George A. De Vos

Japanese validation of the CPI social maturity index.

The scales of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) seek to measure “folk concepts,” variables originating in and shaped by interpersonal life and hence predictive of significant outcomes in everyday behavior. Scale configurations partake of this interactional relevance and are intended to heighten the inventorys diagnostic accuracy. One such profile pattern is that for social maturity, in which the dominance, responsibility, socialization, and flexibility scales are weighted positively and the good impression and communality scales negatively. In American and Italian samples this index gave “hit” rates of 90.2% and 82.3% in classifying delinquents and nondelinquents. For 113 non-delinquent and 36 delinquent Japanese males the social maturity means were 47.39 (SD, 3.44) and 40.80 (SD, 2.70); 88.6% of the 149 Ss were correctly classified by a cutting score of 42.

Psycho-Cultural Significance of Concern Over Death and Illness Among Rural Japanese

D EATH and illness are of universal concern. Nevertheless, cultures differ widely in explanation of the causes of these human phenomena as well as in the degree and nature of preoccupation with them. Especially in societies where naturalistic appraisements are lacking, often malevolent sorcery or witchcraft is used as a ready explanation. Whatever the explanation accepted within the culture, social scientists have been interested in understanding the implicit meanings of concern over death and illness. Recent interpretations such as those of Hallowell(7,8) and Kluckhohn(9) cogently point out the fact that the attributing of sorcery or witchcraft as a source of illness is not due solely to a lack of availability of naturalistic explanations. Such beliefs may also have a specific function in relation to the handling of aggressive feelings. Thus, continual concern over potential illness or death, especially when related to ideas concerning the possible evil intentions of one’s avowed or secret enemies, may function as a &dquo;projection&dquo; of aggressive impulses. Another type of relationship between concern over death and illness and a culturally-determined mode of structuring aggression has become apparent to the authors in the course of their work with Thematic Apperception Test material taken from persons in rural Japanese villages.t Concern with death and illness for Japanese seems in many instances to be related to the &dquo;introjection&dquo; of guilt

Marginality and social isolation in urban Japan

Carolyn S. Stevens, On the Margins of Japanese Society: volunteers and the welfare of the urban underclass, Routledge, ISBN 0415146488, AUS

Socialisation and Social Vitality: A Psychocultural Perspective

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Culture and self : Asian and Western perspectives

Most observers of Japan would agree that Japanese society is characterised by a high level of social vitality. Since such assessments are usually based on economic considerations, they are dominated by images of a country with a highly efficient industrial system that exports vast quantities of quality goods abroad and accumulates tremendous wealth at home. Social vitality in Japan is thus most frequently measured by economic indicators such as GNP, industrial productivity, trade surplus, stock market performance, unemployment, economic growth, etc. Despite the ‘objectivity’ of these criteria, such narrow economic accounts of Japanese social vitality seem inadequate, especially for holistically minded anthropologists who traditionally address social issues from a comprehensive multi-dimensional perspective which examines not only economic factors but also cultural, institutional, educational, interactional and psychological indices of social interaction and social continuity.