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Seen in modern perspective, the concept of national character poses fundamental problems for social science theory and research: To what extent do conditions of life in a particular society give rise to certain patterns in the personalities of its members? What are the consequences? Alex Inkeles surveys various definitions of national character, tracing developments through the twentieth century. His approach is to examine the regularity of specific personality patterns among individuals in a society. He argues that modal personality may be extremely important in determining which new cultural elements are accepted and which institutional forms persist in a society. Reviewing previous studies, Inkeles canvasses the attitudes and psychological states of different nations in an effort to discover a set of values in the United States. He concludes that, despite recent advances in the field, there is much to be done before we can have a clear picture of the degree of differentiation in the personality structure of modern nations. Until now, there were few formal definitions and discussions on national character and the limits of this field of study. This book will be of great interest to psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and political theorists.

The authors' research explores the applicability of Inkeles and Smith's individual modernity paradigm to women and men in the People's Republic of China. The authors' analysis of questionnaire data demonstrates that, for the Chinese male respondents, individ ual modernity scales can be constructed that are highly reliable and that are essentially the same in structure and content as the overall modernity scales created for the (exclusively male) respondents in the six nonsocialist developing countries included in the original study. Also, despite some minor variations, there is a very high degree of similarity in the structure, content, and reliability of scales constructed independently for the male and female respondents. Finally, on the basis of these results, the authors construct gender- neutral individual modernity scales based on the entire sample.

What effects does political democracy have on such development outcomes as economic growth and socioeconomic equality? Competing theoretical models have been proposed that represent each of the possibilities: democracy as facilitating development, democracy as a hindrance to development, and democracy as bearing no independent relationship to development outcomes. Each of these theoretical models is explicated and, then, the evidence from quantitative, cross-national tests of the effects is reviewed. Overall, the evidence provided by the approximately dozen studies for each outcome yields few robust conclusions with respect to the theoretical models. To guide in the evaluation of the evidence, the studies are in turn distinguished by such design characteristics as sample, period observed, measures used, and form of relationship specified. This procedure, while it does not produce definitive support for any of the models, does assist in interpreting the results of past research as well as generating fertile guidelines for future research.

The relationship between the causally linked variables of modernizing experiences overall psychological modernity and acceptance of the rightness of family limitation are analyzed for their effects upon birth rates in modernizing societies. The theoretical basis of this causal relationship is examined; prior relevant research is summarized; and the results of a new empirical analysis of data from the Modernization Project at Stanford University are presented. Project data from East Pakistan India Israel and Nigeria are used to assess the effects of modernizing experiences and overall psychological modernity upon acceptance of birth control. The principal finding is that although experiences with modern institutions such as the school and the factory have some impact on acceptance of the principle of family limitation experiences with modern institutions are mostly associated with birth control when they also correlate with modern attitudes especially belief in the value of science technology and medicine. In other words institutional change must be accompanied by change in attitudes and values. Thus it is risky to assume that urbanization by itself will reduce birth rates. Also a good case can be made for the position that birth control practice can be shaped through influencing values and attitudes.

A number of issues have arisen from the publication of Becoming Modern by Inkeles and Smith. This paper raises each issue in turn and attempts to support the major assertions of that study. Included are the reasons for studying the individual, the role of personality characteristics, the personal features of modernity, the universality and empirical status of the concept, some sources of individual modernity, relationships between modernity, stress, and alienation, the contrast between modernity and traditionalism, and the consequences of individual modernity for one's society.

Perceptions, attitudes, and values relating to a wide range of situations are shown to be systematically ordered in modern societies. The average proportion of persons holding a particular view may be dintinctive of a given country, but within all modern societies the order or structure of response is the same, following the typical status ladders of occupation, income, and education. The findings support the theory that the standard institutional environments of modern society induce standard patterns of response, despite the countervailing randomizing effects of persisting traditional patterns of culture.

The prestige accorded by popular opinion to comparable occupations is compared in six industrialized countries: Unites States, Great Britain, New Zealand, Japan, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Germany. High correlations are found, indicating that the occupations are ranked in a relatively standard hierarchy, despite the cultural differencs among the six nations. An interpretation is offered in terms of the universal features of the industrial occupational system and the centralized national state to be found in each nation. Variations in prestige as between one country and another center mainly about the agricultural and service occupations.

Literacy rates across nations are substantially related to a wide range of variables that make up, go with, cause, or result from economic development.' But the correlation coefficients that indicate these broad relationships cannot explain their own origin. Explanations must come from a detailed search for the ways in which the teaching of men to read and write influences their performance of such crucial social roles as citizen, worker, and consumer. This paper explores, for one country, the associations between literacy and a number of important social psychological characteristics directly relevant to participation in economic and political development at the level of the common man. The data come from lengthy structured interviews with 177 rural cultivators and 385 urban factory workers in East Pakistan.2 The two quite different populations-cultivators and factory workers-provide internal replication of the results and help us disentangle literacy effects from the factors of urbanization and occupational type. We will look first at the extent to which measured literacy is associated with two other apparently similar variables, level of education and verbal aptitude. Second, we will illustrate empirically and discuss more speculatively several ways in which literacy is related-and not related-to the development of new identities, perceptions, and attitudes.

In this paper I will endeavor to do the following: (1) test how far certain concepts dealing with individual orientations to politics, previously used in studies of relatively advanced European societies, are appropriate to populations in developing countries; (2) ascertain how far these separate dimensions of individual political orientation cohere as a syndrome, indicating the existence of a general underlying dimension of “participant citizenship;” (3) identify elements among common orientations to politics which cannot be incorporated in this general syndrome; and (4) assess the importance of certain social experiences or forces in inculcating the qualities of participant citizenship in individuals exposed to these influences.These objectives will be better understood if they are seen in the context of the larger research program of which this report is a part, namely the Harvard Project on the Social and Cultural Aspects of Economic Development. The project is an investigation of the forms and sources of modernization in individuals. Its focus is on the person rather than the society or the institution, and its emphasis is socio-psychological rather than purely sociological or structural. Six countries are represented: Argentina and Chile, East Pakistan and India, Nigeria and Israel. This report will not, however, emphasize national differences, but rather treat each sample as another replication of the basic design. We assume that if something holds true for six such different countries, it must be a powerful connection indeed.

The Project on the Social and Cultural Aspects of Economic Development at Harvard's Center for International Affairs interviewed 6,000 men from six developing countries to study the impact on the individual of his exposure to and participation in the process of national and economic modernization. To a striking degree, the same syndrome of attitudes, values, and ways of acting-such as openness to new experience, independence from parental authority, and taking an active part in civic affairs-defines the modern man in each of the six countries and in all the occupational groups of cultivator, craftsman, and industrial worker. Education is the most powerful factor in making men modern, but occupational experience in large-scale organizations, and especially in factory work, makes a significant contribution in "schooling" men in modern attitudes and in teaching them to act like modern men. Those who come from very traditional backgrounds and receive little formal schooling can, under the right circumstances,...

Data from a comparative study of 5,450 young males in six developing nations were used to investigate the association between modernization or modernity and negative attitudes toward aging. The findings question the frequent assertion that "modernity" (the exposure of individuals in developing nations to industrial technology and urban social experience) results in negative perceptions of aging and diminished value attributed to the aged. The data do provide support for the hypothesis that "modernization" (societal development) is related to negative perceptions of aging. Results suggest the necessity of differentiating between "modernization" and "modernity" as levels of analysis and of avoiding value-laden assumptions concerning advantages of either traditional or industrial social settings with respect to the position of elders.

Attitudinal modernity may be defined as a set of attitudes, beliefs, behavior, etc. especially characterizing persons in highly urbanized, highly industrialized, and highly educated social settings. Over 150 interview items attempting to measure modernity so defined were administered as part of a four hour interview to 5,500 men from 6 different developing countries-Argentina, Chile, India, Pakistan, Israel and Nigeria. Using a subset of 119 strictly attitudinal items, the present paper attempts to derive a simple, comparative, overall measure of the modernity of individuals. The resulting measure was called "OM," standing for "Overall Modernity." Two major types of OM measures were derived, one using item analysis methods and one using criterion group methods. The final short OM scale suggested consists of items meeting both selection procedures simultaneously.