Washington, July 12 (ANI): A new study suggests that people with individualistic mindsets differ from their collectivist counterparts in ascribing value to those perfect combinations.
The collection of new studies demonstrate that people with collectivist mindsets tend to value the relationships between items more than the particular items themselves.
People with individualistic mindsets, on the other hand, tend to see an item's intrinsic value, and are, therefore, more likely to split up a complete set of items.
The individualistic mindset, as psychological scientist and lead author Daphna Oyserman of the University of Michigan and her colleagues explain, centers around personal goals.
"Institutions and relationships are just backdrops to individual striving," Oyserman said.
This individualistic mindset is found most often in the United States and Western Europe, according to the study.
Conversely, the collectivist mindset is more common in Eastern cultures, and ascribes value to the oneness of communities, stressing the relationships between individuals, the study said.
Though research has typically focused on relationships between individual people and their communities, Oyserman and her colleagues were interested in how these different mindsets affect consumer decision-making.
The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. (ANI)