Protocollectivism is the assumption that collective entities have human-like decision-making abilities, such as the ability to make value judgments.  This is the precursor to collectivism which is the act of valuing a group to be of more importance than an individual.  Protocollectivism is a subset of anthropomorphism, that is, attributing human-like qualities to non-human entities.  That is, human = individual, non-human = group or collective.