Responsibilism - Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is responsibilism collectivism or something different? 

Responsibilism is a version of collectivism. There are different ways to think about collectivism. "Warm fuzzy" collectivism is one way to think about it. Responsibilism is another way to think about it. Still others could be concepts like utopian socialism or communitarianism. These are all legitimate ways to think about collectivism, but responsibilism is the version of collectivism that produces the highest criterion validity metrics in our study. It is also the one that, we argue, corresponds to the differences people have observed across cultures such as between East Asia and the West. 

2. Are responsibilism and warm fuzzy collectivism separate things?

Our results show that cultures that tend to agree with responsibilities in close relationships tend to disagree with warm fuzzy survey items (like "to me, pleasure is spending time with others"). In other words, these two tend to be in tension with each other. One way to think about this is that it's hard to put a strong emphasis on close relationships and emphasize weak ties and acquaintances. We have only so much time and mental space. 

3. Where does individualism fit in? 

Cultures that people often think of as individualistic (such as the US and UK) tend to agree more with warm fuzzy collectivism items. It's easy to think of individualism as selfishness, but we think it's probably more accurate to think of individualism as a cultural system with loose, flexible relationships, where people have more freedom to choose who they are around.