SOCIAL DILEMMA BEHAVIOR OF INDIVIDUALS FROM HIGHLY INDIVIDUALIST AND COLLECTIVIST CULTURES

Existing studies of social dilemmas in other cultures report patterns of behavior that are very similar to that of American subjects. This h as held even in cultures that are seemingly quite different from the U nited States in terms of their emphasis on the collective over the ind ividual. We argue that, in fact, these cultures are not as different f rom the United States with regard to collectivity as they seem. In our study, we contrast the American-the most individualistic of ah cultur es-with the Vietnamese, an extremely collectivist culture. In the firs t study, American and South Vietnamese subjects played a number of tri als of a public goods or resource dilemma game. The patterns of cooper ation among the Americans were typical of most social dilemma studies. The Vietnamese, however, cooperated at an exceptionally high rate. In a second study, subjects were pitted against a variety of preprogramm ed strategies that varied as to their toughness. The Americans respond ed in predictable ways, but the Vietnamese were again extremely cooper ative, even when competing against an Al1-D (100% competition) strateg y. The results suggest that cultural norms contribute somewhat to mixe d-motive behavior.