In the 1980s and 90s in psychology, many cross-cultural comparisons were made concerning individualism and collectivism with questionnaires and experiments. The largest number of them compared “collectivistic” Japanese with “individualistic” Americans. This chapter reviewed 48 such empirical comparisons and found that Japanese were no different from Americans in the degree of collectivism. Both questionnaire studies and experimental studies showed essentially the same pattern of results. Many researchers who believed in “Japanese collectivism” suspected flaws in those empirical studies. However, none of the suspected flaws was consistent with empirical evidence. For example, although it was suspected that “Japanese collectivism” was not supported because college students provided data as participants, the studies with non-student adults did not support this common view either. It is thus unquestionable that as a whole the empirical studies disproved the reality of “Japanese collectivism.”

This chapter reveals how hazardous a cultural stereotype could be by reviewing the U.S.-Japan trade friction. A cultural stereotype is typically formed by another culture and tends to attach negative value to the target culture. The preconception of “Japanese collectivism” created an image that Japanese economy must be a collective economy, which was ungrounded as shown in Chapter 4. When Americans faced a large trade deficit against Japan, this image caused fury at Japan’s “collective economy” among Americans who had individualism ideology and aversion to collectivism. The alleged collective economy of Japan justified severe trade restrictions against Japanese products and interference in domestic affairs of Japan, which caused collapse of major industries and finacial meltdown in Japan followed by stagnancy of Japanese economy. Cultural stereotypes brought even more serious disasters in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It is necessary to understand the properties of cultural stereotype in order to prevent it from exacerbating possible inter-group conflicts in the near future due to such global phenomena as population increase and global warming.

In the 1980s and 90s in psychology, many cross-cultural comparisons were made concerning individualism and collectivism with questionnaires and experiments. The largest number of them compared “collectivistic” Japanese with “individualistic” Americans. This chapter reviewed 48 such empirical comparisons and found that Japanese were no different from Americans in the degree of collectivism. Both questionnaire studies and experimental studies showed essentially the same pattern of results. Many researchers who believed in “Japanese collectivism” suspected flaws in those empirical studies. However, none of the suspected flaws was consistent with empirical evidence. For example, although it was suspected that “Japanese collectivism” was not supported because college students provided data as participants, the studies with non-student adults did not support this common view either. It is thus unquestionable that as a whole the empirical studies disproved the reality of “Japanese collectivism.”

Although it is widely believed that Japanese people are typical collectivists compared to individualistic Westerners, this view is not supported by empirical research. Employing “Japanese collectivism” as a case example, this book explores how the dichotomous view of cultures was established and investigates how cultural stereotypes exacerbate emotional conflicts between human groups. Drawing on empirical findings, it theoretically analyses the properties of cultural stereotype to reveal the hazards associated with stereotyping nations or ethnicities. Students and researchers from numerous disciplines, including psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, and economics, will gain fresh insights from this reconceptualization of culture.

Why was “Japanese collectivism” established as the symbolic image of Japanese culture although it is unreal? The notion of “Japanese collectivism” was formed in the West about 140 years ago. A Westerner who highly valued individualism and believed that Japan is opposite to the West visited Japan and published a book in which he claimed that Japanese lack individuality. His view was widely accepted by Westerners who also highly valued individualism. Under the influence of this prevailing view, American anthropologist Ruth Benedict studied Japan for one year as a member of the U.S. government during World War II. During the American occupation of Japan, she published her study as a book in which she delineated Japanese culture as a collectivistic one. Her book was widely read by the personnel of the U.S. government and Occupation Army as a guide on how to deal with the Japanese. The prestige of Americans during the occupation period made Japanese accept “Japanese collectivism” as the basic nature of Japanese culture. Once established, the notion of “Japanese collectivism” was sustained by various cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and belief perseverance.

Collectivism symbolizes Japanese culture for many people in the world including Japanese themselves. The “collectivistic Japanese” are alleged to have the following characteristics: They feel at ease only in a group; they merge into their group and thus lack individuality and autonomy; they are indistinguishable from one another; they conform to their group and cooperate with the group members even at the sacrifice of their own individual interests; their obedience to their group leads to the hierarchical authoritarian society. However, these characterizations are mostly based on casual observations and personal experiences instead of systematic acadmic investigation. In psychology, nevertheless, two influential studies generalized the contrast between Western culture and Japanese culture in collectivism and individualism to the contrast between Western culture and all the other cultures.

“Japanese collectivism” was criticized most fiercely in the field of economy during the U.S.-Japan trade friction. The Japanese economy was alleged to be collectivistic at three levels: At the company level, Japanese workers were alleged to be loyal to their companies and thus willing to work unusally long and hard. At the company group level, Japanese complanies were alleged to form a closed group (called keiretsu) that worked as a barrier against foreign competitors. At the country level, all Japanese companies were alleged to act like a single company (“Japan Inc.”) under the direction of the Japanese government. However, economic statistics and empirical studies disclosed that all these alleged properties of Japanese economy were unreal. For example, surveys almost unanimously revealed that American workers were more loyal to their companies than Japanese workers. Although Japan was allged to protect its domestic market against American products by means of non-tariff barriers, each Japanese paid as much for American products as each American paid for Japanese products. The disputed trade imbalance was actually created by the difference in population between these two nations.

Taking advantage of what have been learned about “Japanese collectivism,” this chapter theoretically examines cultural stereotype, which is a simplified and distorted image of a culture. The cultural stereotype tends to create the following four basic illusions: uniformity (“The Japanese are all collectivists”), polarity (“The Japanese are collectivists, whereas the Americans are individualists”), determinacy (“Japanese culture causes Japanese collectivism”), and permanency (“Japanese collectivism is immutable”). Contrary to the illusions of uniformity and polarity, actual data typically show large individual difference within each group, and the distributions of individual difference typically have a large overlap between groups. Contrary to the illusion of determinacy, human behavior tends to be affected more strongly by situation than by culture. Contrary to the illusion of permanency, culture as well as human mind and behavior tends to change as a result of intellectual activity and situational change.