Individualism, Collectivism, and Social Epidemics
Psychologists have long puzzled over why social epidemics spread so much more quickly in some countries than others. For instance, in the past 50 years, smoking patterns in industrialized countries have shown a general trend in which the number of smokers first increase before decreasing. However, in the United States, U.K., Australia, and many others, the trend is much sharper and more dramatic than in countries like Sweden, France, and Japan.
For example, in both the United States and Sweden, less than 10% of the countries’ populations smoked in the early 1920s. In the United States, that proportion rose to nearly 40% by 1965 before dropping to around 10% by 2010. However, in Sweden, it wasn’t until the 1980s that the number of smokers peaked at around 30% and before tapering to 15% in 2010.
Percent of Smokers in Population in U.S (red) and Sweden (blue)
Now, a new mathematical model developed by John Lang and his research group at the University of Waterloo offers an explanation. They collected extensive historical data on smoking prevalence and the types of societies involved before building a mathematical model that describes how smoking behavior is transmitted through a society. Their research suggests that smoking in a population is similar to how other epidemics in how it spreads. The key factor that determines the rate at which the behavior spreads seems to be the how individualistic or collectivistic the society is. That is, the emphasis on independence and self-reliance as opposed to interdependence and collaboration appears to be critical to the spread of smoking. This classification of societies was popularized by social psychologist Geert Hofstede, who developed ways to measure differences in cultural values and ideologies.
Their work defies previous psychological ideas, which assumed that patterns of behavior change more quickly in countries that emphasize collectivism. Their rationale was that once an idea has taken hold, the pressure to conform means it spreads rapidly. And conversely, in countries that emphasize individualism, patterns of behavior must change more slowly because there is less social pressure to conform.
At first this seems reasonable from our study of network effects in class, since you are more likely to align your behavior with the behavior of others when there is social pressure to conform. In other words, by conforming to society, you receive the direct-benefit of reduced social pressure.
However, the data on smoking shows exactly the reverse. Sweden was much slower to adopt smoking and much slower to stop. Lang’s model suggests that collectivistic societies experience more social inertia that prevents people from making decisions quickly. If we look again at smoking behavior in Sweden from the point of view of network effects, we see that initially, when few people smoke, there is little direct-benefit in starting to smoke. Similarly, once the smoking epidemic reaches it peak and people learn about its health risks, they are slower to stop smoking since there is little direct-benefit in quitting. So this revised view offers a better explanation of smoking epidemics and how it relates to the type of the society.
The important thing is that smoking is just one socially contagious phenomenon. Lang’s mathematical model may apply to many other behaviors, which can enable us to better understand how different cultures respond to different epidemics.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/529126/mathematicians-explain-why-social-epidemics-spread-faster-in-some-countries-than-others/