Abstract:
Social norms are the unwritten rules shared by members of a culture which guide social coordination and whose violation can lead to social sanctions. Adherence to social norms has been assumed to be weaker in more individualist cultures, which purportedly prioritize the individual over the group. However, an alternative perspective is that individualism is characterized by valuing subjective states such as emotions. If this perspective is correct, adherence to norms for emotions should be greater in more individualist cultures. I will present evidence from studies across several dozen countries and 200,000+ participants showing that: 1) adherence to emotion norms is greater in more individualist cultures; 2) deviating from the emotion norms of one’s culture is more detrimental to well-being in more individualist cultures; and 3) Immigrants from more individualist cultures adopt the emotion norms of natives faster. A final study further demonstrates that the association between individualism-collectivism and adherence to five distinct social norms is highly variable. Taken together, these findings suggest that individualism is characterized more by valuing and attending to subjective states than by prioritizing the individual over the group.