The Institute of Statistical Mathematics has been conducting a longitudinal nationwide survey on the Japanese national character every 5 years since 1953. Since 1971, this survey has been extended to foreign nations for a more advanced understanding of the Japanese national character in the context of a cross-national comparative study. The main focus of a cross-national survey is the comparison of the social values, ways of thinking, feelings, and other relevant aspects of people from various nations. Another important purpose of our study is to investigate those conditions under which meaningful cross-national comparability of social survey data is guaranteed.
As the introduction in this special issue, we will explain our research paradigm, which we refer to as ‘cultural link analysis’, discuss the methodological problem of cross-national survey and give an overview of our past surveys. Finally, we will provide some comments for our future research.
相似文献This paper discusses macro analysis of social change by means of cohort analysis. The material is based on over thirty-five years of experience with Chikio Hayashi, conducting statistical analyses of the Japanese National Character studies (Hayashi, 1987; Hayashi and Suzuki 1984; Suzuki. 1970).
In the mid 1980s, a new Bayesian approach to cohort analysis was introduced (Nakamura, 1982, 1986).
The details of this method are discussed elsewhere (see Sasaki and Suzuki, 1987; Glenn, 1989; Sasaki and Suzuki, 1989). We have used this new methodology, which can automatically partition age effects, period effects, and cohort effects, and here we will present some of our results using Bayesian cohort analysis (Suzuki, 1986).
相似文献Using survey results of Japanese Americans (JA) living on the West Coast of the USA in 1998, and JA and non-JA living in Hawaii in 1999–2000, we examined cultural links between native Japanese, JAs, and Americans. For data on Japanese and Americans, survey results from 1988 were used for the analysis. To understand the social and cultural similarities and differences among Japanese, JAs, and American society groups, we examined interpersonal attitudes, ways of thinking, religious attitudes, and so forth. The results revealed that Japanese- like attitudes were maintained in both society groups of JA. The cultural links of these society groups was not one-dimensional.
相似文献This paper discusses different methods of measuring and comparing national character cross-nationally, considered respectively in terms of a multifaceted phenomenon and a specific aspect such as the quality of life. Using data collected in seven nations, we first applied the GHT model with VA representations to both a global and a specific pool of quality of life items, making use of the concept of “superculture” as a basis of comparison among countries. We then undertook principal components analysis for another global pool of items and the quality of life items, comparing the structure of different attitudes and the substantive level of quality of life among countries. The substantive results of the different methods of analyses concurred in some respects and differed in others. Importantly, the paper underscored the complementarity of different methods as equally fruitful ways to understanding national character in a cross-national context.
相似文献It is well known that health and social factors are closely related. The aim of this study is to examine subjective health through the analysis of cross-national comparative surveys to clarify cultural characteristics of subjective health (self-rated health). I examined countries/areas using the results of our past surveys (Table 1. Yoshino, Nikaido & Fujita, 2009, Behaviormetrica, 36, 2, 89–113). In this analysis, I examined self-rated health symptoms, health satisfaction, life satisfaction, and sense of anxiety as well as other social factors. Multidimensional data analyses of all items on subjective health and on social factors showed a similar pattern between countries/areas. Furthermore, multidimensional scaling for Japanese emigrants and their offsprings and their related countries showed meaningful cultural links of comparison but not so large generational difference between 2-SEI and 3-SEI with respect to health and life satisfactions.
相似文献Does globalization have a positive or negative impact on democracy? One reason this problem has gone unsolved is found in the fact that most studies to date have not made systematic use of empirical data to test propositions concerning the relationship between globalization and democracy. While there have been studies that have made a pioneering systematic contribution through the use of macroeconomic and other aggregate statistics, this article empirically examines whether globalization enhances or constrains democracy by using cross-national survey data collected in 17 countries (the Asia-Europe Survey). Our empirical testing has shown that globalization tends to be positively correlated to democratic activism at the individual level, suggesting the possibility that experiences of globalization strengthen democracy.
相似文献This paper analyzes the longitudinal changes of Japanese attitudes toward nature and environment (ATNE) using Japanese character survey data, and explores the structural characteristics of response patterns to the ATNE in Japan, USA and five European nations based on analytical results derived from crossnational survey data. We also discuss the relationships of respondent’s attributes relative to the structure of their response patterns using the visual configuration obtained by correspondence analysis. In addition, we verify how racial, cultural, geographic diversities change people’s ATNE in various circumstances. As a result, we have found that Japan is similar to France, and Germany is similar to Britain and the Netherlands. We have also seen that the USA is similar to Italy in the aspect of the ATNE whereas the Japanese have their own distinctive structures of response patterns to the ATNE when compared to the Americans and the Europeans.
相似文献This paper shows the utility of a psychometric model called the generalized high threshold (GHT) model to cross-national comparative studies of national characters based on public opinion data. This model provides a sort of scalar measure of conformity of each nation to a hypothetical culture called the superculture. The superculture is a “standard” against which those nations are compared for the elucidation of their mutual relationships. Furthermore, a new representation method called the vectorial angular (VA) representation is developed for a graphical representation of the GHT model. In this representation all nations are represented as vectors, and the measures of conformity and the matching rates of responses of cross-national public opinion research are represented by the angles between those vectors. The GHT model and the VA representation are applied to two cases: the comparative study of national characters (France, FRG, Japan, the UK and the USA); the comparative study of opinions on the issues of EC unification (12 European countries). These applications show the utility of the model and representation for both domain-independent and domain-specific comparative studies of national characters at the exploratory phase of research.
相似文献This paper discusses the acculturation of Japanese descents through the approach of exploratory data analysis. When considering acculturation, it may be common sense to consider that Sansei are more assimilated with the culture of the immigrated country than are Nisei. While observing the survey results, the question “Is this really true?” occurred to me. The point of the study is to examine, by extensive sample surveys, the hypothesis that acculturation among generations of immigrants is of two types, namely: ‘natural acculturation’ and ‘a tendency of turning toward the Japanese way of thinking.’ This is considered to be an important point when the acculturation of a race is considered.
The author deals with the degree of acculturation among generations of Japanese Americans and Japanese Brazilians, based on international comparative survey results among the host society, ethnic society and different immigrant groups consisting of several generations.
The results supported the hypothesis that acculturation among generations of immigrants is of two types. Possible factors related to socio-education may also exert effects on their attitudes and values.
相似文献Research on COVID-19 has proliferated rapidly since the outbreak of the pandemic at the end of 2019. Many articles have aimed to provide insight into this fast-growing theme. The social sciences have also put effort into research on problems related to COVID-19, with numerous documents having been published. Some studies have evaluated the growth of scientific literature on COVID-19 based on scientometric analysis, but most of these analyses focused on medical research while ignoring social science research on COVID-19. This is the first scientometric study of the performance of social science research on COVID-19. It provides insight into the landscape, the research fields, and international collaboration in this domain. Data obtained from SSCI on the Web of Science platform was analyzed using VOSviewer. The overall performance of the documents was described, and then keyword co-occurrence and co-authorship networks were visualized. The six main research fields with highly active topics were confirmed by analysis and visualization. Mental health and psychology were clearly shown to be the focus of most social science research related to COVID-19. The USA made the most contributions, with the most extensive collaborations globally, with Harvard University as the leading institution. Collaborations throughout the world were strongly related to geographical location. Considering the social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, this scientometric study is significant for identifying the growth of literature in the social sciences and can help researchers within this field gain quantitative insights into the development of research on COVID-19. The results are useful for finding potential collaborators and for identifying the frontier and gaps in social science research on COVID-19 to shape future studies.
相似文献Many empirical sciences, including the social sciences and life sciences, aim to study causal relationships. Researchers in these fields need computational methods for analyzing observed data and identifying causal structures among a set of variables. Such computational methods enable researchers to draw conclusions on the basis of both their assumptions and the observed data. Moreover, these methods are useful for developing hypotheses on causal relations, designing future observational studies, and planning future experimental studies that can potentially provide stronger evidence of estimated causal relations.
The objective of this special issue is to present an up-to-date overview of causal discovery methods, which have witnessed rapid advancements in recent years. The chief editor and guest editors invited the following three survey papers on various hot topics related to causal discovery:
相似文献