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Abstract

Over the past two decades, China has experienced rapid economic and social development, accompanied by significant cultural changes. Mixed findings have been found in previous studies on changes in individualism and collectivism in China. We propose that discrepancies regarding collectivism change can be explained by collectivism components changing in different directions, driven by modernization. To further explore this issue, we examined cultural changes in the Google Corpus of Chinese books (1990-2018) and Sina Weibo (2011-2020) using word frequency analysis. Shared conclusions in both datasets are that first-person singular pronouns reflecting self-attentional focus increased over time, while first-person plural pronouns reflecting concern for others decreased, and the division of collectivism components in changing directions and relationships with modernization. In other aspects, the two datasets reflected cultural change differently. Google Books results showed a stronger focus on family and in-group relations, reflecting the heritage of traditional Chinese culture that was not related to modernization. As a better representation of public expressions, the results of Sina Weibo were more consistent with our expectations, showing a rising trend in institutional collectivism accompanied by higher education levels and universalism. This study highlights the need for future research that considers collectivism a multidimensional variable and uses multiple research methods to explore possible causes and effects of cultural changes.

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