Allocentrism

Allocentrism is a collectivistic personality attribute whereby people center their attention and actions on other people rather than themselves. It is a psychological dimension which corresponds to the general cultural dimension of collectivism. In fact, allocentrics "believe, feel, and act very much like collectivists do around the world." Allocentric people tend to be interdependent, define themselves in terms of the group that they are part of, and behave according to that group’s cultural norms. They tend to have a sense of duty and share beliefs with other allocentrics among their in-group. Allocentric people appear to see themselves as an extension of their in-group and allow their own goals to be subsumed by the in-group’s goals. Additionally, allocentrism has been defined as giving priority to the collective self over the private self, particularly if these two selves happen to come into conflict.

Allocentrism is closely related to collectivism; it is the psychological manifestation of collectivism. Scholars have discussed collectivism since at least the 1930s. Collectivism has been used to describe cultural level tendencies and has been described as a "broad cultural syndrome.". It was not until much later (1985) that Triandis, Leung, Villareal, and Clack proposed that the term allocentrism be used to describe collectivistic tendencies on the individual level. They proposed this because of the confusion that arises when talking about cultural level collectivism versus individual level collectivism. Allocentrism, therefore, has been used since by some scholars to describe personal collectivism, "the individual level analog of cultural collectivism," as a very broad cultural trait.

Allocentrism is contrasted with idiocentrism, the psychological manifestation of individualism. As stated earlier, allocentrism includes holding values and preferences of placing higher importance on in-group needs and goals over one’s own, defining oneself in terms of the in-group, and seeing oneself as an extension of the in-group. Idiocentrism, however, is an orientation whereby individuals hold quite different values and preferences from those with an allocentric orientation. Idiocentric people tend to focus more on their own goals and needs rather than in-group ones. They prefer self-reliance, to make their own decisions without worrying about what others think, and enjoy competition. It seems people can be both allocentric and idiocentric, but how much they are either is dependent on the situation and how the individual defines that situation. Certain situations encourage more allocentric behavior. These are found more in some cultures than others. These situations include when people are rewarded by the social context for being group orientated, when cultural norms encourage conformity which leads to success, when goals are easier achieved through group action, and when there are not many options for acting independently.

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