians tend to be collectivists.

14.3.1 Collectivism Versus Individualism

Individualism and collectivism are conflicting ideas in terms of the nature of humans, society, and the relationship between them. Unlike the West, in which there exists an individualist culture, China has a collectivistic culture. Collectivism is the political theory that states that the will of the people is omnipotent, an individual must obey; that society as a whole, not the individual, is the unit of moral value. Individualism, as the antipode of collectivism, holds that the individual is the primary unit of reality and the ultimate standard of value. This view does not deny that societies exist or that people benefit from living in them, but it sees society as a collection of individuals, not something over and above them.

Collectivism holds that a group – such as a nation, a community, or a race – is the primary unit of reality and the ultimate standard of value. This view stresses that the needs and goals of the individual must be subordinate to those of the group. Unlike collectivism, which requires self-sacrifice, individualism holds that every person is an end in himself and that no person should be sacrificed for the sake of another. While not denying that one person can build on the achievements of others, individualism points out that the individual is the unit of achievement. Individualism holds that achievement goes beyond what has already been done; it is something new that is created by the individual. Collectivism, on the other hand, holds that achievement is a product of society.

For most of the past many thousands of years, Confucianism has had a substantial influence on China’s political culture. The ethical beliefs of Confucianism have remained consistently within the bounds of a set of orthodox principles governing interpersonal relationships in China. They have been applied officially to all strata of society: loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, righteousness, love, faith, harmony, and peace. As a result, China has developed a different culture in respect of economic development than that which is found in the rest of the world, in response to its own particular environment and social conditions (see Box 14.1). For instance, in contrast to other peoples, the Chinese pay heed to their own spiritual interests (including the richness of spiritual life and harmonization of feeling) more than the material ones. This characteristic results largely from the Confucian philosophy which emphasizes ‘faithfulness’, ‘kindheartedness’, ‘trustworthiness’, ‘ritualism’, ‘peace’ and so on. All of these have influenced Chinese economic life and structure, which eventually result in characterizing China’s economic culture.

Box 14.1

Chinese Characteristics

More than one hundred years ago, Arthur H. Smith, who had served as the Missionary of the American Board for 22 years in China, wrote a book entitled Chinese Characteristics. The book was first published in Shanghai by an English newspaper in 1890. The second edition of the book was published in London in 1892. The third, fourth, and fifth revised editions were published in New York, London, Edinburgh, and London in 1894, 1895, and 1900, respectively. Based on rural Chinese life during the late nineteenth century, Smith presented an interesting description of how the Chinese were different from Westerners. To make comparison easier, we classify all the chapters in Smith’s (1972) book into two types, as the following:

Positive type: economy; industry; politeness; physical vitality; patience and perseverance; benevolence; mutual responsibility and respect for law; polytheism, pantheism and atheism.

Negative type: disregard of time; disregard of accuracy; talent for misunderstanding; talent for indirection; intellectual turbidity; contempt for foreigners; absence of public spirits; conservation; absence of sympathy; social typhoons; mutual suspicion; absence of sincerity.

In Chinese business culture, the collectivist way of thinking still prevails, even in sectors experimenting with free enterprise. ‘Saving face’ is an important concept in order to be able to understand the Chinese. In Chinese business culture, a person’s reputation and social standing rests on this concept. Causing embarrassment or loss of composure, even unintentionally, can be disastrous for business negotiations. So be careful to avoid causing someone to ‘lose face’ by insulting, criticizing, or embarrassing him or her in front of others, or by treating the person with less than the proper respect due his status in the organization.

2.1 Cultural Differences at the National Level

2.1.1 Individualism and Collectivism

Individualism and collectivism comprise the main cultural distinction that has been explored in studying both advertising content and the persuasiveness of ad appeals. Individualism and collectivism have been conceptualized as two powerful cultural models that represent broad differences among nations. As Hofstede, Triandis, and others have proposed, members of collectivistic cultures endorse in-group goals, such as family integrity, harmonious relationships, and the well-being of the in-group, whereas members of individualistic cultures endorse being independent and pursuing individual goals instead of in-group goals. Extensive cross-cultural (cross-national) data have shown that North American and most European countries, such as the United States, Canada, Germany, and Denmark, are individualistic societies and that most East Asian and Latin American countries, such as China, Korea, Japan, and Mexico, are collectivistic societies.

Past research has indicated that more individualistic and less collectivistic advertising appeals are present in individualistic cultures than in collectivistic cultures. For example, Han and Shavitt’s 1994 study found that Korean ads tended to employ appeals emphasizing in-group benefits, harmony, and family integrity, whereas U.S. ads tended to employ appeals emphasizing individual enjoyment, personal success, and independence. Similarly, in other research, more conformity themes (e.g., respect for collective values and beliefs) and fewer uniqueness themes (e.g., rebelling against collective values and beliefs) were found to be present in Korean ads compared with U.S. ads. In studying humorous appeals, ads from both Korea and Thailand were found to contain more group-oriented situations than those from Germany and the United States.

Existing research has also indicated that culturally matched ad appeals are more likely to be persuasive than are mismatched appeals. U.S. respondents found ads emphasizing individualistic benefits to be more persuasive, and found ads emphasizing family or in-group benefits to be less persuasive, than did Korean respondents. Also, Chinese participants responded more favorably to collective ad appeals (e.g., “share the moments of happiness”) than to individualistic appeals (e.g., “the joy of self-expression”), whereas the reverse was true for U.S. participants. In addition, advertisements in Mexico that depict values that are consistent with the local cultural norms and roles (e.g., familial norms and roles in Mexican culture) elicited more favorable attitudes and purchase intentions than did ads that depict inconsistencies.

Product characteristics, such as whether a product is personal or shared (i.e., privately used vs publicly visible), have been found to moderate the effect of culture on the persuasiveness of ad appeals. Only for shared or socially visible products—those purchased or used with in-group members—did strong cultural differences emerge between Americans and Koreans in Han and Shavitt’s 1994 study (Fig. 1) as well as between Americans and Chinese in other research.

FIGURE 1. Persuasiveness of individualistic and collectivistic appeals in the United States and Korea. Bars represent mean standardized scores on an attitude index (the average of standardized scores across three evaluative measures). Adapted from Han and Shavitt (1994), J. Exp. Soc. Psychol., 30, 326–350, Copyright 1994, with permission from Elsevier.

5.3.1 Antecedents of Collectivism

Some of the antecedents of collectivism are listed in Table I and are discussed below:

TABLE I. Some Antecedents of Collectivism

Homogeneity of the collective. If people disagree about the norms of proper behavior, or the goals that people should have, it is difficult for people to behave according to the norms of the group.

Low exposure to other cultures. People who know only one culture tend to be maximally ethnocentric, authoritarian, and submissive to ingroup authorities. Those who are more educated, traveled, and have lived with more than one cultural group develop idiocentric tendencies.

Interdependence is adaptive to ecology. People are more interdependent in agricultural societies than in information societies. For example, when the goal is to complete large projects such as irrigation canals or defensive walls, collectivism is more likely. In societies where people are financially interdependent, collectivism is high. People who can do their job when they are alone are more likely to be idiocentric.

Population density. In dense social environments, many rules that are designed to reduce conflict and ensure the smooth functioning of the group develop.

Social stability. When the collective is stable, it is more likely to develop agreements about norms, and to make sure that the norms are observed. There is evidence that the older members of all societies are more allocentric than the younger members.

Low economic status. The lower social classes tend to be more conforming to social norms than members of the upper classes. When resources are limited, one often depends on group members for assistance, especially in emergencies. These factors increase collectivism. On the other hand, in all cultures, those in positions of leadership tend to be idiocentric.

Large families. In large families it is not practical to allow each child to follow idiosyncratic schedules or to have much privacy. Many rules are enforced, and that creates collectivism.

One large ingroup rather than many ingroups. Those who only have one ingroup can channel all their energy into that group. Also, they cannot afford to develop poor relationships with members of that group, so they are more likely to observe its norms.

Salient common fate. Common fate with members of the ingroup (e.g., when the ingroup is under attack) increases collectivism. Time pressure for decisions has similar consequences.

Collective mobility is advantageous. If individual upward social mobility is not possible, then collective mobility may be used. Thus, individuals invest their energy in promoting the status of their ingroup.

Strict religious upbringing. Most religions require observance of a large number of norms and threaten to punish those who ignore these norms. That increases collectivism.

Little exposure to modern mass media. U.S.-made television is widely available throughout the world. Content analyses show that the themes used are highly individualistic (e.g., emphasis on pleasure, doing what the individual wishes to do even if that is inconsistent with the wishes of authorities). Countries where people have little exposure to Western mass media are more collectivist.

Honor in Interpersonal Relationships

Honor cultures represent a particular form of collectivism (Triandis, 1989) and are characterized by the existence of honor codes, which include values and norms about appropriate behavior in interpersonal relationships (Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2012). In honor cultures, an individual has honor when she or he is known by others as behaving in accordance with the values and norms of four honor codes: morality-based honor, family honor, masculine honor, and feminine honor (Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2012). Thus, reputation is a core concern in interpersonal relationships in honor cultures. Morality-based honor and family honor are important for both men's and women's honor, whereas feminine and masculine honor are gender-specific honor codes. Morality-based honor is about maintaining a reputation for being honest and trustworthy in interpersonal relationships. Family honor is about protecting the reputation of one's family. Masculine honor is about maintaining a reputation for being though and strong in interpersonal relationships. Feminine honor is about being known as having sexual propriety (e.g., chastity, modesty). Thus, honor is complex and multifaceted.

Research on honor in cultural and social psychology has shown honor to be important in a wide variety of sociopsychological processes (e.g., in-group relations, sexuality and gender, morality), and has also examined honor across a wide range of countries and cultures (e.g., Afghanistan, Brazil, Finland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, United Kingdom; see Rodriguez Mosquera, 2013). In the context of interpersonal relationships, research on honor has mainly focused on the emotional and relational consequences of (threats to) reputation. For example, Cohen and colleagues have examined the protection of masculine honor in interpersonal relationships among White, non-Hispanic males from Southern and Northern regions of the United States. In a series of three experiments, Cohen and colleagues measured how White, non-Hispanic Southern and Northern male student adults responded to being insulted (or not) by a male confederate (Cohen et al., 1996). Results showed that Southern males were more reactive to insults than Northern males were. In particular, observers rated Southern male participants as more angry and Northern male participants as more amused after being insulted (Study 1; Cohen et al., 1996). Furthermore, Southern male participants were more stressed (as shown by higher cortisol levels) and more prepared for aggression (as shown by increases in testosterone levels) than Northern male participants were after being insulted (Study 2; Cohen et al., 1996). Moreover, Southern males believed to a greater extent than Northern males did that their masculine honor (i.e., their reputation as manly, strong, and tough) was damaged after being insulted (Study 3; Cohen et al., 1996). In other studies, Cohen and colleagues have used other methods (e.g., archival data, survey research) to examine masculine honor's consequences in Southern US culture (for an overview, see Nisbett and Cohen, 1996).

Cohen and colleagues' research has shown masculine honor to have negative effects on interpersonal relationships in Southern US white, non-Hispanic male culture because of its potential association with male aggression and dominance. However, the maintenance of honor among men is not necessarily associated with aggression or dominance in social relationships. Indeed, Mandel and Litt's research has shown that men's behavior in relationships can also be motivated by morality-based honor. Mandel and Litt (2013) studied the relational consequences of honor among a large sample of mostly male Canadian Force members. The participants in this study rated their peers across different ranks on attributes that reflect morality-based honor, for example, integrity, dignity, and loyalty. Interestingly, high-ranking military members were rated as less honorable than lower ranking military members were by both low- and high-ranking participants. This result indicates that having high status does not necessarily translate into being seen as honorable in interpersonal relationships. Most importantly, the more the male participants perceived their peers as honorable, the more connected they felt with other members of their group and the more willing they were to engage in helping behavior. Thus, the maintenance of honor among men has different interpersonal consequences in different contexts and cultures.

A different line of research on honor in interpersonal relationships has compared emotional and behavioral responses to devaluation across cultures. Rodriguez Mosquera and colleagues collected 149 narratives about insults in interpersonal relationships in a field study among Moroccan-Dutch, Turkish-Dutch, and ethnic Dutch student and nonstudent adults (Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2008). The protection of honor was more important for Moroccan- and Turkish-Dutch than for ethnic Dutch. Importantly, there were no cultural differences in the types of insult reported by participants (i.e., all cultural groups reported insults to one's competence, or insults to one's place in relationships), or in the person who delivered the insult (all cultural groups reported insults delivered by close others like friends or family members).

Furthermore, there were no cultural differences in feelings of anger about being insulted. In addition, feelings of anger were associated with a motivation to punish the close other who delivered the insult through verbal attack (e.g., criticizing) for all cultural groups. Interestingly, however, cultural differences emerged in the behaviors and motivations associated with feelings of shame. Shame was associated with social withdrawal among ethnic Dutch, whereas it was associated with verbal disapproval of the close other's behavior among Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch. Most importantly, the study showed that Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch used verbal disapproval as an attempt to restore a positive reputation (i.e., restore their honor) in their interpersonal relationships (for an overview of other studies on threats to reputation, see Rodriguez Mosquera et al., 2012). Furthermore, this heightened concern for reputation in honor cultures also influences the experience of positive emotions. In particular, the perception that one has a positive reputation in interpersonal relationships has been shown to be associated with increased well-being among honor-oriented Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi student adults, but not among less honor-oriented White British and European-American student adults (Rodriguez Mosquera and Imada, 2013).

Further, two recent studies have revealed that members of honor cultures are also concerned about protecting the reputation of their families in interpersonal relationships. Rodriguez Mosquera et al. (2014) carried out two experimental studies among Pakistani and European-American student adults on emotional and behavioral responses to insults to one's family. Family honor creates a distinctive type of interdependence in interpersonal relationships, one based on shared social image. This type of interdependence implies that individual family members are responsible for protecting the family from potential threats, like insults. In line with their greater emphasis on the protection of family honor, Pakistani participants experienced more intense anger, shame, negative feelings about themselves, and worry about their reputation than European-American participants did in response to an insult to their families. Moreover, Pakistani participants reported that they distanced themselves from a family member who insulted the family more than European-American participants did (these cultural differences did not emerge when the person who delivered the insult was not a family member, e.g., a friend). This finding is important as it shows the profound effects that threats to family honor can have on close relationships.

In sum, honor is shared, negotiated, challenged, and maintained in interpersonal relationships. Due to this relational nature, honor is a powerful force in our relationships with others. For example, the reviewed studies show that those who value honor care deeply about their relatives' willingness to protect the family's honor, or about how friends think of them. Moreover, honor can strengthen interpersonal bonds and increase individuals' willingness to help others when relationship partners perceive each other as honorable.

Communal Societies

Two dominant themes in intentional communities are collectivism and agrarian life. Considering the roots of utopianism in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the humanism and empowerment of the Renaissance, and the rationality of the Enlightenment, it is necessary to consider the impact of these ideas on social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution. Starting since the 1830s in England and continuing for a century in Europe and the U.S., workers flocked to cities to work in factories and struggled visibly as capitalism and the profit motive became organizing principles of both societies. The reform movements of the nineteenth century came to emphasize distributing resources such as housing, medical care, food, and education to struggling workers and the urban underclass. However, some utopians took it upon themselves to start new communities, usually away from the squalor and turmoil of the cities, and to organize those societies around equitable distribution of goods and work.

Connected to the urge to distribute resources fairly is the question of inherent human selfishness and how reshape in the culture of the settlement so that the needs of the group precede individual desires and urges. During the nineteenth century and through the twentieth century, economic utopias sprang up around the United States in reaction to various political conservative movements. They were communal and egalitarian, sharing work and resources.

American secular utopian communities took inspiration from ideas and philosophies originating with Protestant Christian groups, but evolved their philosophy to moral-spiritual, rather than religious doctrine. Transcendentalism began as a term developed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) embodying those aspects of man's nature transcending, or independent of, experience. Taking root in America, Transcendentalism created a cultural renaissance in New England during 1830–45 and manifested its chief American expression in Ralph Waldo Emerson's doctrine of self-reliance.

Some Transcendentalists decided to put their theories about ‘plain living’ into practice. One experiment in communal living was established at West Roxbury, Massachusetts, on some 200 acres of land from 1841 to 1847. The Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education became better known than many other communal experiments due to its distinguished founder and inhabitants. The community wasn't unique for its time; more than 80 utopian communities were launched in the 1840s alone – but it was notable as the first purely secular one. The Brook Farm Institute was organized and directed by George Ripley, a former Unitarian minister and later literary critic for the New York Tribune. Others connected with the project were Charles A. Dana and Nathaniel Hawthorne (both shareholders), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, William Henry Channing, John S. Dwight, and Sophia Dana Ripley, a woman of wide culture and academic experience. Brook Farm attracted not only intellectuals, but also carpenters, farmers, shoemakers, and printers. The community provided to all members, their children and family dependents, housing, fuel, wages, clothing, and food. There was daycare, a primary school, and a college, preparatory course covering 6 years.

A disastrous fire in 1846 demolished the newly financed Phalanstrey building. In combination with further financial troubles, including Hawthorne's suit against Ripley and Dana to recover his investment in the project, brought about the end of the Brook Farm community the following year. Nathaniel Hawthorne later satirized in his novel, The Blithedale Romance (1852).

In 1842 the Northampton (Massachusetts) Association of Education and Industry established another secular commune based on racial, gender, religious, and class equality. They wanted to replace competition with cooperation and were especially dedicated to the abolition of slavery. Sojourner Truth was a member and Frederick Douglass was a visiting lecturer.

The Skaneateles Community was established in 1843 by the Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform in upstate New York. Several similar communities were established by the society before the Civil War. It survived for 3 years. Its leaders were abolitionists. Members shared living quarters and worked in agriculture and light industry. It was economically successful but broke up because of internal dissent.

The Icarians were a utopian movement founded by French philosopher Étienne Cabet. He advocated workers' cooperatives instead of capitalist factories. This appealed to the artisan classes whose living was being endangered by large factories. He had been influenced by Robert Owen and, in turn, influenced Marx and Engels. His social philosophy stemmed from primitive Christianity and was detailed in his book The Real Christianity according to Jesus Christ. At its peak the movement had 400 000 adherents in France but still made no impact on actually reforming French society. Consequently he moved with some of his followers to the United States in 1848 where he established several egalitarian communes in Texas, Illinois, and Iowa.

Fruitlands was a utopian agricultural commune founded in 1843 by Bronson Alcott in Concord Massachusetts based on transcendentalist principles. Members were vegan vegetarians, drank only water, bathed in cold water, and used no artificial light. Property was held communally, and no animal labor was used. Celibacy was celebrated as an ideal. Although it was egalitarian in principle, Alcott's wife and the other women did most of the work and the stress of deprivation because of its extreme principles contributed to its collapse after only 7 months.

The anarchist village Modern Times was a community of 150 founded on Long Island in 1851. It was based on barter and existed until the Civil War when patriotism trumped social idealism and many members enlisted in the Union army. In 1864 it transformed into the prosperous suburb of Brentwood.

Some utopian writings originated in Europe, but were attempted in North America. Another influence behind Brook Farm was the writing of François Marie Charles Fourier. Fourier believed that society should be organized into small cooperative groups, and that people should largely be assigned productive work that they enjoyed, reorganization that would greatly increase society's productivity (Fourier, 1967). He proposed to eradicate poverty by providing adequate wages and guaranteeing a minimum standard of living for those not able to work. In this he anticipated the modern market-based welfare state. As many as 29 communities were founded in the United States based on Fourier's views; they included Utopia, Ohio; La Reunion, Texas; and the North American Phalanx in Red Bank, New Jersey.

Fourier envisioned cooperative communities he called ‘phalanxes’ living in structures called Phalanstères or ‘grand hotels’ (not unlike the Unité d'Habitation architectural experiment of Le Corbusier). These buildings were four-level apartment complexes in which the richest had the uppermost apartments and the poorest resided on the ground-floor residence. Wealth was determined by one's job; jobs were assigned based on the interests and desires of the individual. There were incentives: jobs people might not enjoy doing would receive higher pay. Fourier considered trade, which he associated with Jews, to be the ‘source of all evil’ and advocated that Jews be forced to perform farm work in the Phalanstères.

Fourier's vision of cooperative communal subunits and a greater social safety net for workers also influenced the Paris Commune of 1871. While it only lasted 40 days and was fraught with instability, it stemmed from the communal utopian impulse and is regarded as the first socialist worker uprising. The workers of Paris, joined by mutinous National Guardsmen, seized the city and set about reorganizing society in their own interests based on workers' councils. They could not hold out, however, when more troops retook the city and massacred 30 000 workers.

A handful of communal, agrarian settlements of the nineteenth century were founded on European soil. Matti Kurikka was a Finnish utopian socialist and theosophist who helped establish Sointula, a utopian island colony of Finnish immigrants on Malcolm Island, British Columbia Canada based on cooperative principles in 1901. The utopian colony was dissolved in 1905.

New Lanark is a village on the River Clyde, approximately a mile and a half from Lanark, in South Lanarkshire, and some 25 miles southeast of Glasgow, Scotland. It was founded in 1786 by David Dale, who built cotton mills and housing for the mill workers. Dale built the mills there in a brief partnership with the English inventor and entrepreneur Richard Arkwright to take advantage of the water power provided by the only waterfalls on the River Clyde. Under the ownership of a partnership that included Dale's son-in-law, Robert Owen, a Welsh philanthropist and social reformer, New Lanark became a successful business and an epitome of utopian socialism as well as an early example of a planned settlement and so an important milestone in the historical development of urban planning.

Robert Owen was a social reformer and wealthy industrialist who made his fortune from textile mills in New Lanark, Scotland. Owen and his 22-year-old son, William, sailed to the United States in 1824 to purchase a site to implement his vision for ‘a New Moral World’ of happiness, enlightenment, and prosperity through education, science, technology, and communal living. Owen's utopian community would create a ‘superior social, intellectual and physical environment’ based on his ideals of social reform. Owen and his followers and successors were known as Owenites. Owenism aimed for radical reform of society and is considered a forerunner of the cooperative.

New Harmony became known as a center for advances in education and scientific research. New Harmony's residents established the first free library, a civic drama club, and a public school system open to men and women. Its prominent citizens included Owen's sons, Indiana congressman and social reformer Robert Dale Owen, who sponsored legislation to create the Smithsonian Institution; David Dale Owen, a noted state and federal geologist; William Owen; and Richard Owen, state geologist, Indiana University professor, and first president of Purdue University. The town served as the second headquarters of the U.S. Geological Survey and numerous scientists and educators contributed to New Harmony's intellectual community, including William Maclure, Marie Louise Duclos Fretageot, Thomas Say, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, and Joseph Neef, Frances Wright.

2.2.1 Values

As opposed to the Western idea of individualism, collectivism is an important cultural principle in Vietnam (Hunt, 2005). The core values of collectivism are harmony, duty, honor, respect, education, and allegiance to the family; and Vietnamese culture emphasizes these values. Harmony is achieved by living according to one’s role within the family, creating harmony within oneself and one’s family, and exercising moderation. Interpersonal relationships in Vietnamese society are guided by the core value of respect. Individuals are expected to show respect to others within the family, especially parents. Within the larger community, respect is given to elderly people, teachers, and other authority figures. Education is highly valued, often more than material wealth and successes. Parents are expected to sacrifice to educate their children.

Honor, hard work, and duty to one’s family are emphasized, and these principles are taught at a young age (Hunt, 2005). Individuals are expected to act with the utmost dignity in all circumstances to avoid family shame. Inappropriate behavior brings shame not only to oneself but also to one’s family. Bringing shame or dishonor to one’s family is to be avoided at all costs. Fulfilling family roles, responsibilities, and duties is often valued higher than fulfilling one’s own desires. Within the family, roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, and individuals are expected to sacrifice for their family roles. Behavior is dictated by one’s role within the family. For example, the role of a parent is to properly raise their children.

Vietnamese society is built around the family structure. Unlike American nuclear families, Vietnamese families include the extended family and follow a multigenerational pattern. This model extends to the entire community. In Vietnamese culture, society is conceived as one large extended family. This manner of thinking is demonstrated in the way that Vietnamese greet one another (Hunt, 2005). Kinship pronouns are sometimes used even among strangers greeting each other. In addition to showing respect, this practice reinforces the value of kinship and the concept of a larger extended family.

A typical Vietnamese household may include parents, children, daughters-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren, and unmarried siblings. Family roles are hierarchical and clearly defined, with the father as the central figure (Hunt, 2005). Generally, the father is ultimately responsible for providing for his family and making family decisions. Respect for the wisdom of elderly family members is valued; however, grandparents and other elder relatives also play important decision-making roles. If parents are deceased, the responsibility falls upon the eldest male to provide for the family. After the father and elderly relatives, the eldest male sibling generally assumes the most authority. Family roles and responsibilities extend beyond living family members. Children’s duties often include caring for and maintaining ancestral tombs, and all family members are expected to pay homage to ancestral spirits.