Robert D. Meade

Conformity and Anticonformity Among Americans and Chinese.

Summary Using a three-variable design, this study investigated conformity to male and female group pressures among Chinese and American male college students. Methodologically, it departed from traditional group pressure studies in a number of ways: (a) the study was conducted outside the psychological laboratory where demand characteristics of the situation were believed to resemble college life conditions more closely, (b) it utilized changes in personal opinions about beliefs rather than perceptual judgments, (c) it employed unobtrusive, as well as conventional, means of measuring conformity. Another major difference was that S presented his opinion prior to those of the confederates who expressed contradictory opinions to those of S. Five confederates, all male or all female were used. S and confederate opinions and degree of strength of opinions were assessed on six controversial issues. Latency between hearing the controversial statement and Ss announcing his opinion was recorded. When S and all co...

Leadership Studies of Chinese and Chinese-Americans

Chinese college students in Hong Kong and Chinese-American college students in Hawaii ranked a list of 9 issues of critical concern to them and their college in terms of their relative importance. These students then met in groups of 6 with a group leader who had been trained in authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire leadership atmospheres and who utilized one of these conditions. The group was required to discuss the 9 issues and arrive at a group ranking. Finally, all subjects ranked the same issues individually a second time. Intercorrelations between group and final individual rankings were made. With Chinese subjects, it was found that authoritarian leadership produced a greater degree of cohesiveness of judgment than laissez-faire or democratic. Male leaders produced greater cohesiveness of group judgment than females. Emergent male leaders appeared in the female laissez-faire conditions but not when the laissez-faire leader was male. With Chinese-Americans, both democratic and authoritarian leadership atmospheres produced a high level of group cohesion of judgment. Male leaders were more successful in this respect than females. No emergent leaders appeared in any of the conditions. Speculation concerning differences between Chinese and Chinese-Americans suggests that the latter have experienced both authoritarian as well as democratic leadership atmospheres and can adapt to either while Chinese in an authoritarian culture demonstrate more successful adaptation to authoritarian atmospheres.

Future Time Perspectives of Americans and Subcultures in India

Earlier studies using projective tests showed that Americans wrote significantly more stories with future themes than did a comparable Indian sample. The present study tested samples from 7 Indian subcultures which have different family traditions. Ss were presented with 4 present tense sentences with 4 themes (economic, educational, occupational, and political, respectively) and asked to develop a story following from them. Kshatriyas, Sikhs and Parsees as well as Americans tended to write stories with future themes, while Brahmins, Vasiyas, Sudras and Muslims wrote stories with past themes. Also, the former groups had a higher need for achievement than the latter groups. It is suggested that measures of time perspective can profitably be used for assessing strength of motivation.

Motives for Child-Bearing in America and in India

Samples of male and female Americans, the higher varnas of Indian Hindus, and Indian Muslims completed stories designed to elicit motives for wanting to have children. Significant differences between cultural groups and sexes were found for number of children described, sex ratios, ages, and whether children were named. Expressed primary motives were: for American males-vicarious fulfillment of avocational desires, father-child love, the fathers loss of personal freedom; for American females-motherchild love, joy of watching children grow, loss of personal freedom; for Indian males-financial burden of fatherhood, vicarious fulfillment of vocational desires, improvement of status on being a father; for Indian females-improvement of status on being a mother, security in old age provided by sons, childrens respect for the mother. Indian Muslims deviated slightly from their Hindu compatriots chiefly in that male children were described, to the exclusion of females.