A Literal Mindset

To describe something as literal is to say that it is exactly what it seems to be. For example, if you put up a literal barrier to keep the world out, you've actually built a real wall. The background of literal includes the Latin litterālis, meaning "of letters or writing." Perfect meaning for a theoretical based culture

Parenting Strategies focused on Independence

In our comparative study it was vital that we studied the Individual First mindset representatives of Colonial Heritage Australian's foundation instinct of Individualism and compared it to Collective Peoples Foundation instinct of group first. Individualism is the idea that the individual’s life belongs to him and that he has an inalienable right to live it as he sees fit, to act on his own judgment, to keep and use the product of his effort, and to pursue the values of his choosing. It’s the idea that the individual is sovereign, an end in himself, and the fundamental unit of moral concern. It varies from person to person, but we used our experiences and intensive research, plus the results of many global studies to come up with an average mindset. What we also discovered was that having an Individual First Mindset can make you quite Literal in your approach to collaboration, love, judgement, parenting and relationships.

Narcissism is on the rise in modern Western societies and scientists are trying to figure out why. Some hypothesize that individual narcissism follows from the culture someone lives in: the more individualistic the culture, the more narcissistic people tend to be.

When most Australians look out at the world and see people, they see separate, distinct individuals. The Individual Mindset people may be in groups (say, on a soccer team or in a business venture), but the indivisible beings Australians see are individual people. Each has his own body, his own mind, his own life. Groups, insofar as they exist, are nothing more than individuals who have come together to interact for some purpose. This is an observable fact about the way the world is. It is not a matter of personal opinion or social convention, and it is not rationally debatable. It is a perceptual level, metaphysically given fact. Things are what they are; human beings are individuals.

Most Individual First people need qualifications and reputation to judge if a person can be trusted to work with, help or do their job. Whereas, Collective First person's trustworthy barometer is based on how comfortable they are with you and your associated knowledge, not your position or qualifications.

One interesting phenomenon that cross-cultural psychologists have observed is how people from individualist cultures describe themselves compared to how those from collectivist cultures like Indigenous peoples, describe themselves. People from Individualist society have self-concepts that are more focused on independence rather than interdependence. As a result, they tend to describe themselves in terms of their unique personal characteristics and traits. A person from this type of culture might say that "I am analytical, sarcastic, and athletic." This can be contrasted with self-descriptions from people living in collectivist societies, who would be more likely to say something like, "I am a good husband, a loving mother or loyal friend."

Just how much do these self-descriptions vary depending upon culture? Research conducted by Ma and Schoenemann (2007) found that while 60 percent of Kenyans (a collectivist culture) described themselves in terms of their roles within groups while 48 percent of Americans (an individualist culture) used personal characteristics to describe themselves.

We ran an activity to introduce the Collective Mindsets instinctive way of communicating indirectly in our Individual First Mindset dominant focus group work. The participants were required to negotiate the hire of an Aboriginal Dancer or similar and they were not allowed to use the words I, My or Myself in the conversation. I would say about 95% failed. These were participants from academia, corporate Australia who at times became so frustrated that they could not stop themselves from using the banned words. It was a way to prove that our default systems which drive our decisions and choices are in our subconscious, and your consciousness is a weak tiny kitten in comparison to it. – IF you are Individual First Mindset aligned and reading this try to speak for half an hour without saying I, My or Myself.

The belief that when you get old enough you should go out on your own and live your own life is very different to Indigenous Australian and Collective world view. Competitiveness is a big part of most people in the Individual First Australian life today. Progressing is important and not having ambition is thought of as a negative. Respect and trust is meant to be gained not given automatically. Children are not seen as having care giver responsibilities.

Members of cultures in the which Individualism is emphasised have an increased tendency for making the fundamental attribution error—explaining the cause of a person’s behaviour by reference to their innate character traits or personality rather than external sources. Jack is late because he is lazy, rather than Jack is late because of poor traffic. Because members of cultures that emphasise an independent self-construal are more likely to see themselves as independent agents, they are also more likely to perceive the behaviours of others as independent of context also.

Differences in the relative importance of the individual mates versus the group also drive variations in family structures and social ties and activity across cultures.

In cultures that emphasise independence, ties between members are loose. Nuclear families are more common than extended families. Love carries greater weight in marriage decisions, and divorce rates are higher. Members of those cultures are likely to engage in activities alone or in a limited group, and social interactions are shorter and less intimate, although they are much more frequent.

Collective first Mindset people’s Relationships

A constant clash of Instinctive difference that occurs between Collective First Indigenous cultures and the more Individual First Australian Colonist cultures is in the area of relationship boundaries.

Many Individual focused people have many boxes for different relationships – there are work, social, sporting, family, friends and romantic relationships. The Individual focused people seem to be able to move in and out of those relationships with comparative ease and are comfortable with their boxes, which of course change over time. For each of these relationship boxes there are rules and boundaries. You do not as a rule talk too much about your personal life to work colleagues and they are not usually included in your family events for example.

Collective Mindset (Indigenous) people usually only know one type of relationship. You are my friend and immediately part of my family! This is not overstating how Collective Mindset people relate at all. If you become part of their relationship pool (at work, sport, or in social settings etc.) then it is accepted that you are now privy to family information, community information, history & cultural information and you will be invited to many family and community events and there are very few rules or boundaries in place.

In our study we found most Individual First people are Analytic thinkers that break a problem down into smaller parts and focus on the individual components, progressing from the micro to the macro. They tend to pay close attention to the details of a problem without often considering contextual influences. In Individual First societies, there is an emotional need for rules (even if the rules never seem to work) time is money, people have an inner urge to be busy and work hard, precision and punctuality are the norm, security is an important element in individual motivation. When deciding on contractual agreements or partnerships it is not about relationship building it is about gain and therefore, Individual First people expect a quick resolution or at the least the person they are meeting with to be able to decide.

It became very clear in our research project comparing both Individual First Mindset people and Collective First People. Having an Individual First Mindset created a much more literal view of the world. This raises concerns for us about the need to parent children in these cultures to have more empathy, direct charity, spatial or relationship connection with their local communities and those outside their Mindset culture. There needs to be recognition that if we keep parenting children in these Mindsets to have many choices each day so they think for themselves, or be future and success driven, that they will not connect with the living landscapes of their communities. They will not have the mindset to put others first including saving the native plants and animals or stopping climate change. We do not want this current rate of Narcissism to create generations individualistic children encouraged to have a stronger focus on the self, the I and my needs before others at all times.

Nola Turner-Jensen is an Aboriginal writer, sociology researcher