How Cultural Factors Influence Empathy Levels in Specific Contexts: A Comparision Between Individualism and Collectivism

Abstract

As one of the opposite cultures, people who live under individualistic and collectivistic cultures always have diverse ideologies. Basic on this, this article aims to explore the empathy difference between these two cultures. The first part of the essay provides a literature review to clarify different terminology and points out the hypothesis. Secondly, an experiment was designed to interview culturally diverse respondents. This essay selected China and Australia to represent collectivism and individualism. To get a more prosperous answer, the interviewees in this experiment are mainly undergraduates or above. The interview is scheduled mainly in two parts, one is to quote GLOBE methods to test whether the experiments are representative of individualism/collectivism. In addition, the various emphases were measured based on the progressive test. The final comparison showed that people from collectivist backgrounds have a more significant role in empathy when they encounter things and show slightly more compassion for different things than people from individualistic backgrounds.