Collectivists describe roles while individualists describe group categories

Evidence

When looking closely at spontaneously generated social identity descriptions in different cultures, a distinct pattern emerges: while collectivist participants in collectivist cultures generally refer more to social relationships and role identities, those in individualistic cultures are more likely to refer to social group or social category memberships (e.g., Watkins et al., 1998; see also, Brewer & Chen, 2007, for a consistent conclusion). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1626

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with how reputation-based trading groups (law merchant, diamond bourse) are organized around relational webs and role positions, not abstract categories. — connects to: Collectivist frames attribute causality to whole groups rather than individual actors — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 1028; the MOC “The Forge and the Other: How Power, Discourse, and Encounter Cast the Self”
• SEED: Article angle: the distinction between relational identity (who you are to specific people) and categorical identity (which box you check) as the real individualism/collectivism split.