Societies differ in how freely people can form and leave relationships, and the difference predicts trust, self-disclosure and how much effort goes into maintaining existing ties.
The argument reframes several findings usually attributed to individualism: where relationships are easily replaced, people invest in attracting new partners through self-promotion and disclosure, and where they are not, people invest in not damaging the ones they have. Behaviour that reads as a personality difference between societies may be a rational response to how costly it is to leave.
In practice
- A worker who can change jobs easily raises problems directly; one who cannot works around them for years.
- A village where everyone will still be there in twenty years produces more politeness and less candour than a city.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is market structure in relationships: where partners are easily replaced, people invest in attracting new ones through self-disclosure and visible warmth, and where they are not, people invest in maintaining the ties they have.
- In its favour
- It reframes several findings usually attributed to individualism with a mechanism that is more specific and more testable, and cross-national measures do correlate with trust and self-disclosure as predicted.
- Against it
- It is measured largely by self-report across a set of national samples, the construct is newer than the cross-cultural claims built on it, and causal direction between mobility and the behaviours it predicts is not established.
- Standing
- Measured largely by self-report across a set of national samples; the construct is newer than the cross-cultural claims built on it.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- The measured patterns of social life