Collectivist Frame Switching in Competitive and Cooperative Situations

The theory of situated cognition suggests that individualistic and collectivistic mindsets are cognitively accessible to everyone and can be primed by situational cues. As constructs, individualism is based on the importance of pursuing personal goals regardless of social context, whereas collectivism emphasizes the importance of personal goals being congruent with societal relationships. Research suggests that individualists tend to be more competitive compared to collectivists, who tend to be more cooperative and prosocial. To date, most studies in this area have primed individualism and collectivism with artificial stimuli such as words and images in order to observe whether it leads to competition and cooperation. In contrast, the present study experimentally manipulated competitive or cooperative situational conditions to see whether they would make individualistic or collectivistic mindsets more salient. Two hundred and twenty-eight Ontario university students were asked to complete measures of individualism and collectivism before and after playing a tower building game or, in the control situation, completing a neutral task. For the experimental conditions, participants were asked to played a game with a small group of participants (3-6 players). Participants were told they were competing to build the tallest tower against others at the table (competitive) or as a group against other groups (cooperative). Manipulation checks indicated that the manipulation was successful. Results suggest that cooperative situations reduce mean levels of individualistic mindsets but not collectivistic mindsets, and that competitive situations did not impact mean levels of either individualistic or collectivistic mindsets in the experimental groups.