Abstract

As we all know, there are many scholars who had done lots of studies on individualism and collectivism in history. Such as Hofstede, he came up with the culture dimensions which are regarded as the groundbreaking study of Individualism and collectivism; Triandis studied the issue from vertical and horizontal aspects; Peng and Wong studied individualism and collectivism by survey method. However, there is still no specific definition of individualism and collectivism. Today, with the releases of The Pursuit of Happiness and Chinese Partner, the themes of two movies have caused a heated debate of individualism and collectivism again. In order to have a better understanding of individualism and collectivism, the author analyzes American individualism and Chinese collectivism as representatives in movies.
On the basis of the points mentioned above, the paper begins with the definitions of individualism and collectivism which made by many scholars. Then the paper goes to the studies of American individualism and Chinese collectivism from three aspects: the family value, the shaping of personality and the social activity. In this part, the author studies the three aspects combined with two movies, and figures out three aspects’ different behaviors under the influence of American individualism and Chinese collectivism. Based on all this, the paper finally comes up several conclusions of American individualism and Chinese collectivism, which will give us a better understanding of individualism and collectivism.
 
Keywords: collectivism; individualism; American individualism; Chinese collectivism

摘要

众所周知，在历史上有很多学者对集体主义和个人主义做过研究。例如，霍夫斯泰德提出的文化跨度，它就被认为是集体主义和个人主义的开创性研究；特里安迪斯在垂直水平维度上对于该问题的研究；彭和王通过调查法对集体主义和个人主义的研究。但是对于个人主义和集体主义仍然没有得出一个明确的定义。
现在，随着电影“当幸福来敲门”和“中国合伙人”的上映，两部电影的主题再次引起了人们对集体主义和个人主义这一话题的热议。为了能更好的理解集体主义和个人主义，作者将以电影中的中国的集体主义和美国的个人主义作为典型代表来分析这一问题。
    鉴于上述所给的观点。这篇论文的开头会介绍许多学者对于个人主义和集体主义的定义。之后从家庭观，个性的塑造以及社会活动这三个方面来分析美国的个人主义和中国的集体主义，在这一部分中，作者会结合电影来分析这三个方面的所表现出来的差异。在做好了上述的几点之后，论文会得出一些关于美国的个人主义和中国的集体主义的特点，这些特点会帮助我们对于集体主义和个人主义有一个更好的理解。

关键词：中国的集体主义；美国的个人主义; 个人主义；集体主义