The Effect of Bilingualism on Individualism and Collectivism: The Case of Saudi Arabic/English Bilinguals

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of bilingualism on the individualistic and collectivistic attitudes adopted by Saudi Arabic–English bilinguals in light of the linguistic relativity theory which stipulates that language affects cognition. This study hypothesized that when Saudi bilinguals speak Arabic, they will express more collectivistic attitudes. In contrast, when they use English, they will become more individualistic. In addition, the study explored linguistic and demographic factors (i.e. gender, level of education, L2 proficiency, age of acquiring L2, and years spent in L2-speaking country) that might predict Saudi bilinguals’ adoption of individualistic and collectivistic attitudes in Arabic and English. For this purpose, data were collected from 68 Arabic-English Saudi bilinguals (34 females and 34 males). Two individualism and collectivism instruments were used: a 32-item scale by Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, and Gelfand (1995) and 10 scenarios adopted from Triandis, Chen, and Chan (1998). Following a within-subjects design, the researcher used the two instruments to measure the individualistic and collectivistic attitudes of the study participants in both Arabic and English with an interval of three weeks between responses in each language. The findings revealed no significant influence of language on the individualistic and collectivistic attitudes adopted by Saudi bilinguals. However, gender and level of education factors were found to influence the participants’ collectivistic cultural attitudes when responding in English. More precisely, there was significant variation in the English responses of the participants on the collectivistic scale that could be attributed to gender and level of education.