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An analysis of measurement equivalence with the help of multigroup mean and covariance structure analysis compared samples of INDCOL data from the US, Singapore and Korea. A discussion is provided on the recommendations regarding the interpretation of the INDCOL and issues in the analysis of measurement equivalence in cross-cultural research.

The scope of what is to be considered public domain has expanded in such a way that there has been a great loss of individual privacy. This phenomenon is largely a result of the difficulty of determining standards of reticence and privacy that permit individuals to participate in society without having to surrender their personal concerns to public scrutiny. There is a need to define the boundaries of public space and personal space in order to allow for the preservation of privacy.

The relationship between individualism and collectivism (I/C), ethnicity, and four other social variables was examined using data from 453 American college students of Chinese, Korean, and European descent. Measures of Chinese and Korean ethnicity were better predictors of collectivism than individualism. The strength of the relationship between ethnicity and collectivism was reduced substantially, however, once the influence of other social variables was controlled. In the domain of individualism, Chinese and Korean ethnicity were negatively associated with assertiveness and uniqueness, were not related to scores on a measure of private identity, and were not related to valuing of personal openness once frequency of religious attendance was controlled. Discussion centers around the implication of the findings for the broader conceptualization of I/C.

Starting from the theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, it is possible to describe the relationship between communication and individual thought in a new perspective. Thought is the autonomous production of a psychic system. Communication is the autonomous production of a social system. The relationship between psychic systems and social systems can be defined as 'structural coupling.' Such a coupling is realized in two steps. First, a single communication and a single thought happen simultaneously, and this allows the individual to think what he or she is understanding in communication. In this way, communication forms (social structures) may perturb a psychic system. Second, meaningful information about the perturbing social structures is produced in the psychic system, depending on psychic structures. Thanks to this autonomous production of meaning, a psychic system can be unique. It is necessary to describe both the structural coupling and the two different kinds of coupled structures; the social structures shaping the perturbing communication and the psychic structures shaping the meaning of this perturbation. The communication theory called coordinated management of meaning (CMM) provides an interesting description of the effects of structural coupling for individuals. The theory of structural coupling seems a promising way to explain how individual autonomy can be based on communication, avoiding harsh debates between individualism and collectivism.

A taxon is a nonarbitrary class whose existence is conjectured as an empirical question, not a mere semantic convenience. Numerous taxa are known to exist in nature and society (chemical elements, biological species, organic diseases, geological strata, kinds of stars, elementary particles, races, cultures, Mendelizing mental deficiencies, major psychoses, vocations, ideologies, religious). What personally types, if any, occur in the nonpathological population remains to be researched by sophisticated methods, and cannot be settle by fiat or 'dimensional' preference. The intuitive concept of taxonicity is to be explicated by a combination of formal-numerical and causal criteria. Taxometric methods should include consistency tests that provide Popperian risk of strong discorroboration. In social science, latent class methods are probably more useful than cluster algorithms.

A response of Asa Maria Wikforss to T. Burge's thought experiments in favor of social externalism, one which allows the individual to maintain that narrow content is truth-conditional without being idiosyncratic, is presented with reference to Burge's work Individualism and the Mental. The failure of Asa Maria Wikforss's argument against social externalism and the rejection of individualist position she endorsed are highlighted.

Scholarly opinion has been split uneasily between those who view Thomas Hobbes as a defender of Royalist absolutism and those who see him as the intellectual forefather of liberal individualism. While both these positions are compatible with Hobbes's deep-seated fear of intermediary associations between individual and state, this article will contend that it is his fear of the violent and irrational properties of groups that motivates his well-known individualism and gives a potentially illiberal bent to his political thought. Attending to Hobbes's neglected thoughts on the dangers posed by parties, sects, and other groups between individual and state sheds light on both the historical context and intellectual legacy of his thought. Hobbes's metaphorical complaints about those 'lesser Common-wealths' akin to 'wormes in the entrayles of a naturall man' also should prompt us to rethink many versions of contemporary pluralism and the vogue of civil society: Much of what today is recommended as 'civil society' was considered anything but 'civil' in the early modern political imagination.

Seymour Martin Lipset in his book 'American Exceptionalism: A Double-edged Sword' describes the exceptional nature of American politics. America has a special political culture that is based on the American creed of liberty, egalitarianism, populism, and laissez-faire. American citizenship involves an ideological commitment. The absence of socialism and the anti-statism are other unique developments in American politics. Culture has a contributory role in developing these political attitudes. Lipset emphasizes the impact of religion in the American political development.