In the 1980s and 90s in psychology, many cross-cultural comparisons were made concerning individualism and collectivism with questionnaires and experiments. The largest number of them compared “collectivistic” Japanese with “individualistic” Americans. This chapter reviewed 48 such empirical comparisons and found that Japanese were no different from Americans in the degree of collectivism. Both questionnaire studies and experimental studies showed essentially the same pattern of results. Many researchers who believed in “Japanese collectivism” suspected flaws in those empirical studies. However, none of the suspected flaws was consistent with empirical evidence. For example, although it was suspected that “Japanese collectivism” was not supported because college students provided data as participants, the studies with non-student adults did not support this common view either. It is thus unquestionable that as a whole the empirical studies disproved the reality of “Japanese collectivism.”

Collectivism symbolizes Japanese culture for many people in the world including Japanese themselves. The “collectivistic Japanese” are alleged to have the following characteristics: They feel at ease only in a group; they merge into their group and thus lack individuality and autonomy; they are indistinguishable from one another; they conform to their group and cooperate with the group members even at the sacrifice of their own individual interests; their obedience to their group leads to the hierarchical authoritarian society. However, these characterizations are mostly based on casual observations and personal experiences instead of systematic acadmic investigation. In psychology, nevertheless, two influential studies generalized the contrast between Western culture and Japanese culture in collectivism and individualism to the contrast between Western culture and all the other cultures.