Perceptions of Mobile Phone Use in Public: The Roles of Individualism, Collectivism, and Focus of the Setting

Abstract

This study explored whether individualism and collectivism intersect with the nature of a social setting to predict perceptions of (un)acceptable mobile phone use in public. A survey revealed that participants with a collectivistic orientation tended to be more tolerant of mobile phone use in settings that do not involve a communal focus of attention, such as stores and sidewalks. In addition, individualism significantly predicted intolerance for use of the technology in settings with a more central focus, including theaters and classrooms. The discussion offers insights and potential cross-cultural implications.

Keywords:

• Cell phone
• Collectivism
• Goffman
• Individualism
• Mobile communication
• Mobile phone
• Norms

Notes

∗p < .05.

Eleven nonmobile phone users were among those sampled for this study and were removed from the dataset for analyses.

International students are expected to have a basic level of proficiency with the English language upon enrollment in the university, and therefore it was assumed that all participants fully understood the scale items and instructions. Yet, it is possible that lower reliability alphas may be partially attributable to a variation in language skills among those students in the English Foundations Program.

Although there are universal tendencies for the constructs, it is important to acknowledge there are different kinds of individualism and collectivism which may be associated with different national and cultural groupings (Triandis, 1995; Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). In addition to variation in language skills, cultural diversity may also be an explanation for lower reliability alphas for these constructs.