INDIVIDUALISM

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2011, Individualism, Libertarianism, Communitarianism

Individualism is a value system, central to classical liberalism and capitalism, which upholds choice, personal freedom, and self-orientation.

INDIVIDUALISTIC
A theory which focuses on explaining the behaviour of individuals and using factors or features of the individual in explaining this behaviour.

INDIVIDUATION
Unlike individualism which refers to an individualistic value system, individuation refers to the process by which individualism is accomplished, the breaking down of obligatory ties and responsibilities to other people or to institutions so that the individual is freed from social bonds. Such a process must also lead to the adoption of the value of individualism.

Ten Modes of Individualism--None of Which Works--And Their Alternatives 
Mario Bunge, McGill University, Montreal 
Individualism comes in at least ten modes: ontological, logical, semantic, epistemological, methodological, axiological, praxiological, ethical, historical, and political. These modes are bound together. For example, ontological individualism motivates the thesis that relations are n-tuples of individuals, as well as radical reductionism and libertarianism. The flaws and merits of all ten sides of the individualist decagon are noted. So are those of its holist counterpart. It is argued that systemism has all the virtues and none of the defects of individualism and holism. One such virtue is the ability to recognize that individualism is a system rather than an unstructured bag of opinions--which raises the question whether thorough and consistent individualism is at all possible. - pos.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/3/384

Radical Individualism vs. Institutionalism
The Division of Institutionalists into 'Humanists' and 'Behaviorists' 
By Paul D. Bush
Abstract: David Seckler has filled an important gap in the methodological literature of economics by providing a "radical individualist" critique of American institutionalism (1). Seckler argues that institutionalists have been unable to develop a coherent methodology because of their ambivalence on the issue of "free will versus determinism." Thorstein Veblen, he says, entertained both "humanistic" and "behavioristic" hypotheses in his explanations of human behavior and, consequently, descended into obscurantism. The institutionalist literature in general reflects these contradictory methodological tendencies; for example, John R. Commons was a "humanist", whereas Clarence Ayres was a "behaviorist." Seckler's critique is not, however, persuasive. He fails to recognize the difficulties inherent in the philosophical dualisms posited by "radical individualism," and he employs them credulously in his critique of institutionalism. Equally damaging to his argument is his failure to give adequate consideration to the meaning and significance of the "institutional dichotomy" in institutional analysis. - blackwell-synergy.com

Talcott Parsons’s Sociology of Religion and the Expressive Revolution 
The Problem of Western Individualism 
Bryan S. Turner, National University of Singapore, aribst@nus.edu.sg 
Immanuel Kant distinguished between religion as cult in which people seek favours from God through prayer and offerings to bring healing and wealth, and religion as moral action that commands human beings to change their lives. Kant further defined religion as a ‘reflecting faith’ or ‘moralizing faith’ that compels humans to strive for salvation through faith alone. The Kantian distinction was fundamental to Max Weber’s view of the relationship between asceticism and capitalism. Talcott Parsons’s early sociology of religion engaged with this theme in Kant and Weber, but in his later work Parsons came to a re-appraisal of Émile Durkheim. In the concept of the expressive revolution, Parsons followed Durkheim in studying individualism as a major transformation of society. There is, however, a contradiction between individualism as either the legacy of Protestant pietism or the product of modern consumerism. 
Parsons’s sociology of religion remains distinctive because he did not subscribe to the secularization thesis, but instead saw American liberalism as the fulfilment of Protestant individualism. The paper concludes with a critical assessment of the differences between the values of the expressive revolution and the legacy of Kantian individualism. Romantic love in modern society is an aspect of the expressive revolution, but it is also a legacy of the emphasis on emotional conversion and attachment to the person of Jesus in pietism. The expressive revolution developed this legacy of emotional expressivity, but combined romantic love with a consumer ethic. Religiosity survives in the context of consumerism as an aspect of what Robert Bellah called the ‘civil religion in America’. - jcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/3/303

Cultural Differences in Individualism? Just Artifact. 
Spencer Kagan, G. Lawrence Zahn, University of California, Riverside 
Previous research has provided discrepant findings with regard to the presence or absence of a cultural difference in strength of individualistic motivation among Mexican American and Anglo American children. To test the hypothesis of a cultural difference, and to explore the nature of different individualism measures, two individualism measures were administered to 733 Anglo American, Mexican American, and black children. Results indicated age but not cultural differences in strength of individualistic motivation, and that one measure of individualism, the Social Orientation Choice-Card, is confounded with competitiveness. That artifact remains the most plausible explanation of what was presumed to be a cultural difference. - hjb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/2/219

DEMOCRATIC INDIVIDUALISM AND ITS CRITICS
George Kateb ­ Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544; email: kateb@princeton.edu 
Where democracy exists, there will be individualism. The historical record shows that democracy inevitably engenders individualism. This proposition will be challenged by those who think either that individualism can obtain in nondemocratic cultures or that democracy can exist without engendering individualism. The paper rejects both contentions. The defining characteristic of democracy is freedom, and the oldest democratic concept of freedom is the Greek one: To be free is to live as one likes. Versions of that definition are found wherever people are or aspire to be democratic. To live as one likes means that one is allowed to try out various roles in life. Each person is more than any single role, function, or place in society. Individualism consists in that idea. Only democracy inspires it. It is also true that democracy, in reaction, produces antidemocratic individualism. The greatest students of democratic individualism are Plato and Tocqueville, and they are also its profoundest critics. But contemporary critics are certainly worth scholarly attention. - arjournals.annualreviews.org

Individualism-Collectivism: Concept and Measure 
John A Wagner, Michael K. Moch 
This article draws attention to the distinction between individual ism and collectivism, indicates its importance for organizational scientists, and develops a questionnaire measure of individualism- collectivism. This measure allows the empirical assessment of an important implicit dimension in many contemporary organiza tional models, and can be of use in directing the development of theories and practices relevant to both collectivists and individualists. - gom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/3/280

Reconciling Group Selection and Methodological Individualism 
TODD J. ZYWICKI, George Mason University - School of Law 
Abstract: Methodological individualism underpins economic analysis. In his paper in this volume, however, Douglas Glen Whitman demonstrates that group selection can be reconciled with methodological individualism. This essay extends Whitman's analysis in two ways. First, it summarizes and restates the necessary conditions for group selection to play a role in the evolution of human preferences and societies. Second, it discusses the role of group selection in Hayek's thought, with a particular focus on the role of group selection in the evolution of legal rules and the rule of law. The viability of group selection is demonstrated to be an empirical question. - papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=524402



Institutional individualism and institutional change: the search for a middle way mode of explanation 
Fernando Toboso, University of Valencia 
Abstract: After noting the lack of enthusiasm of several well-known scholars concerning the adoption of both methodological holism and methodological individualism in its several versions, this paper shows that institutional individualism is a different mode of explanation from both of these and also that it is not the same thing as the so-called Popperian programme of situational analysis. Institutional individualism is a mode of explanation that yields non-systemic and non-reductionist explanations at the same time as it allows for the incorporation into economic theories and models of the many formal and informal institutional aspects surrounding all human interactions, whether these interactions take place within stable structures of legal rules and social norms or whether they attempt to change the said rules and norms. Finally, the paper shows that it is possible for old institutionalists to make institutional individualist analyses of institutional changes while retaining the remaining methodological assumptions of the school. The same is true for new institutionalists. Some examples are offered from both camps. - cje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/6/765

Wide content individualism 
DM Walsh 
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, David Hume Tower, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JX, UK d.walsh@ed.ac.uk 
Wide content and individualist approaches to the individuation of thoughts appear to be incompatible; I think they are not. I propose a criterion for the classification of thoughts which captures both. Thoughts, I claim, should be individuated by their teleological functions. Where teleological function is construed in the standard way - according to the aetiological theory - individuating thoughts by their function cannot produce a classification which is both individualistic and consistent with the principle that sameness of wide content is sufficient for sameness of psychological state. There is, however, an alternative approach to function, the relational theory, which is preferable on independent grounds. A taxonomy of thoughts based on these functions reconciles wide content with individualism. One consequence of individuating thoughts in this way is that intentional content is context sensitive. I discuss some of the implications of context sensitive content. - mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/107/427/625

Utilitarian Individualism and Panel Nonresponse 
Geert Loosveldt and Ann Carton 
In models of survey participation, utilitarian individualism can be considered as a relevant social psychological characteristic. Data from a panel survey are used to evaluate the effect of utilitarian individualism on the nonresponse of the second wave of a panel. The results show that after controlling for gender, education, political interest, and two indicators of respondent's behavior, people characterized by a high degree of utilitarian individualism are less willing to participate in the interview of the second wave of a panel. The consequences of this selective nonresponse for the measurement of utilitarian individualism are discussed. - ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/4/428

Perception of individualism and collectivism in Dutch society: A developmental approach 
Louis Oppenheimer, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
Within Triandis’s (1994) theoretical framework, two studies are reported that deal with the developmental course for subjective perceptions of cultural dimensions in Dutch society (i.e., vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism). While perceptions of society are always subjectively determined, the perceived dimensions that are prevalent in society do not necessarily have to parallel subjective evaluations of the self in terms of the same dimension. In the first study, 245 secondary school pupils and 268 psychology students participated; they were divided into six age groups with mean ages 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, and 22 years and above. Outcomes on the Individualism–Collectivism scale (INDCOL; Singelis et al., 1995) demonstrated age- and gender-related changes in perception of society. By calculating the separate dimensions of individualism, collectivism, verticality, and horizontality, a disappearance of collectivism and verticality and an increase in horizontality across age were observed. In the second study, 226 adolescents divided into five age groups participated (mean ages 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 years). They were presented with a generalised and personal version of the INDCOL. Again, age- and gender-related differences were observed. Of interest was the presence of a developmental lag between general and personal perceptions of collectivism, with personal perceptions following general perceptions. The increase in personal adherence to horizontality (i.e., equality among people) across age followed and exceeded the general perceptions of horizontality in society. - jbd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/336

Individualism and the Formation of Values 
Solon T. Kimball, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida 
The assumption by educators, theologians, jurists, or others that right behavior can be achieved by the implantation of values in the individual fails to take account of the dynamics of value formation and change and of their relation to the social environment. 
Failure to include the social reality as the source of values may be attributed largely to the deeply imbedded focus upon the individual in Western civilization. This focus is found in those explanations which attribute individual behavior to instinct, to drive, to some innate force such as the libido, or to a spiritual connection with some antecedent supernatural power. 
Recourse to these sources as explanatory of individual development in any of its aspects is unsatisfactory. Instead, we need to examine the supraindividual cultural mechanisms embodied in the individual's categories of understanding and canons of discrimination. From cultural norms the individual learns how to evaluate and to develop values about himself and the world. Values are acquired through participation with others in groups, and in their manifestation express the qualities of an individual which we call character. - jab.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/4/465

The Problem of Western Individualism

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