High Power, Low Power, and Equality: Culture Beyond Individualism and Collectivism

Models of culture are operationalized as individualism and collectivism and have not given sufficient attention to other organizing axes—especially how a society handles power, dependence, and equality. Shavitt, Lalwani, Zhang, and Torelli (2006) make a significant contribution by first reminding the field of power distance (Hofstede, 1980) and then moving beyond a single factor to highlight benefits of Triandis’ (1995) horizontal (valuing equality) individualism–collectivism and vertical (emphasizing hierarchy) individualism–collectivism model. But this approach makes it difficult to disentangle the effects of power and individualism or collectivism; priming procedures and experimental variations of power can counter this limitation. Moreover, current horizontal/vertical approaches do not distinguish between having and not having power, although social cognition research documented differential effects of high and low power on content of self-concept, relationality, and cognition, which suggest previously neglected cultural differences.

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