Cross-cultural studies from a global perspective contend that China and India are both collectivistic cultures. However, it remains to be seen whether China and India differ in their collectivism and if so, what social and ecological factors will be associated with them. China and India are both developing countries with large populations and traditional farming areas, but they have different cultural traditions concerning argumentation owing to their different historical backgrounds. Based on this, this study puts forward the hypothesis that Chinese people are more collectivist than Indians. And it is also discussed in this study whether the differences in collectivism between Chinese and Indians are associated with the different cultural heritage concerning the argumentation between China and India.
The research samples mainly come from online surveys, including social media, mailboxes, sample service platforms, and other survey approaches. Study 1，including 211 Chinese samples and 227 Indian samples, compared the collectivism difference between China and India in social relations and cognition style. The self-report scale was used to measure the "compatriotism" and "familism”of Chinese and Indian participants, and the scenario test was used to measure the "nepotism" of Chinese and Indian participants. The picture classification task was used to compare the "holistic thinking" of Chinese and Indian participants. The results show that the ingroup favoritism of Chinese participants is more than that of Indian participants, that is, collectivism is higher in China than that in India in social relationships. In terms of cognition style, the score of "holistic thinking" of Chinese participants was also higher than that of Indian participants, this means the Chinese people were more holistic than the Indians, and the results also showed that Chinese people are more collectivistic than the Indians.
In order to further verify the above findings and whether they are associated with the different cultural heritage concerning argumentation between China and India, we conducted another survey similar to Study 1，using 187 samples from China and 191 samples from India. Besides, 186 samples from the United States as a control group was included also in study 2. The variables”Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS)" and "Propensity to Experience Engaging vs. Disengaging Emotions" were used to measure the collectivist differences between China and India. And "nepotism" was also measured again to verify the reliability of the study. The "assertiveness" and "argumentativeness", which are directly related to the cultural heritage concerning argumentation, are used to explore their relationship with the differences between collectivism in China and India. It is found that the ingroup favoritism of Chinese is stronger than that of Indians, while they are more self-interdependent and less assertive and argumentative than Indians.
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