IB Psychology SLTopic 3 — Group BehaviourPaper 1 & 2Sociocultural approach~9 min read
Cultural Dimensions and How Groups Behave
Asch ran his line task in America and found roughly a third of answers went along with the group. Run the same task in Fiji and the number climbs. Same cards, same lines, very different result — because culture changes what going along with people actually means.
📚 What you need to know
Cultural dimensions are ways of describing the values a culture tends to hold. Hofstede identified them from a huge survey of IBM employees between 1971 and 1973.
Over 60,000 people in more than 50 countries answered his questionnaire.
The dimension you need most is individualism vs collectivism.
Individualistic cultures put the person first: independence, choice, competition.
Collectivist cultures put the group first: interdependence, harmony, belonging.
Conformity means putting group harmony above your own view, which fits collectivist values much more comfortably.
The study you need is Smith & Bond (1993), a meta-analysis of Asch replications.
Individualism and collectivism
Neither one is better. They are different answers to the same question: when what you want and what the group wants pull in opposite directions, which one wins?
Individualistic cultures
Collectivist cultures
The unit that matters is ‘I’ and ‘me’
The unit that matters is ‘we’ and ‘us’
Value independence, competing, standing out
Value interdependence, harmony, fitting in
Upside: freedom and personal choice
Upside: community and a sense of belonging
Risk: feeling isolated and unsupported
Risk: losing personal identity and autonomy
Behaviour tends to revolve around the individual
Behaviour tends to revolve around the group
Why this predicts conformity. If your culture teaches that harmony matters more than being individually right, going along with the group is not weakness — it is good behaviour. In a culture that prizes standing out, the same act looks like caving in. The behaviour is identical; the meaning is not.
Careful with the words. A culture is not ‘collectivist’ the way a person is tall. It is a tendency across a population, with huge variation inside it. Writing ‘more collectivist’ rather than ‘collectivist’ shows the examiner you understand that.
Key study: Smith & Bond (1993)
Rather than running a new experiment, Smith and Bond gathered up the ones that already existed. Asch’s line task had been replicated all over the world, and that gave them a rare chance: one procedure, many cultures.
Part of the study
What happened
Aim
To find out whether conformity is affected by culture.
Sample
A meta-analysis of 133 studies from 17 countries, covering both more collectivist and more individualistic cultures. Countries included France, Fiji, Ghana, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the USA.
Procedure
Statistical analysis of cross-cultural replications of Asch’s original line task. The findings were converted into an effect size for each country, reflecting the overall rate of conformity there.
Results
The highest effect sizes came from more collectivist countries: Fiji 2.48, Hong Kong 1.93, Japan 1.42. The lowest came from more individualistic countries: France 0.56, the Netherlands 0.74, the USA 0.90.
Conclusion
Conformity appears to be affected by culture, with more collectivist cultures showing higher rates than more individualistic ones.
The pattern is clear, but the sample behind it is not even. Only two studies came from France and two from Fiji, against 79 from the USA.
Evaluating the research
What is strong about it
A meta-analysis gathers a huge amount of data from around the world quickly, and makes broad patterns visible in a way one study never could.
All the studies used replications of the same standardised procedure, so there is reliability built in and the comparison between countries is fair.
Hofstede’s original survey was enormous, which gives the dimensions a solid base.
What is weaker about it
The number of replications per country was wildly inconsistent — 79 from the USA but only two each from France and Fiji. A country’s score based on two studies is not something to trust.
A meta-analysis is purely statistical. It tells you conformity is higher in some places, but it cannot say why.
Hofstede surveyed IBM employees. Office workers at one multinational are not a fair sample of a whole country.
Link to concepts
Measurement: a country is not a culture. India, Nigeria or Canada contain many cultures, so using national borders as the unit limits the validity of any conclusion. An etic approach assumes values are universal and risks oversimplifying; an emic approach gives culture-specific insight but takes far longer.
Change: globalisation blurs the picture. Values merge, and traditional practices get replaced by those of dominant cultures, so the individualist and collectivist labels are less clear-cut every decade.
EXAM PRACTICE
Discuss the use of one cultural dimension in explaining group behaviour. [22]
Step 1: name and define the dimension
Individualism vs collectivism, from Hofstede’s IBM survey of over 60,000 people in more than 50 countries.
Step 2: explain the link to behaviour
Collectivist values put harmony above individual opinion, so conformity should be higher where those values are strong.
Step 3: evidence
Smith & Bond (1993): 133 studies, 17 countries. Fiji 2.48, Hong Kong 1.93 against France 0.56, USA 0.90.
Step 4: evaluate the evidence
Standardised procedure gives reliability, but 79 US studies against two French ones makes the comparison shaky, and a meta-analysis cannot explain the cause.
Step 5: evaluate the dimension itself
A country is not a culture, and globalisation is steadily merging values.
Dimension + mechanism + evidence + two layers of evaluationEvaluate the study and the theory. Answers that only do one cap out around half marks.
💡 Exam tip
Quote just two numbers — the highest and the lowest. Fiji 2.48 against France 0.56 makes the point on its own.
The uneven number of replications is the single best criticism of this study. Learn it.
Bring Asch in as background. Smith & Bond only exists because his task was replicated so widely.
Use ‘more collectivist’ and ‘more individualistic’. The comparative shows nuance.
Etic and emic are worth a mark each if you use them correctly in the measurement discussion.
⚠ Common mix-up
Treating collectivism as worse. Both sets of values carry benefits and risks. Writing as if one is superior loses marks.
Saying Hofstede studied conformity. He surveyed workplace values. The conformity link comes from Smith & Bond.
Confusing country with culture. They are not the same, and saying so is worth credit.
Calling a meta-analysis an experiment. It analyses existing studies; it collects no new data.
Assuming everyone in a collectivist country conforms. These are population tendencies, not descriptions of individuals.
Up next: Social Identity Theory Applied to Groups — how simply knowing another group exists is enough to make people favour their own.
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