Independent or

interdependent
culture? Is
everybody not
one? both?
Sooin Lee
The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
Abstract
As multiculturalism became an important
issue in psychology, there have been many
efforts to understand cultural differences.
One of these efforts is categorizing
cultures so that psychologists can better
interact with people from various
cultures. Cultures are often categorized
as independent vs. interdependent or
similarly individualistic vs. collectivistic
because this categorization presumably
helps to understand someone from
another culture and predict his or her
behaviors accordingly. However,
conceptualizing cultures can get in the
way of understanding people in several
ways. First, it ignores a concrete world in
which each individual exists.
Categorizing cultures readily reduces
people to abstract ideas, separating them
from their own subjective experience. In
addition, people are interchangeably
independent or interdependent regardless
of their cultures, depending on the
immediate context within which they are
embedded. Moreover, the meaning of
each word, “independent” or
“interdependent,” varies from culture to
culture while some cultures do not have a
direct translation or understanding, not to
mention that the same behavior can be
interpreted variously. More
problematically, words are value-ridden.
A negative connotation easily follows
when someone from an independent
culture judges another culture as
interdependent, or vice versa.
Nonetheless, who determines which
culture is independent or interdependent?
As a human, who is not interdependent
or independent? Both are ontological
givens, which make all of us, including
psychologists, be part of the human
community.
Introduction
Multiculturalism has become an important issue in
psychology.
Psychologists assume they can better interact with people
from various cultures if they can categorize them.
Cultures are often categorized as independent vs.
interdependent although this it empirically invalid.
Further, conceptualizing cultures can get in the way of
understanding individuals.
Definitions:
By Markus And Kitayama
Independence Interdependence

“Separateness, internal “Connectedness, social

attributes, and context, and
uniqueness of relationships”
individuals”

(as cited in Singelis, 1994)

Problem 1:
Lack of Concretness
By categorizing cultures, we attempt to reduce
individuals to simplified ideas and ignore concrete
situatedness (Frie & Coburn 2011; Buxton, 2005; Miller,
2002).
Categories do not explain the complexity of each
individual’s unique lived experience (Frie, 2011).
Using abstract ideas is an attempt to predict and control
behaviors of others for fear of uncertainty (Nielsen,
2006; Singelis, 1994 ).

t m e i s i n d e p e ndent!!
abou
NOT everything
Problem 2: We are cham
eleons?
Ignoring Context
!

Human beings are constantly affecting and being

affected by the world which they are embedded in. (Frie,
2011; Nielson, 2006).
Anyone can be “independent” or “interdependent,”
primed by their immediate situation (Oyserman,
Sorensen & Reber, 2009) or mood (Ashton-James,
Maddux, Galinsky, & Chartrand, 2009).
Regardless of their cultures, the participants perceived given
object as related after completing sentences that contained
plural pronouns (we, us, and ourselves) (Oyserman et al.,
2009).
 What are you talk
Problem 3:
ing about?!

Words without Meaning

Words are socio-culturally constructed and lose their
original meaning in translation (Peña, 2007).
The meaning of “independent” or “independent,”
defined in the Western psychology, can be interpreted
differently in another culture.
“For example, the American male concept of dependence is
very close semantically to the Japanese male concepts of
gullibility, unluckiness, and humiliation (Smith & Nomi,
2000).”
Some cultures do not have words or concepts for either
word (Miller, 2002).
Problem 4:
Values in All
Western psychology has regarded independence as a sign
of psychological health and has disregarded “non-
independent qualities” as less healthy (Buxton, 2005;
Frie, 2011).
However, valuing independency is following the socio-
cultural norms, which in and of itself is NOT an
independent behavior (Frie, 2001; Kagitçibasi, 2005;
McAuliffe, Jetten, Hornsey & Hogg, 2003).

e?!
Who is the judg
Conclusion:
We are Both
According to Stolorow, each of us takes ownership of our
unique lived experience (as cited in Coburn, 2011).
However, we are unique individuals only in relation to
others (Orange, 2011).
Independency and interdependency coexist in everybody
(Kagitçibasi, 2005; Santamaria, de la Mata, Hansen, &
Ruiz, 2010).
Implications
By acknowledging this common humanity:
We can connect with individuals from other
cultures as fellow human beings.
We can be released from the pressure that we
should be able to understand all their behaviors
based on their cultural category.
We can confront with our fear of the unknown in
them because we already know our commonalities
with them.
Future Directions
The importance of understanding cultural differences
remains in psychology.
Human behaviors in each culture should be studied:
Within the context, history and value system of
the culture
In the ways in which its own people, not
outsiders, describe them
References
Ashton-James, C. E., Maddux, W. W., Galinsky, A. D., &
Chartrand, T. L. (2009). Who I am depends on how I feel:
The role of affect in the expression of culture. Psychological
Science, 20(3), 340-346. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02299.x.
Buxton, A. (2005). Conceptualisation and Existential Therapy.
Existential Analysis, 16(1), 131-144.
Coburn, Wj. (2010). Recontextualizing individuality and
therapeutic action in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. In
R. Frie & William Coburn (Eds.), Persons in context: the
challenge of individuality in theory and practice. (pp. 121-146).
New York, NY: Routledge.
Frie, R. (2011). Culture and context: From individualism to situated
experience. In R. Frie & William Coburn (Eds.), Persons in
context: the challenge of individuality in theory and practice.
(pp. 3-19). New York, NY: Routledge.
Frie, R., & Coburn, William. (2011). Introduction: experience in
context. In R. Frie & William Coburn (Eds.), Persons in
Context: the Challenge of Individuality in theory and practice.
(p. xv-xxx). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kagitcibasi, C. (2005). Autonomy and relatedness in cultural
context: Implications for self and family. Journal of Cross-
Cultural Psychology, 36(4), 403-422.
Levine, T. R., Bresnahan, M. J., Park, H. S., Lapinski, M. K.,
Wittenbaum, G. M., Shearman, S. M., et al. (2003). Self-
construal scales lack validity. Human Communication
Research, 29(2), 210-252.
McAuliffe, B. J., Jetten, J., Hornsey, M. J., & Hogg, M. A. (2003).
Individualist and collectivist norms: when itʼs ok to go your
own way. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 57-70.
Miller, J. G. (2002). Bringing culture to basic psychological theory--
Beyond individualism and collectivism: Comment on
Oyserman et al. (2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128(1), 97-109.
Nielsen, K. (2006). The negativistic process of education
Kierkegaard and the ontology of despair. Nordic Psychology,
58(3), 183-195.
Orange, D. (2011). Beyond individualism: Philosophical
contrbutions of Buber, Gadamer, and Levinas. In R. Frie &
William Coburn (Eds.), Persons in context: the challenge of
individuality in theory and practice. (pp. 43-57). New York,
NY: Routledge.
Oyserman, D., Sorensen, N., Reber, R., & Chen, S. X. (2009).
Connecting and separating mind-sets: culture as situated
cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(2),
217-235.
Peña, E. D. (2007). Lost in translation: methodological
considerations in cross-cultural research. Child development,
78(4), 1255-1264.
Santamaria, A., de la Mata, M. L. de la, Hansen, T. G. B., & Ruiz,
L. (2010). Cultural self-construals of Mexican, Spanish, and
Danish college students: beyond independent and
interdependent self. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 41
(3), 471-477.
Singelis, T. M. (1994). The Measurement of Independent and
Interdependent Self-Construals. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 20(5), 580-591.
Smith, H. W., & Nomi, T. (2000). Is Amae the key to understanding
Japanese culture? Electronic Journal of Sociology, 1.
Retrieved April 6, 2011, from http://www.sociology.org/
content/vol005.001/smith-nomi.html~.