ABSTRACT
Some cultural psychologists have proposed that there is not a universal path of human
development but rather development of two types, unevenly distributed around the world:
an individualist (or idiocentric or independent) path characteristic of the industrialized
West and a collectivist (or sociocentric or interdependent) path characteristic of nearly all
other societies (Greenfield, 1994; Harkness, Raeff, & Super, 2000; Kagitcibasi, 1996;
Kim, Triandus, Kagitcibasi, Choi, & Yoon, 1994; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Shweder &
Bourne, 1984; Triandis, 1995). Although this distinction draws on anthropological
observations and theories, most anthropologists at the end of the 20th century react to this
division as a relic of an earlier way of thinking.1 This chapter explains why general
cultural characterizations of this sort-indeed the very concept of culture-have been
questioned by anthropologists; proposes a better way of thinking about culture; and
illustrates the complexities of culture with research about the ways U.S. Americans
explain economic standing. I argue (similarly to Turiel, 1996; see also Killen & Wainryb,
2000; Wainryb, 1997) that there are conflicting cultural models to explain economic
standing in the United States. Some of these are individualist, others collectivist, and still
others are mixed or hard to classify. I depart from the work of Turiel and others, however,
in showing that individualist cultural models of class standing were psychologically
dominant in the United States near the end of the 20th century and probably still are in
many respects. The new way of thinking about culture proposed here helps to explain why
defenders and critics of the individualism/collectivism distinction both have part of the truth..
