fischer_how are americans individualistic

8/3/2019 Fischer_How Are Americans Individualistic

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Just How Is It that Americans are Individualistic?*

Claude S. Fischer

University of C alifornia, Be rkeley

([email protected])

* Part of the work on this paper was conducted when the author was a visiting researcher at the

Centre d'tud es Nord-Amricaines , cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. This paper

benefitted from comments on an earlier version by audiences at Tel-Aviv and Bar- Ilan Univers ities and at

the Americans Sociological Association Meetings, 2000, Washington, and by detailed suggestions by Paul

Burstein and Ann Sw idler. Remaining errors ar e the author's ow n.


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Just How Is It that Americans are Individualistic?

For generations, social scientists-- this author included-- have followed Tocqueville in telling our

readers and teaching our students that American culture is more individ ualistic than Europ ean national

cultures. W e have used American individualism to explain, for example, why there is no so cialism in

America, why immigrant children are alienated from their parents, why the welfare state is relatively weak,

and why certain images, s uch as the lone cowbo y or the reclusive private eye, reappear in American

literature. (See im portant wo rks such as Tocquev ille 1835; Bryce 191 4; Parson s 1951; Arieli 1964; Pole

1980; Bellah et al. 1985; Gans 1988; and Lipset 1996; and see overviews such as Shafer 1991; Curry and

Goodheart 1991; Moffat, 1992; and Wilkinson 1988.) But is it so? Are Americans really more

individualistic than Europeans and other western peop les?

This heretical question was stimulated by some cross-national data. In 1991, researchers asked

tens of thousand s of peo ple around the wo rld whet her they agreed that "right or wrong should be a matter of

personal conscience ." This is virtually a restatement of Thoreau's (1849) declaration, which seems so

archetypically American, that "the only obligation which I have the right to assume is to do at any time w hat

I think is right." And yet, of 17 nationalities in the survey, Am ericans were th e least likely to agree that

"right or wrong should b e a matter of p ersonal co nscience."1 How dissonant this seems from E mer son's

(1841: 31) canonical individualism: "I will do strongly . . . whatever only rejoices me, and the heart

appoin ts." "Do your o wn thing," Emerson went on to advise. And how dissonant this seems from

sociologists' conventional wisdo m that Americans are an exceptionally individu alistic people. This paper

will show that, at least in some important respects, Americans may be especially non-individualistic.

In open ing up this question -- Are, or just how are, Americans individualistic? -- I found th at other

scholars have also discovered s pecific cross-n ational differences incongruent with ex ceptional American

individualism. Yet, the conven tional wisdom persists. In 2000 , noted pol itical scientist Robert Lane (2000 :

111) asked readers to "recall that American so ciety has, by a variety of measures, been found to be the most

individualist of all societies, including the advanced societies of Western Europe." This paper focuses the


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Individualistic ? / p. 2

empirical challenges to Lane's claim by documenting with two cross-national surveys how much Americans

answer questions in a relative ly non-individualistic way and discusses how we might square such findings

with o ur tenet that Americans are individualistic.

My ambi tions for this essay are limited. I do not try to decide the debate over whether and how

Americans are individu alistic empirically, nor to reco nstruct social theories of individualism. This article

simply lays out some data which need to be somehow reconciled with conven tional wisdom ab out American

individualism . And it sketches some po ssible theoretical solutions to the appare nt contradictions. If this

paper succeeds, it does so only b y stimulating others to re-examine our larg ely taken-for-granted

assumption that America ns are exceptionally individ ualistic.

The paper has four p arts. The first part briefly reviews what we know about the topic and defines

individualism for the purposes of this analysis. The second briefly reviews published results from one

survey, the W orld Values Study of 1990-93 . The third p resents statistical analyses of a larger d ata-set,

surveys of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) from 1985 through 1995 . The final part

considers interpretive problems in the analysis and d iscusses just how it is that Americans are

individualistic.

Unde rstanding Individualism

The common wisdom that Americans are more individualistic than other peoples appears to rest

largely on accounts o f nineteenth-century v isitors like Tocqueville an d Bry ce, on analyses of cultural

documents such as literary essays and texts of legal decisions, and on inferences from America's laissez-

faire political economy (see earlier citations). Even historians who challenge the idea that Americans were

"born liberal" (e.g., Shain 1994; Henretta 1978)argue that they became liberal -- i.e., individualistic -- in the

early nineteenth century, abo ut the time Thoreau and Emerson wrote, and are especially individualistic

today. There are surprisingly few contemp orary comparisons of A mericans to other western peop le on

expre ssed levels of in dividu alism.2 A literature in cro ss-cultural psycho logy describes Americans as highly


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individualistic, but most o f its studies contrast Americans with non-western peoples, employ small and

unusual samples such as college students, or examine a limited sense of individualism -- conceptions of the

auton omous self. (Triandis 199 5 is probably the fullest treatment; see also, e.g., Markus and Ki tayama

1991; Shw eder and Bourne 1984 .) Studies drawing on national samples have been rarer (see Jepperso n

1992 fo r one com pilation). Recent large-scale, cross-national surveys provid e an oppo rtunity to look

closely at this question.

"Individualism" is, of course, a heavily-freighted and over-used term. Lukes (1971) h as listed over

10 def initions and there are yet more (see, for examp le, Abercro mbie et al 1986; Arieli 1964; Bell 199 6;

Bellah et al 1985; Curry and Good heart 1991; G ans 1988; Swid ler 1992; W olfson 1997). B y individualism

scholars have meant: the assumption that there exists a distinct self, attributing causality to individuals, self-

expression, selfishness, political rights, economic self-reliance, to men tion just some definitions. The one I

use here is exp licitly or implicitly com mon to many sociological uses of the concept: Individualism is the

principle that gives priority to the individual over the group or in stitution. Individualistic cultures and

people tend to place the interests of persons over the interests of the collectivities to which they belong,

such as the family, church, neighborh ood, w orkplace, and natio n. When so ciologists write, for ex ample, of

immigrant yo uth who shun childhood friends in order to seek su ccess in Am erica, or of American families

dissolving und er the stress of members' separate interests, or of voters who resist re distributive policies, or

of a "loss of community," or of valuing the intrinsic worth of "each and every person," they typically invoke

individualism in this sense.3 I grant that this is a simple definition of a concept steeped in philosophical and

histo rical compl exiti es, but I do not think it is a wrong one. In any case, we will revi sit defin itions after

looking at the empirical material.

This definition of individualism determined my selection of the items analyzed below . To see

whether supp ort for individual over the group varies according to the type of group the to which the

individual belongs, I separately analyzed items dealing with the family, the church, the workgroup, the

neighborhood, and the nation. Also, to help better understand why scholars commonly describe Americans

as highly individualistic, I examined items measuring two o ther sen ses of individualism: individualism as


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the abstract sacralization of the individual and individualism as support for economic self-reliance and the

"free mark et." The impression that Americans are highly individ ualistic derives in large measure from their

abstract valuation of individual rights and the ir support of laissez-faire economic s. I contrast findings for

these two additional meanings to the findings for individualism as defined above, giving p riority to the

individual over the grou p. In the Interp retation sectio n, I return to the issu e of definitions w hen I try to

reconcile the results of the data analysis with the long-standing characterization of Americans as

individualistic. P erhaps a multidimension al definition or a lternative definitio ns of individualism --

particularly, as economic self-reliance, or personal efficacy, or voluntarism-- might resolve the seeming

contradiction between our conventional wisdom and the emp irical data.

The next two sections of the paper test the p roposition that Americans are more individualistic than

other western people. I co mpare how Americans answered ce rtain survey questions to how W est

Europeans, Canadians, and Australians answered those q uestions. I scoured the two surveys4 described

below for questions that called on respondents to at least implicitly weigh the claims of the individual

against those of groups such as the family. In some instances, I use questions about behavior that reflect the

actual choices the respondents have made or would ma ke betwee n their perso nal interests and that of their

group s. And , as just noted, I also report results fro m questions concerning abs tract end orsement of

individual "freedom" or "conscience," and questions about free market principles. With the first study, the

World Values Survey, I simply use the published tables. With the second, the ISSP, I reanalyzed the

original data and present those results.

The strategy of using survey data to addr ess this topic rests on a few k ey assum ptions. Aside fro m

stipulating the standard methodological premises (the reliability and validity of the items, their

comparability across langua ges, the representativeness of samples, and so on), it assumes that individualism

is a matter of conscious reflection and that representative samples of the population both carry and

accurately express national cultures. 5 The last sec tion of the pap er addresses reservations about m ethod.

As in all secondary data-analyses, this one depends on measures designed for oth er purposes. In the end,

however , the per suasiveness of the case dep ends less on p articular survey questions than on the cu mulation


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of dozens of items pointing to roughly the same con clusion.

The World Values Survey

From 199 0 to 1993, R onald Inglehart and his colleagues administered a survey to population

samples in 43 countries. Detailed tables appear in a comprehensive volume (Inglehart et al 1998) and

provide the data used here. To maintain relative comparability among the nations, I examined only the

eight countries that are both culturally western and had populations of at least 10 million:6 Britain, Canada,

France, Germany (the former West Germany only), Italy, Netherlands , and Spain, as well as the United

States. The published tables also allo wed me to introduce o ne control variable, edu cational attainment.7

Strictly speaking, the question, Are Americans more individ ualistic?, is simply descriptive; controlling for

covariates is irrelevant. I invoke controls here and even more so in the next section for two reason s. One,

such controls help correct for sampling vagaries that might have undercut representativeness. Two, if the

issue is national cultures, then we may w onder whether any ob served natio nal differences are simply

reducible to national differences in the distributions of individual traits, such as education or age. Where

controlling for education in the Wo rld Values data make s a noteworthy difference, I no te it.

Because these and the subsequent data gen erate so ma ny results, I have used a simp le device to

display the pa tterns, illustrated by table 1. The countries are ordere d from left to righ t on a scale of 0 to

100% acc ording to the p ercentage of respon dents in each nation who gav e the individualistic response to a

question. (T he left stub gives the variable number for read ers wishing to examine the original source.

Appendix Table 1 gives the full texts of the questions.) So, for example, row 1 of Table 1 shows that about

42% of Sp anish respondents, symbolized by " E" (Espagne), chose "freedom" over "equality" when asked to

make that choice and about 72 % of U.S. respond ents (noted b y "U") chose freedom. This display allows

the reader to see no t only the ran k order of nations, but also the rough distances amo ng them.

------------- I nsert Table 1 About Here ----------

The top panel shows the results for two questions that probe an abstract sense of individualism .


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The first item is a common one in answer to which Americans often appear as unusually individualistic:

Given the choice between "freedom" and "equality" as ideals, Americans were the likeliest of all eight

peoples to choose freedom. On the second abstract item, supporting individual development, Americans

respondents were in the middle of a compressed pack. (Standardizing for education moves West Germany

ahead of the United States.)

The next panel co ntains items tapping views about eco nomic self-reliance and the market. These

results are conventio nal: American interviewees were unusually likely to end orse in dividualistic over

egalitarian norms, to reject economic redistribution, and to defend o wners' rights. (Standa rdizing for

education moves Britain ahead of the United States on the incentives question.) That Americans reject

government intervention in economic affairs has been well-documented and needs no belaboring here. The

fourth item is more ambiguous and does not distinguish the nations. So far, so familiar.

But then we see results that are not so f amiliar. The third panel is the initial one using the

definition of ind ividualism as giving priority to ind ividual interests. V arious questions call on re spondents

to choose between the good of the family and the desires of individual members. The first two ask about

the g eneral value of marriage and t he next three pose individu al sex ual freedom ag ainst the co nstraints of

marriage. Consistently, American responden ts were least or n early least likely to question the institution of

the family or to endorse individual prerogatives. (Standardizing f or education moves the United States

below Spain on V310.) On items V224 and V2 25, Americans were relatively unlikely to endorse the idea

that parents and children need not commit themselves to one another; that is, Americans were as or more

likely than others to say that children must love their parents and that parents must sacrifice for their

children. The last two items in the panel ask what children ought to b e taught at home. American

respondents were nearly the highest in endorsing "independence," but at the same time were among those

most likely to endorse "o bedience ." (Low sco res on item V236 me an endor sing obed ience as important.

After standardizing for educa tion, Americans were the second most likely, just after the French, to endorse

obedien ce.) The evidence here is that Americans are far from the most ind ividualistic on m atters of family

and, overall, may even b e the least individ ualistic among the national g roups in this res pect. This is


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consistent with findings that Americans generally tend to b e, although the patterns are complex, more

"familistic" than Europeans (Popenoe 1988).

The fou rth panel concerns the individual and the chur ch. As is o ft-noted in the sociology of

religion but not in the individualism literature, Americans are more pious than people in other large, western

nations. Here, we see that American respondents wer e least likely to avoid religious services, to shun

religious organizations, to reject religion's notion of clear moral guidelines (insisting instead that "there are

absolutely cle ar guidelines about what is go od and e vil" -- V142), and to disc ount the chur ch's answers to

moral problems. In other words, Americans were the most likely to submit themselves to a church.

The fifth panel asks about the individu al in the workplace. Here the resu lts are murky. The first

two items sugg est that Amer ican respondents were likelier than others to endor se giving effort o nly in

proportion to pay, a seemingly individualistic stance. (In effect, they are saying that workers owe the

institution only what they are paid for.) But Americans were least likely to say that they required

convincing before following a superior's order. That is, Americans were likelier than others to say that they

would just fo llow order s. Other items in the ISSP d ata also suggest that Americans are particu larly

deferential to owners and supervisors. Upon reflection, the consistency among these items may be that the

American interviewees were most likely to view work as simply contractual-- bosses get what they pay for,

no more and no less-- including obedience to stupid directives. Item V118 begins with the phrase, "Work

is like a business transaction." Thus, these items harken back to market individualism. Americans'

positions here are consistent with data reported by Lipset (1996:293-96, drawing on Hampden-T urner and

Trompenaars 1993 ). In a survey of executives and managers, Americans more often than Canadians, the

British, Germans, the Fren ch, and the Japan ese rejected the idea that co workers have a "right" to be

sheltered against punishment for bad performa nce, more often describ ed the company as a "s ystem" in

which people are hired for perform ance rather than as a "group . . . working together," and more often said

that the only goal of a comp any is p rofit, not the well-being of other "st akeholder s." Thus, these sorts of

items seem once again tap " econo mic individualism." (Unfo rtunately, the Wor ld Value s Stud y had n o items

asking about respondents' loyalty and deference to co-workers, which w ould be a closer ma tch to the sense


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of individua lism I am using h ere.)

The final set of World Values items refers to the largest collectivity, the nation. Consisten t with

other surveys, American respond ents were least likely to reject fighting-- and, presumably, dying-- for their

country. This might well be considered an extreme case of submission to the group. Americans were about

average o n a measure of willingness to ch eat the nation's go vernment.

These surv ey items, limited as they may be, begin to cast doubt on th e assumption of exceptional

American indiv idualism. Yes, American interviewees endor sed abstract individualistic values; yes, they

endorsed a market individualism that empowers entrepreneurs; and yes, they reject government fiddling

with economic structures. But they were not especially likely to pick the individual over the family, the

church, or the nation. Instead, often they were the least likely to do so. Ingelhart and his associates

(Inglehart et al 1988: 14-23; Inglehart and Bake r 2000), in their analysis of the Wo rld Values Surveys,

found much the sam e. They reduced resu lts from "scores" of items to two dimensions, one of which they

labeled "traditional authority versus secular-rational au thority." This axis reflected "obedien ce to

traditional authority, and adherence to family and co mmunal obligations, and n orms of sharing" versus "a

secular worldvi ew in which authority is leg itimated by ra tional-legal norm s, lin ked wit h an emphasi s on

economic accu mulation and individual achievement." On this dimension, Americans scored as more

"traditional . . . communal . . . sharing" than every other European or overseas-European nation except the

Poles and the Irish.

The In ternational Social Survey P rogram me

For many years, researchers in several nations, over 15 by 2000, have collaborated in the

International Social Su rvey Pro gramme (ISSP) to adm inister parallel surveys around the globe. Drawing on

the 1985 thr ough 199 5 surveys, I compiled many items that appear to tap the meaning of ind ividualism as

defined above. I selected countries that were western and of at least five million in population.8 Also, I

divided Canada into the English-speaking provinces and Quebec. Different countries appear in different


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years; only a handful were surveyed in the earlier years. The tables below display the differences among

countries in a few ways. Mo del a shows the percentage of each nationality answering individualistically

without adjusting for any other traits. (See Appendix Table 2 for the items and coding.) To simplify the

analyses, com parability, and interpretability, I dichotomized the response categ ories and tried to

approx imate a 5 0:50 d istribution for each item. Thus, the eff ects estimates in the following tables c an be

read as the p robability that a respondent from a sp ecific country answered a question in an individualistic

direction. Model b, which appears in some tables, controls for age, gender, marital status (married, ever-

divorced), educational attainment (three categories9) and wheth er the respo ndent was employed or not.

Mod el c, shown in some tables, adds controls for religious affiliation (Pr otestant, Catholic, and "n one"

versus other). Mod el d is occasionally displayed when anoth er variable is important for a particular

analysis. For example, in looking at religious involvement, I also controlled for level of faith. To save

space, models that add no substantive information are not s hown. And, as in table 1, these tables display

the basic results by showing the location of each country o n a scale from 0 to 100 percent ind ividualistic

response s. In addition, b rackets ({}) allow the reader to see w hich countries' responses were significantly

different(at p < .05) from those o f Americans.10

For the mos t part, I chose not to construct sc ales, to combine items within each of the d omains.

One rea son is that different items appear in different years. Another is that, substantively, patterns of

within-domain coherence can vary from society to society. Yet another is that we need to focus on the

specific content and wording of questions; nuance s sometimes affect our interp retation. M ost important,

such scaling could cloak internal variations that are substantively important, as we have already seen in the

World Values work place i tems. Scales make se nse, statistical issues as ide, t o the extent that separate items

are redundant expressions of a common factor. That assumption seems premature here; indeed, weak inter-

item correlations point to more com plexity than assumed in scalin g models. N evertheless, wh ere relevant, I

discuss inter-item associations within domains in footnotes.

Table 2 presents abstract que stions about individualism. In item 1, we observe that, in 1985,

American respondents were, together with Italians and Britons, less likely than the Australians and Germans


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Indiv idualistic ? / p. 10

to agree that occasionally p eople sho uld put con science over law. (Althou gh Americ ans were low est, their

answers were no t significantly different, statistically, from those of Italians and Britons.) This pattern holds

even after co ntrolling for age, gender, marital status, employment status, and education. Item 2 shows that,

in 1991, Americans were exceptionally unlikely to agree that "right or wrong should be a matter of p ersonal

conscience," even after controlling for personal traits and religion and after also controlling for the answers

respondents gave to two accompanying questions. (One companion question asked whether right and

wrong were a matter of God's laws and the other whether right and wrong were a matter of society.) The

last two items show that Americans were not distinctive in their attitudes toward teach ing childr en respect

for authority or teaching them to make their own judgements. In this set of abstract principles, Americans

tended to be, if different from others, com paratively non-individualistic.11

----- Insert Table 2 About here --------

Table 3 shows the fam iliar distinctiveness o f American opinions o n economic independence.

American respondents were exceptionally likely to r eject gove rnment redistribution of inco me and to

endorse a quid-pro-quo view of work an d pay, as opposed to other criteria for pay, such as need o r

equality.12

------ Insert Table 3 About Here --------

Table 4 turns to the individual versus the group, first with family matters. The initial eight items

ask, in various ways, the respond ents' views about the importance and sanctity of marriage. With only two

exceptions, items 4 and 8, Americans were at or near the non-individualistic end. That is to say, they were

especially likely to endorse and uphold the institution of marriage. In item 2, for example, Americans were

least likely to see any excuse for married individuals having extramarital sex.13 Items 9 and 1 0 assess, at

least in part, respondents' views about the worth or cost of children. Americans interviewees were less

skeptical than most national samples about the value of children.14 Items 11 an d 12 are repetitions o f a

probe asking respond ents to weigh obedience and independence as values for children. Americans scored

in the middle of the pack. One could not, from this evidence, argue that Americans give priority to the

individual o ver the family; the o pposite cla im is more co nsistent with the data.


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------- Insert Table 4 about here ----------

The last set of items in table 4 ar e behavioral, asking how often the res pondent saw his or her

mother (o r father). They are amon g many questions in the 19 86 survey tha t inquired about contact with

relatives; the national differences are r oughly the same across different relationships. Item 13 sh ows that

Americans (and Australians) were most likely to live apart from their parents. Item 14, model a, shows that

they (and th e Au stralians) were most likely to not visit their parents at least weekly. Once, however, one

takes into acc ount, as model d do es, that Amer icans (and A ustralians) lived fa rther away from their parents

than did the other nationalities, only the Italians stand out. Items 15 and 16 show, mor eover, that

Americans (and Germans) were least likely to forbear other modes o f contact, such as by telepho ne, with

their mothers and, somew hat less distinctively, with their fathers.15 These results imply that Americans fail

to vis it their parents because they live relatively far from them and that, to some de gree, they make up for

those missed visits by contacting them relatively often. (See, also, Farkas and Hogan 1995.)

These results pose a contrast between Americans ' expressed pro-family values and their tendency

to live far from family. This seeming contradiction speaks to a difference between attitudes and behavior (a

topic to w hich I return below). In the particular case of family contact, I suggest that American preferences

conflict with a structural situation that makes those preferences hard to effect. Americans (and Australians)

live in a continental society with a continental labor market which, in turn, encourages residential mobility

and spatially d ispersed fam ilies. (Both na tionalities rank hig h in rates of residential mobility -- Lo ng 1991 ).

In this context, living close-by and visiting may be difficult, but family sentiments may still remain strong.

Table 5 t urns to the churches. Items 1 and 2 pre sent slightly different an alyses of a common

behavioral indicator, church attenda nce. Americans were v ery low on church-avoidance. Put differently,

they -- and in 1991 the Italians -- were most likely to heed the call to services at least monthly. Americans

are well-known for being exceptionally believing. (In the 1991 surv ey, 61% of Am ericans agreed that "I

know G od real ly exists and I have no doub ts about it," compa red to 51% of the Italians and 30 % or fewer of

the rest.16) But even control ling for religious faith, American respon dents were high attenders . Indeed,

non-believing or somewhat skeptical Americans attended services at a notably higher rate than did non-


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believing or somewhat skeptical respondents from elsewhere. Item 2 shows that the American

distinctiveness was much gr eater amon g Pro testants than among Catho lics, although in both gro ups

Americans were the least likely to skip churc h. Items 3 and 4 ass ess whether respond ents had d efected fro m

their childhood faiths, item 3 in picking a different religion than that of th eir childh ood-- or no religion at

all-- and item 4 in reducing the frequency of their attendance at church. In item 3, we see that American

and Ge rman r esponden ts were less likely than British and Austr alian respondents to hav e switched or

dropped their religion; among those raised as Protestants, Americans were distinctively less likely to have

defected. In Item 4, we see that the Americans and the Dutch wer e least likely to have reduced their

frequency o f attendance from childhood levels -- even after controlling for curren t religiosity. Finally, Item

5 returns to value preferences. Americans were least likely to challenge the proposition that "right and

wrong shou ld be based o n God's law." Controlling for answers to two similar questions-- that the law

should be based on society or should be b ased on personal conscience-- does not chang e Americans' lowest

rank on this fo rm of individualism (see, also, Heald 1982).

------------ Insert Table 5 about here -------------

Unfortuna tely, the ISSP data do no t include com parable items about de ference to co workers or to

secular voluntary associations. Missing d ata on voluntary associations is particularly troublesome, because

Americans, in most analyses, join and p articipate at unusually high rates (Lad d 1999; cf. Curtis et al

1992).17 If we assume that such joining is accompanied by commitment to the organization, this might

again indica te that Americ ans are relative ly non-individualistic.

We turn last to the neighborhood and the nation. Table 6 shows, first, that American resp ondents

were the most willing to leave their neighborhoods for better opportun ities elsewhere. The difference

remains after controlling for time in the neighborhood. These results, unlike the prior ones, conform to the

image of the individualistic American.

But a similar question about the nation , Item 2, shows that the Americans were the least willing, all

else equal, to leave their country for personal advancement. The next two items show that Americans were

among those least likely to reject the importance of following national institutions and laws and (all else


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equal) to re ject the principle of "my c ountry, right or w rong."18 In co ntrast to these three indications of

Americans' unusual deference to the na tion-state, American respondents were among those most likely to

reject "so ciety" as the arbiter of right and w rong. But, as we saw earlier, the reason they rejected society

was not to install the individual as the guide to r ight or wron g, but rather to defer to "God's laws." A related

item, not shown, asked respon dents to pick which was worst: convicting the innocent or letting the guilty go

free. American respondents were among those national gro ups who more often chose the latter, a " statist"

position19 -- and one con sistent with higher levels of punitiveness in American law and discourse about

crime. And on another kindred measure, Americans in 1997, even after decades of p olitical alienation,

expressed mo re faith in government officials than d id British, French, German, Italian, or Spanish survey

respondents, although th ey were a bit m ore skeptic al of "gove rnment" in the abstract.20 By these measures,

Americans, if exceptional at all, are so in the defer ring to the collective.

How do we reconcile that judgment with the familiar data on Americans' hostility to government

action? Partly, American s are unu sually hostile to go vernment action that intervenes in markets or

individual economic competition . But in some surveys, Americans express unusual lev els of oppo sition to

other government initiatives, such as -- at least in the 1980s ISSPs -- requiring seat belts and banning

smoking (Haller et al. 1990). It may be that, economic issues aside, it is precisely initiatives, changes in

government action, that Americans oppose because they are, in fact, relatively deferential to existing

policies and political leade rs. Recall table 2, line 1: Americans were least likely to endo rse civil

disobedience (pace Thoureau).

Interpretation

Both the World Values and ISSP data-sets point toward the same broad conclusion: When asked

to ch oose between t he interests of the individual and the interests of the col lectivity, Americans are not

more but usually less favorable to the individu al than are other western peoples. This holds in at least a few

critical spheres: the family, the church, and the nation. For neighbo rhoods and work groups, the two

surveys yield limited evidence. (F or secular associations, they provide no evidenc e.) Neverth eless, family,


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church, and nation are critical social units; and Americans defer to them at least as much and often more

than do other westerners. For example, in these data, they were among the most likely to endorse marriage,

to see the church as authoritative, to sign on to "my country right or wrong," and to insist that children and

parents must love one another. At the same time, Americans are much more likely to en dorse a view of

economic activity and the marketplace that has been labeled "individualistic," although the items used here

suggest that the stance is perhaps better described as " contractual." Finally, on more abstract expressions of

individualism, Americans' responses wer e not consistently distinctive. When the abstract questions in tables

1 and 2 implied some tension between individual rights and an authority, American respondents were more

likely to defer to authority than were other peoples. In conclusion, outside of the economic sphere (and

perhaps the neighborhood), Americans appear less individualistic than other westerners as a whole.21

These results, although sur prising, are no t unprecedented; it is only that scholars have yet to

explicitly tie such data to the individualism question. For example, Davis (1990), using early ISSP data,

showed that A mericans were not generally more supportive of free speech for mar ginal political groups than

were Europeans (although they were more tolerant of racist speech). Indeed, free speech and civil liberties

were firmly institutionalized in the United States only in the twentieth century (Foner 1998). Baer et al

(1995) r eported, us ing World Values data, that Americans were not less deferential to authority than other

English-speaking peoples (see also, Inglehart and Baker [2000] on American "traditionalism"). In another

example, Hunter and Bowman (199 6: table 21) reported results from a 1990s survey in which strong

majorities of Americans chose the "public goo d" over " individual freedom" in a number of domains, such

as the dispute over smokers' rights.22 Similarly, writers characterizing Americans as "utilitarian

individualists" typically have not confronted the available evidence showing that Americans give up more

of th eir p erso nal time and mon ey fo r civ ic ac tivit ies than do other peo ples (e.g., Ladd 1999). T his article's

findings do n ot stand alone. Yet, som ehow we must reconcile such results with wh at "everyone knows,"

that Americans are exceptionally individualistic. How can we do so?

Rejecting the Findings. Various objections can be raised to the sort of data I hav e repo rted. So me

are metho dologica l. Such survey q uestions may b e superficial and not really measure deep cultural traits.


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But if we accept the presen t results showing Amer icans to be econom ically individualistic, results that

confirm both many other surveys and con ventional wisdom, then to r eject the unconv entional r esults is to be

inconsistent. Short of discarding all survey research a priori, these findings demand our attention. A more

sophisticated critique of such questions is that people's answers to them are relative to the realities of their

societies. So, for example, Americans stress marital faithfulness in their answers because they see

themselves as living in a culture o f marital faithlessness . This argument, although p lausible, also fails to

account for attitudes about economics. If people answer questions relative to a national standard, why

wouldn't Americans, living in the weakest welfare state, answer economic questions with the strongest

endorsements of social democracy? Other response patterns also belie this interpretation. A quite different

objection, drawing fro m Jepperson (19 92), is that answers to these qu estions are p erformative.

Respondents express, not personal v iews and values, but what they think is expected of people who define

themselves as "good" Americans or Austrians or Canadians. Responden ts thus act as "expert informants,"

not about their own lives, but about their cultures' norms. Such an interpretation would actually underscore

our findings, for it is precisely the national cultures that interest us.23

A differ ent challenge is that the some of the results are inconsistent with cross-national differences

in behavior. For example, Americans' rates of divorce and of out-of-wedlock births are the highest and

nearly the highest, respectively, among these nations, Americans' avowed fidelity to marriage

notwithstanding. Also, American law is more deferential to ind ividual rights than is continental law,

Americans have reje cted military conscription, and Am ericans are notorious no-shows at national elections,

expressions of nationalism notwithstanding. These and other b ehavioral d ifferences often testify to

American individualism . Such attitude-b ehavior inco nsistencies do not, howev er, represent methodo logical

problems with the data, b ut instead reve al substantive conflicts betwe en expressed preferences and a ction, a

subject to which I will return below. As expressions o f respondents' beliefs and values, however, the survey

data st and.

Redefining the Data. These findings may display, not Americans' low level of individualism, but

other distinctively American features. Have we no t long known that Americans are u nusually familistic,


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religious, nationalistic, and m oralistic? These are top ics sep arate fr om individualism. But this interpretation

is evasion by redefinition. Fam ilism means no t only affection for the family, but also insistence on its

prerogativ es, such as staying ma rried and being faithful. R elig iosity is, in ma jor part, the ind ivid ual's

deference to an Authority-- one that, as Durkheim tau ght us, is rooted in the collective -- and to that

Authority's world ly institutions. Wh at is nationalism if not submission to the largest collective? W hat is

moralism if not submerg ing in dividual desire to socially constructed rules? It is contradictory to des cribe

Americans in these terms an d to simultaneously call them individualistic. Americans, wh o more o ften than

Europeans s ay that they attend church, would die for their country, wou ld obey a superior's orders that they

deem wrong, and would submit their personal consciences to law, cannot be at the same time, in any

straightforward sense, more individualistic than Europeans. The answer is more complex.

Reconciling the Findings. If we grant these data their validity as measures of individualism, how

can they be reconciled with the other kinds of evidence, from ethnography to literature, that over the years

convinced u s that Americans are more individualistic than other westerners? This section presents several

suggestions.

(1) It is a difference between then and now. Perhaps when Tocqueville wrote and for generations

afterwards, Europeans, still bound by a feudal past, were less individualistic than Amer icans. Vast cultural

and social changes since then-- notably, popular revolts against feudal institutions and the redefinition of the

state as defender of individuals against church , clan, and patron-- may have changed Europe an culture so

much as to m ake it, by the end of the twentieth century, more ind ividualistic than A merican cu lture.

Assessing this explanation is beyond the scope of this paper.

(2) Elites versus masses: Individualism may characterize American cano nical culture-- letters, a rt,

law, and the like-- while other principles, such as religiosity, predominate among the wider pub lic. Corse

(1995) provides an illustration: American and Canad ian elite literatures differ thematically but their pop ular

literatures do n ot. Internal analyses of the ISSP data, however, do no t lend much weight to the arg ument:

Among the better -educated r espondents, Americans w ere still typically less, not more, individualistic than

other nationalities.24


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(3) A reader of an earlier draft25 suggested that counterpo sing the individual to the group is overly

simplistic. In America, more than elsewhe re, collectivities operate as vehicles forindividual attainment.

For ex ample, marriages must be strong in order to fully serve in dividual happines s, and th e law must be

strict in order to protect individuals' autono my against other individuals. C ertainly a plausib le

interpretation, one rooted in the idea that comparable institutions can serve different ends in different

societies (e.g., Je pperson and M eyer 1991), it is, however , not a parsimonious one. We need to read into

respondents' answers a highly sop histicated logic: the gro up sho uld constr ain the individual in order to free

the individual. Moreover, the ultimate ends Americans en dorsed in these surveys are more often supra-

individual than individualistic -- e.g., "God's laws" ov er personal conscience.

(4) Distinguishing variants of "individualism." A more fun damental approach is to "unpack" the

omnibus idea of individualism into different and per haps un related cons tructs, each with its own national

patterns. Fo r example , some scholars define ind ividualism as a particular style of cau sal attribution.

Societies are individualistic to the degree to which me mbers perceive individ uals to be the a gents of their

own fates rather than the subjects of ex ternal forces such as God, luck, or demons. There is some evidence

in the World V alues and ISSP d ata that Americans are, in fact, relatively individualistic in precisely this

sense. More than others, American respondents expressed confidence in their ability to direct their own

lives and attribu ted others' misfo rtunes to those persons' individual faults, for exam ple, explaining poverty

by laziness.26 Perhaps, then, Americans do not particularly favor the individual over the group but

nevertheless p erceive the individual as an agent more tha n do other peoples . Other variants may also exist,

suggesting that we think of individualisms.

(5) Voluntarism rather than individualism. Similarly, perhaps the broader trait that distinguishes

American culture -- often melded with but distinct from individualism -- is voluntarism (see, e.g., Fischer

1989; Breen 1975; Varenne 1977 ; Swidler 19 92; Howe 1997). Individuals jo in groups voluntarily but,

while memb ers, defer to the group. Since, as just noted , Americans think that people are makers of their

own lives, individuals must willingly choose to agree, to fulfill contracts, and to obey leader s in order that

groups fu nction. Group fun ction cannot be assured by tradition, status, or authority, but only by repeated


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individual choices to cooperate; p eople must be individually "good." 27 This stress on free will helps exp lain

Americans' religious distinctiveness: they have lo ng freely chosen their religions and have fou nded new

ones. As Lipset (1996:61), following Tocqueville, noted, the "United States is the first country in which

religious groups became voluntary associations." T his voluntarism goes with, no t individualism or anomie,

but instead, strong commitment to the institutions. For example, even Americans who switch religions are

at least as devoted to their newly-chosen faiths as those who stayed in their parents' creeds (Roof and

McKinney 1999: 177-8 1; Hoge et al. 1995). American marriage has a similar pro perty: Ma rriages may fail

and re-marriages may be common , but eac h fre ely-chosen marriage commands faith fulness. Janowitz's

(1967) "community of limited liab ility" is yet another variation on this theme: Ame ricans tend to easily

move in and out of neighborhoo ds, but while they reside in a specific place, are neighborly. They are active

in, but are not tied to, the neighb orhood; they choose to follow local norms. American nationalism may

follow the same principle of "love it or leave it." Residents are not forced to stay, but if they stay are

expected to be supremely loyal. Vo luntarism may also explain Americans' attitudes toward economic

relations. Jobs are contracts freely entered into. As such, they have well-understood princip les: You get

paid, you follow orders; if you do not like it, you can leave; if you do not have a job, you chose not to. In

these way s, voluntarism, no t indiv idualism, may be the ax ial and distinguishing American principle, rather

than individualism.

(6) Domain-Specific Individua lism. Or, we might reject the search for an axial principle

altogether . Cult ural analysts generally try to identify a national ethos that manifests itself throughout an

entire society. The literature on individualism is a classic example. Robert B ellah (199 8: 616, 62 0), for

example, recen tly wrote, "...the domin ant element of the common [A merican] culture is . . . utilitarian

individualism." But there is "som ething d eeper than utilitarian o r express ive individualism," he continued,

"the sacredness of the individual conscience, the individual person." Instead of searching for that one

deeper and pe rvasive principle, we can instead view cult ures as eclectic and inconsistent (Archer 1985;

Swidler 1986). Individualism, in particular, co-exists with other perspectives. Where and when

individualism dominates may be domain-specific. Halman's (1 996) analysis of item intercorrelations in


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recent W orld Values surveys led him to conclude that "the various indicators of individ ualism are hardly

correlated and they do no t reveal a clear pattern. It turns out that individualism appears to be dependent

upon the d omain under investigation. These d omains are not related in such a way that o ne dimensio n is

sufficient. Such findings suggest that individualism does not appear as an ethos or un derlying attitude.

Modern society is fragm ented, and the orientations appear to be dom ain specific."28

This paper's findings suggest, in particular, that A mericans m ay be espe cially individualistic in

only the economic arena. The findings echo Jennifer Hochschild's (1981) observation that Americans' ideas

about what is "fair" in social and po litical domains emphasize equality, but in regard to economics

Americans emphasize propo rtional returns -- as in the ISSP q uestions abo ut pay (table 3 ).

Ameri cans' economic ideology appears to have followed a distinct historical path. Some

participants in the "Why n o socialism in America?" debate contend that until the late nineteenth century

Americans resisted the hegemony of the market just as much as Europeans did. But defeat of the radical

labor movement and the political ascendancy o f capital in the U nited States institutionally and culturally

enthroned liberal econ omics (see, e.g., Voss 199 3; Jacoby 199 1; some historians point instead to the 1 830s,

Tocqueville's and Emerson's era, as the time when an individualistic mentalit developed in Americans'

economic behavior- - e.g., Sellers 1991; Shain 19 94). We cannot assume that other domains of life, such as

family and church necessarily developed a parallel individualism.29

According to this notion of domain specificity, people simultaneously hold diverse un derstandings

of the individual's role in groups. Americans, in particular, may most often apply "self-reliance" to the

economic sphere and perhaps also to gover nment, but use a religious model o f "duty" to family and church

and per haps a "good citizen" model to civil society, what Ladd (1999 : 150) has termed a "collectivism of

citizenship." Absent a compelling reason to be ideologically consistent across domains (and perhaps even

within them), Americans could be, as we have found , both more and less individualistic than other western

peoples, depending upon the specific issue.

Such sp ecificity could also help us explain contradictions between attitude and behavio r. For

example, Americans assert the primacy of the family more than do other peoples while comparative


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marriage and divorc e statistics belie that stance; Americans endorse lawfulness m ore fervantly than others,

yet live a society marked by high lawlessness (at least of some forms, Shelley 1985; Bennett and Lynch

1990). Just as cultural elements need not be of one p iece, belief and action may be only loosely coupled.

Jackman and Jackman (1983) have argued in this vein that Americans are as class-conscious as Europeans

are but must operate in a political structure that blocks the expression of class consciousness. T hat logic

can be e xtended. I have already noted that one explanation for Ame ricans' relatively low rate of face-to-

face visiting with kin m ight be the distances of a continental economy. The relatively high rate of mar ital

dissolution in the face of familistic values might similarly be explained as a consequence of American

women's structural positions, their greater autonomy in the labor market and in law. Americans' low voting,

despite their patriotism, might be explained by the pragmatics of voting here. America 's official civil

libertarianism in the face of popular nationa lism might be a produc t of recent changes at elite levels,

especially in the law, separate from the dynamics of popular culture. Thus, the seeming contradictions

between Ame ricans' comparative values and Americans' comparative behaviors may be an other reflection o f

the domain-differentiated nature of individualism. Neither belief nor behavior need to be consistent when

the circumstances of particular dom ains vary.

* * *

I present these various theo retical speculations-- and others are, of co urse, possib le-- as ways to

reconcile the survey data presented here with the long-h eld assumption that Americans are exceptionally

individualistic. The hypothesis that voluntarism is a better "axial" principle than individualism and the

hypothesis, wh ich rejects the v ery notion o f "axial," that p eople apply individualistic thinking to rad ically

different degrees in different d omains are both persuasive to me. B ut within the scope of this article, I

ca nno t ev aluate these or other ways to r eco ncile the empirica l da ta w ith the centuries-old c onvention. My

goals are only to alert scholars to the contradiction and to stimulate some discussion of just how it is that

Americans are individualistic.


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1. See data from the International Social Survey Prog ramme (ISSP) r eported in the text. The full sample of

nations included both western countries and formerly Sov iet-block nations.

2. Even Lipset's (1996) American Exceptionalism, a major statement, contains little data directly and

explicitly com paring Americans to other westerner s on expressions of individ ualism. Amo ng the relatively

few exceptions are Halman (1996), although he does not focus on the present question.

3. Thus, both Bellah et al's (1985) n otions of utilitarian individualism and expressive individ ualism, as well

as id eas of moral individu alism ( i.e., the dignity or sacrednes s of the individu al), imply a culture i n which, for

good or evil, individualism checks group interests.

4. I use two data-sets partly for internal replication, but also to wid en the rang e of countries and range of

topics covered.

5. One mi ght, alternatively, assume that individualism res ts at a le vel belo w consciousness, in hab its of

thought and action not accurately expressed by mass survey respondents. Or one might assume that national

cultures are carried by elites an d only their views -- as expressed , for example, in canonical docume nts --

matter. I bracket these possibilities for the moment (as do alm ost all researchers using cross-national survey

data). Scheuch (1989) provides a good d iscussion of some of the methodological issues arising here.

6. Controlling for size help s control for le vels of internal diversity, such as regional subcultural differences.

No other western na tion is as large an d as fully dive rse as t he United States, but at least this procedure avoids

comparing small societies such as Irelan d (popu lation 3.5 m illion) and N orway (population 4.5 million) with

the United States (250 million).

7. The published distributions are broken down by coun try and several cross-cutting attributes, including a

three-category measure of education. Of those attributes, education is likely to have been (based on findings

from the ISS P reported b elow) the most important covariate. I standardized by re-calculating the national

percentages as averages of within-educational-category percentages, using the grand, cross- national

distribution of education to determ ine the weights.

8. Using the 10 million criterion as in the W orld Values analysis would have left too few cases.

9. In some years, it was also possible to control for whethe r the respon dent was cu rrently in school.

ENDNOTES


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10. Mo re specifically, I entered dum mies for eac h country, with the United Sta tes as a reference category, in

OLS regres sions. Each dependent variable was treated as a dichotomy. Countries with regression

coefficients significantly (p


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children, were more natalist, than other national groups.

15. I also constructed a scale for contact, combining the answers respondents gave ab out mothers, fathers,

sisters, and brother s. Americans and A ustralians were most likely to live apart from kin (models a, c); they

were mo st likely to not see their kin weekly (models a and c), but after controlling for distance, Americans

were nex t to last in such non- visiting-- put better, they were ne xt-to-highest in visiting. Australians and then

American s were most likely to hav e non-face-to-face contact with kin at least we ekly; after controlling f or

distance and frequency of face-to-face visits, Americans were about avera ge on non-visit contacts.

16. Australians, 30%; Austrians, 29%; Germans 27%; Dutch, 26%, and British, 23%. American

distinctiveness in faith holds up after demograp hic controls and controls for curre nt religious preferences.

17. Curtis, et al (1992 ) argue that Americans are not exceptional in member ships. However, that conclusion

depends on taking out church memberships and controlling for covariates. As a descriptive matter,

Americans are the highest or among the highest in voluntary associational involvement. One must no t forget

that churches are, in America, a major vehicle for all sorts of other involvements, such as sports teams and

support groups.

18. These three 199 5 items are not strongly inter-correlated within nations or acr oss the whole sample (as

witness Swed en's fluctuating position); nevertheless, Amer icans rank ed low on all three.

19. Item V27, 1995. About 20% of the Americans, Australians, and Britons saw letting the guilty go free as

the worse mistake, comp ared to about 15 % of the Germ ans, Austrians, and Italians.

20. The Pew Research Center (2000) reported these 1997 survey results:

Percent who agree that.... U.S. U.K. France Germ. Italy Spain

Most o fficials are trustworth y... 44 39 30 32 26 20

Officials care w hat peop le think... 44 35 27 30 14 26

Govern ment is run for b enefit of all... 48 57 52 30 16 38

They ba sically trust the gove rnment.... 40 57 33 41 35 38

21. A crude summary of the data shows that, of the 55 items listed in all the tables, Americans ranked above

the median 19 times (hig hest nine times), b ut they ranked below the median 35 times (and lo west 18 time s).

If w e take out the items classified a priori as "abstract individualism" and as "ec onomic individualism,"

restricting the count to items that selected to measure individualism as defined in the introduction, then the


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count is: Americans abo ve the median, 10 times (highest, 3); Americans belo w the median, 30 times (lowest,

15). By a 3:1 (or 5:1) margin, Americans were likelier to be exceptionally non-individualistic than

exceptionally individualistic.

22. When asked wh ether individual freedo m or the public good should take precedence "in general," 17%

picked the former and 34% the latter (the rest said "both"). When asked about smoking, paying the minimum

wage, an d selling misogynist music, over 60% pick ed the p ublic go od.

23. Part of Jepperson's (1992) claim for a performative interpretation rests on the weak correlations many

subjective items (e.g., life satisfaction) have with respondents' personal circumstances (e.g., class), while

those same subjective items strongly vary by nation. But, if answers were truly performative, would we have

so much dissensus on such items within each n ational sample?

24. To explore the elite hypothesis, I re-ran several of the ISSP regressions looking only at respondents who

were coded in the highest of three general educational levels. The effects estimates were, of course, less

likely to be statistically significant, given the smaller samples, and in some cases, national differences

narrowed. In particular, highly-educated Italian respondents wer e more similar to highly-educated American

ones th an was true of the general Italian and A merican populations. But in substance, the results were not

notably different. Americans still leaned toward non-individualistic answers. In at least one case, the pattern

was exacerbated: In 1994, Americans r anked sixth among 11 samples in endorsing the teaching of thinking

for oneself over the teaching of obedience (Table 4, line 12). But among the most educated only, Americans

ranked ninth ou t of 10 samples. (Spain drops out because educational attainment was not available for

Spain.) This is only a ro ugh test, because the categories and distributions of educational attainment ar e not

easily comparable across the national samples. A better test of the elite hypothesis might compare only the

most educated five or ten percent of e ach nation.

25. [Identifying note].

26. In the World Valu es survey, Americans were the least likely to "agree strongly" that they could do

nothing if an unjust law were passed (V338) and mo st likely to invoke "laziness" to explain why there were

people in need (V 97; see also papers in K luegel et al 1995). In the ISSP, Am ericans were most likely to

disagree that "there is little that people can do to change the course of their lives" (1991, Q.19 B). This

pattern appears, also, in cro ss-cultural psycho logical studies where Ame ricans tend m ore than others to


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perceive p ersonal age ncy (although when it is their own behavior th ey are explaining they tend to claim credit

only for good outcomes -- e.g., Bornstein et al 1998; see Triandis 1995).

27. Discussion with [identifying reference] helpe d clarify this analysis.

28. The frequently modest intercorrelations within domains in the ISSP data further imply that even these

domains may also be too broadly d efined.

29. Historian Eric Foner (1998: Ch. 10) prov ides another illustration of how domain -specific cultural

changes might occur by invoking the story of F. D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms." When Roosevelt included

fear from want and fear from fear in that list of freedoms, he effectively advanced the idea that ". . . true

individual freedom canno t exist without economic security and in depend ence" ( p. 23 4), a key ideological tool

of the New Deal, and an idea that con tradicts the alliance of liberty and laissez-faire-ism. Conservatives

attacked this claim as socialist an d business interests later camp aigned to re mind Americans of a " fifth

freedom," free enterprise. Foner contends that subsequent p olitical developments reinstated the idea that

"freedo m" is just freedom from g overnment, again securing the arena of economic activity for individualistic

interpretations.


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APPENDIX TABLE 1: Text of Items from the World Values Survey and Cod ing. for Individ ualisticResponse.

Abstract Questions About Individualism

V247 -- "I find that both freedom and equality are important. But if I were to choose one or the other, Iwould consider personal freedom more important, that is everyone can live in freedom and develop withouthindrance." (Agree.)

V267 -- "H ere is a list of various changes in our way of life that might take place in the near future. Pleasetell me for each o ne, if it were to hap pen whether you think it would be a good thing, a b ad thing , or don'tyou mind? . . . Greater emphasis on the development of the ind ividual ." (G ood.)

Questions About Econo mic Individualism and the Market

V250 -- "How wou ld you place y our views on this [ten-point] scale? . . ." [1 reads:] "Incomes should bemade more equal." [10 reads:] "There should be greater incentives for individual effort." (Answered 7-10).

V252 -- [1 reads:] "Individuals sh ould take more respo nsibility for providing for themselves." [10 reads:]"The state should take more resp onsibility to ensure that everyon e is provided for." (An swered 1-6.)

V126 -- "T here is a lot of discussion about how business and industry should be managed. W hich of thesefour statements comes closest to your opinion? (1) The owners should run their business or appoint themanagers; (2) The owners and employees should participate in the selection of managers; (3) Thegovernment should be the owners and appoint the managers; (4) The employees should own the businessand should elect the managers; (9) Don't know." (O wners shou ld run.)

V337 -- "I am going to read out some statements about the government and the economy. . . . We are morelikely to have a healthy econo my if the government allows more freedom for to do as they wish." (S tronglyagree.)

Questions About the Family

V216 - - "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Marriage is an ou tdated institution."(Yes.)

V197 -- "If someone said that individuals should have the chance to enjoy complete sexual freedom withoutbeing restricted, would yo u tend to agree or disag ree?"(T end to agree.)

V198 -- " Here is a list of things which som e people think make for a successful marriage. Please tell me,for each one, whether you think it is very important, rather important or not very important for a successfulmarriage. F aithfulness." (R ather + Not very impo rtant.)

V304 -- "Pl ease tell me for each of the following statements whether you th ink it can always be justified,never be justified, or something in between, using this card. [1(never) to 10 (always)] . . . Marriedmen/wom en having an affair." (Any an swer except 1.)

V310 -- [Same as V 304]: Divorce. (Any answer except 1.)

V224 -- "With which of these two statements do you tend to agree? A. Regardless of what the qualities orfaults of one's parents are, one mus t always love and respect them; B. One does not have the duty to respect


28/46


and love parents who h ave not earned it by their behavior and attitudes." (N ot giving answer A.)

V225 -- "Which if the following statem ents best describes your views abou t parents' respo nsibilities to theirchildren? 1. Parents' duty is to do their best for their children even at the expense of their own well-being;

2. Neith er; 3. Parents have a life of their own and should n ot be asked t o sacrifice their own well-being forthe sake of their children." (N ot answering 1.)

V227 - - "Here are a list of qualities which ch ildren c an be enco uraged to learn at home. Which, if any, doyou consid er especially im portant? P lease choose up to five. . . . Inde pendence."

V236 -- [Same as V227] " . . . Obedience."

Questions About the Church and Religion

V20 -- "P lease look c arefully at the following list of voluntary o rganizations and activities an d say which, ifany, do you belong to . . . Religious of church organizations." (D oes not be long.)

V147 -- "Apart fro m weddings, funerals, and christenings, abou t how o ften do y ou attend religious ser vicesthese days? More than once a week; Onc e a week; O nce a month; Christmas/Easter day; Other specificholy days; O nce a year; Less often; Never, practically ne ver." (Less tha n once a month.)

V142 -- "Here are two statements which people sometimes make when discussing good an d evil. Whichone comes closest to your point of view? A. There are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good andevil. These always apply to everyone, whatever the circumstances; B. There can never be absolutely clearguidelines about what is good and evil. What is good and evil depen ds entirely upon the circumstances atthe time." (N ot answering A.)

V152 - - "Gen erally speaking, do you thin k that your church is giving, in your country, adequate answers to .. . the moral pr oblems and needs o f the individual?" Yes; N o; Don't Know. (Do es not answer Yes.)

Questions About the Workplace

V118 -- "Here are some statem ents about why people work. Irrespective of whether you have a job, or no t,which of th em comes closest to what you think?. . . . Work is like a business transaction. The more I g etpaid, the mo re I do; the less I get paid, the less I do." (M entioned.)

V119 -- [Same as V118] . . . "I will alw ays do the best I can, regardless of pay." (Not mentioned.)

V127 -- "People have different ideas abou t following instructions at work. Some say that one should followinstructions of one's superiors e ven when o ne does not fully agree with them . Others say that o ne shouldfollow one's superior's instructions only when one is co nvinced that they are right. With which of these twoopinion s do yo u agree? (Not saying "should follow instructions.")

Questions About the Nation

V263 -- "O f course, we a ll hop e that there will not be another war, b ut if it were to come to that, would yoube willing to fight for your country." (Not yes.)

V296 - - "Please tell me for e ach of the following statements whether you think it can always b e justified,never be justified, or something in between, using this card. [1(never) to 10 (always)] . . . Claiminggovern ment benefits whic h you are not entitled to. " (Other than answer "1.")


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APPENDIX TABLE 2: Texts of Items from the ISSP and Coding for Individualistic Response. (Note:Where full answer categories are no t listed, they are a five-point scale from strongly agree to stronglydisagree.)

Table 2

1. 1985: v6: "In general, would you say that people should obey the law without exception, or are thereexcep tional occasions on which people should follow their consci ences even if it me ans b reaking the la w?"(Follow conscience.)

2. 1991: V 63: "How much do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements? . . . Right orwrong should be a m atter of perso nal conscience." (Agree.)

3. 1985 : V42: "And now a fe w questions about edu cation: Here are some things that migh t be taught inschool. H ow important is it that schools teach each of these to 15 year olds?. . . "R espect for authority:Essential, must be taught; Very important; Fairly importan t; Not very important; Not needed , should not betaught." (Not answering "very important.")

4. 1985 : V44: [A s 1985: V 42] . . "Ability to make one 's own judgements." (Essential.)

Table 3

1. 1992: V62: "T he govern ment should provide everyone with a guaranteed basic income." (Disag ree.)

2. 1993 : V6: "It is the responsibility of the governm ent to reduce the differences in income between p eoplewith high incomes and thos e with low incomes." (Does n ot answer "agree" or "strongly agree.")

3. 1992: v82: "In d eciding how much pe ople ought to earn, how important should each of these things be, inyour op inion? . . . How impo rtant should that be in deciding pay: how well the person does the job?Essential; Very important; Fairly impo rtant; Not ve ry importan t; Not important at all. (Essential.)

4. 1992 : V83: "How important should that be in decid ing pay: how hard the person works at the job? "(Same as answers as V82; essemtial.)

Table 4

1. 198 8: V25: "If you were advising a young woman, which of the following ways o f life would yourecomm end? T o live alone, without a steady partner; To l ive with a steady partner, withou t marry ing ; Tolive with a steady partner for a while, and then marry; To marry without living together first." (Not givinglast response .)

2. 1994: V4 7: "What abou t a married pers on having sexual relations with someone o ther than his or herhusband or wife, is it .... Always wrong; Almost always wrong; W rong only sometimes; Not wrong at a ll

(Spain: It depend s)." (Do es not say "always wr ong.")

3. 1994: V22: "It is better to have a bad ma rriage than no marriage at all." (Strongly disagrees.)

4. 1994: V27: " Divorce is usually the best solution when a cou ple can't seem to work out their marriageproblems." (Agrees.)

5. 1994: V32 : "When there are children in the family, parents should stay together even if they don't get


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along." (Disagrees.)

6. 1 994: V33: "Even wh en there are no child ren, a married couple should sta y tog ether even if they don'tget along." (S trongly disagre es.)

7. 1988: V27 : "Do you agree or disagree ...? Married people are generally happier than unmarried people."(Disagrees.)

8. 1988 : V28: "D o you agree or disagre e ...? Personal freedom is more imp ortant than the compan ionshipof marriage." (Agrees.)

9. 1988: V43 : "Do you agree or disagree ...? Children are more troubl e than they are worth." (Does notanswer " disagree" or "strongly disag ree.")

10. 1988: V 45: "Do y ou agree or disagree ...? Having children interferes too much with the freedom of parents." (Agrees.)

11. 1993: V4 : "Which of these would you say is more impor tant in preparing children for life? To beobedien t; To think for themselves? " (Think.)

12. 1994: V 34: "Whic h of these would you say is more impo rtant in preparing children for life ... To beobedien t or to think for the mselves?" (Think.)

13-14. 1986: V5: (If mother is still alive) "How often do you see or visit your mother?: She lives in thesame househ old; Daily; At least several times a week; At least once a week; At least once a month; Sever altimes a year; Less often." (13 : Does no t live with; 14: V isits less than weekly.)

15. 1986: V7: (If mother is still alive) "And how of ten do you have any contact with your mother, besidesvisiting, either by telep hone or letter?" (Sam e answers as in V5; Co ntact less than weekly.)

16. 1986: v11: (If father is still alive) "And how often do you have any contact with your father, besidesvisiting, either by telephone or letter?" (Same answers as in V5; Contact less than weekly.).

Table 5

1. 1991: V6 5 "Now thinking ab out the present. How o ften do you attend religious services? N ever; Lessthan once a year; About once or twice a year; Several times a year; About once a month; 2-3 times a month;

Nearly every week; Every week; Several times a week; Once a day; Several times a day." (Less than once amonth.)

2. 1992: V124: "H ow often do you attend religious services?" (Germany: "How often do you attendchurch?;" Britain, Ne therlands: [If any religion] "A part from such special o ccasions as w eddings, fune ralsand baptism, how of ten nowadays do y ou attend services or meetings connected with your religion?") Once

a week; 2-3 times a month; Once a month; Several times a year; Less frequently; Never." (Less than oncea month.)

3. 1992: Changed Religious Affiliation, created from V123 and V 136. V123: "W hat is your religiouspreference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion? (If Protestant) Whatspecific denomination is that? (Germany: Which religious group do you b elong to?; Britain: Do you regardyourself as belonging to any particular religion? If yes, which?; Canada: What, if any, church or religiousgroup yo u belong to?" (Coded with specific denominations.) V136: "In what religion, if any, were you


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brought up?" (Differe nt religions reported.)

4. 1991: Change in Church Attendance -- based on 1991 items, v65 (above) and V56. V56: "And whatabout w hen you were around 11 o r 12, h ow often did you attend religious services then?" (Same as V65 ,

without "once a day" and "several times a day.") (Frequen cy as adult less than frequency as a child.)

5. 1991: V61 "H ow much do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements? Right andwrong sh ould be based on Go d's laws." (Does no t answer "agree" or "strongly agree.")

Table 6

1. 1995: V 9: "If you could improve y our work or living con ditions, how willing or u nwilling woul d you beto. . . move to another neighborho od (or village)? Very willing; Fairly willing; Neither willing norunwilling; Fairly unwilling; Very unwilling ." (Very or fairly willing.)

2. 1995: V1 2: "If you could improv e your work or living conditio ns, how willing or unwilling would yoube to... mov e outside (R's country)?" ( Same as V 9; Very or fairly willing.)

3. 1995: V20: "Some people say the following things are important for being [eg. truly British]. Others saythey are not important. How important do you think ea ch of the following is ...to respect (R's country's)

political institutions an d laws? Very important; Fairly important; Not very important; Not imp ortant at all."(Does n ot say "very important.")

4. 1995: V26: "P eople should suppo rt their country ev en if the country is in th e wrong." (Disagrees.)

5. 1991 : V62 " . . . R ight or wrong should be decided by society." (D oes not say " agree" o r "stronglyagree.")


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