An Overview of Cultural Link Analysis of National Character

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.