Increasing Individualism and Collectivism

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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An online survey is conducted on MTurk populations from India and USA. Participants were assigned either a condition with primes of individualism or one with primes of collectivism, before responding to a scale on culture and indicating details of their demographics.

Official Title
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Increasing Individualism or Collectivism on Amazon Mechanical Turk Participants

Conditions
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Individual Difference

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Online prime (statements writing)
* Other: Online prime (circling)
* Other: Online prime (Sumarian Warrior)
* Other: Online prime (all)


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: above age 21 Exclusion Criteria: below age 21 not able to make decisions for self

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 21 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Double


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Individualism<br>Participant will be randomly allocated to either the individualism condition or the collectivism condition. For individualism condition, participant is tasked to write statements relating to his/her differences from the his/her immediate community, circle pronouns that relate to the self, and read passages related to individualism. | Other: Online prime (statements writing)<br>* Participants to write statements describing themselves or their similarities to their community.<br>Other: Online prime (circling)<br>* Participants to circle either pronouns denoting themselves or pronouns denoting others.<br>Other: Online prime (Sumarian Warrior)<br>* Participants read a passage which described the factors that led to his success in a war.<br>Other: Online prime (all)<br>* Participants wrote statements, circled pronouns, as well as read the Sumarian Warrior passage.<br>|
| Experimental: Collectivism<br>Participant will be randomly allocated to either the individualism condition or the collectivism condition. For collectivism condition, participant is tasked to write statements relating to his/her similarities to the his/her immediate community, circle collective pronouns, and read passages related to collectivism. | Other: Online prime (statements writing)<br>* Participants to write statements describing themselves or their similarities to their community.<br>Other: Online prime (circling)<br>* Participants to circle either pronouns denoting themselves or pronouns denoting others.<br>Other: Online prime (Sumarian Warrior)<br>* Participants read a passage which described the factors that led to his success in a war.<br>Other: Online prime (all)<br>* Participants wrote statements, circled pronouns, as well as read the Sumarian Warrior passage.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Higher collectivism or individualism level | Individualism and collectivism levels will be measured by Triandis & Gelfand (1998)'s Culture Orientation Scale. This is a 16-item scale designed to measure: 1) Vertical Collectivism (VC) - seeing the self as a part of a collective and accepting hierarchy and inequality within that collective; 2) Vertical Individualism (VI) - seeing the self as fully autonomous, but recognizing and accepting the existence of inequality; 3) Horizontal Collectivism (HC) - seeing the self as part of a collective but viewing all the members of that collective as equal counterparts; and 4) Horizontal Individualism (HI) - seeing the self as fully autonomous, and believing in equality amongst individuals. All items are answered on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1= never or definitely no and 5 = always or definitely yes. Each dimension's items are summed up separately to create a VC, VI, HC, and HI score to reflect the level of collectivism and individualism in the sampled group. | 10 minutes |