Americans Value Community

“Americans like to see themselves as rugged individualists, a nation defined by the idea that people should set their own course through life,” but in reality we embrace group membership. “Are Americans really so uniquely individualistic?” the Boston Globe asks. “Are we, for example, more committed individualists than people in those socialist-looking nations of Europe? The answer appears to be no…Surprising as it may sound, Americans are much more likely than Europeans to say that employees should follow a boss’s orders even if the boss is wrong; to say that children ‘must’ love their parents; and to believe that parents have a duty to sacrifice themselves for their children.”