Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: Individualism appears to have increased over the past several decades, yet most research documenting this shift has been limited to the study of a handful of highly-developed countries. Is the world becoming more individualistic as a whole? If so, why? To address these questions, here we examine 51 years of data on individualistic practices and values across 77 countries. Our findings suggest that individualism is indeed rising in most of societies we tested. Despite dramatic shifts towards greater individualism around the world, cultural differences remain sizeable. Moreover, cultural differences are primarily linked to changes in socioeconomic development, and to a lesser extent to shifts in pathogen prevalence, disaster frequency, and climatic stress.