Tracing Cultural Shifts in Individualism and Collectivism through Language, Urbanization, and Internet Use

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_117How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Cultural Change; Individualism; Collectivism; Google Books Ngram Viewer; Urbanization; Internet Penetration

Abstract

This study examines long-term cultural shifts in individualism and collectivism by analyzing English word frequencies in the Google Books Ngram corpus (1800–2022). Five pairs of individualism–collectivism words (I–we, me–us, get–give, self–obligation, choose–obey) were used to construct a composite individualism–collectivism (IC) index. The results show a steady rise in the use of individualistic words, especially since the mid-20th century, indicating a cultural shift toward individualism. Correlational analyses revealed strong associations between the IC index and global ecological indicators. The IC index correlated positively with world urbanization (r = .96, p < 1.5 × 10⁻⁸, R² = .92) and internet penetration (r = .88, p < 1.4 × 10⁻⁶, R² = .78), supporting Greenfield’s theory of social change and human development. These findings replicate and extend earlier studies by integrating ecological data, demonstrating that linguistic markers of culture are closely linked to large-scale societal transformations. The study highlights the value of cultural big data approaches and points toward future work on how emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, may further reshape cultural values.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xing Huang
AU  - Wei Qi Elaine Perunovic
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/26
TI  - Tracing Cultural Shifts in Individualism and Collectivism through Language, Urbanization, and Internet Use
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 5th International Conference on Culture, Design and Social Development (CDSD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1046
EP  - 1052
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_117
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_117
ID  - Huang2026
ER  -