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One hundred fifty-nine male African adults from the Belgian Congo were given a paper-and-pencil perceptual task devised by A. Rey and consisting of drawing lines between randomly arranged black dots so as to isolate simple geometrical figures. A practice task, where the perceptual difficulty was reduced by printing in different colors the dots corresponding to the different figures, was always given first. Both tasks were given without time-limit. Scores were number of correct patterns on the black test, and time taken to complete each of the two tasks. Both time scores were combined by Hotelling's principal components method. Two independent variables were obtained, one of which (J) expresses the general tendency to be slow on both tasks and the other the tendency to be slower on the (difficult) black patterns than on the (easier) color ones. The relationship of these components to accuracy on the black patterns was determined. Africans were compared on both time components with Belgian Ss at the same accuracy level. (It was necessary to use children because European adults are too accurate en this test.) It appears that, for the same degree of accuracy, Africans are always slower on J, but no difference is apparent on B. It is concluded that, as far as these tasks are considered, the slowness of the Africans--defined by comparison with Europeans of the same level of accuracy--is not related to task difficulty. This finding is more easily explained by a general lack of interest in speed performance than by a slower operation of mental functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hill's typology of comparative family research is a challenging attempt to classify international, e.g., cross-cultural, research. This paper intends to criticize some details of this classification, particularly concerning methodological issues. The main point stressed here is the problem of the reconceptualization of the research problem for each different country in which the research has to be carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a cross-national research pertaining to Dutch-American comparisons of the sense of political efficacy. The problem of translation highlights these risks in disciplines that depend on culture-laden language as a carrier of observational information, because of their reliance on verbal techniques of observation. Even in the case of intranational comparison across cultural sub-systems the researcher may encounter pitfalls of this nature. These difficulties have led to the proposal to seek the basis of cross-national comparison in a second, more indirect way: to compare the structural relation of sets of variables. In the case of random, haphazard answers of the respondents to a set of items, the expected value of the coefficients would be zero. For relatively small samples of respondents one may wonder whether the values of the coefficients which are to be observed, are statistically much better than those expected under the nullhypothesis of random response behavior, as a check the observed values of all coefficients can be tested against this nullhypothesis by a transformation to standard-normally distributed scores.

The article focuses on a study concerning intermarriage between religious groups namely, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in the U.S. The findings are based to test the validity of the triple-melting- pot hypothesis in Catholics and assimilation between the three groups. The study found variations in rates of intermarriage from one section of the country and the principal. The factors determining the difference include the relative percentage of Catholics in the total population, the presence of cohesive ethnic sub-groups in the community, and the socio-economic class of the Catholic population. A much higher mixed marriage rate for Catholics was found than the formulators of the triple-melting-pot hypothesis believed.

This study of Indians married to Western nationals suggests that cross-national marriages are an extension of an already established international life style rather than the initiator of involvement with other cultures. Prior to meeting their partners, 70 per cent of the subjects had been involved in international networks on more than a superficial basis. Forty per cent identified with more than one culture before meeting their partners. Rebellion and rejection of culture of origin do not appear to be important factors encouraging cross-national marriages. Data are from interviews with 113 Indian-Western couples living in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses advertising in developing countries and their potential as markets. The author presents an examination of the behavior of consumers in these markets and discusses the challenges that advertisers face in reaching them. He notes that advertising messages need to be tailored to their social and cultural differences and that great attention needs to be given to packaging. He notes that in order to carry out this type of strategy advertisers need to conduct in-depth market research. The author also discusses the importance of creating primary demands for basic products that will improve the consumer's life. He notes that this is the job of the mass-communicator.

Literature on American advertising suggests that the values promulgated by advertising may help ethnic groups achieve middle-class orientations in the American society. Hence, advertising may function as an accultural variable if positively perceived by ethnic members. This study specifically refers to a comparative analysis between the American Whites and Negroes (as control groups} and Japanese Americans (as experimental group} on value perceptions of advertising as an institution. The results, however, have clearly shown largely negative attitudes toward advertising on the part of Japanese Americans. The conceptual differences observed across the ethnic lines can be traced both theoretically and empirically based on communications literature. Of most notable finding here is the working of strong psychological defense mechanisms on the part of Japanese Americans to selectively perceive outside values, supported by a Buddhist virtue of uppekha (or internal equanimity through non-attachment). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Republic of South Africa offers the marketer a special challenge in its clear- cut stratification in multiple cultures, modulated by stronger cross-cultural currents than most outsiders perceive. Homogenization versus heterogenization as a deliberate strategy frequently becomes a critical choice. The white minority of the population enjoys a standard of living comparable to most West European countries. The vast majority is represented by Bantu, economically better off than Negroes elsewhere in Africa. Consumer-oriented marketing management holds a key to continued rapid improvement — and self-improvement — of Bantu life. Indeed, by effective action in this regard business may importantly contribute to the bridging of the gaps between the races, a likely condition of long-term survival of the Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a survey of management problems among groups of businessmen from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil and Michigan. The author presents a comparison of the problems perceived by the two sets of managers and offers solutions to each set based on cultural aspects particular to each group. A discussion is presented about the differences in the business climate and situations that exist between Brazil and Michigan. An overview of cultural differences affecting international business is presented.

A theory is proposed to account for cross-cultural variation in the customary birth practices of women and men. We suggest that tile restriction of women during childbirth and the husband's ritual involvement in birth are both strategies for asserting or defending paternity rights. When paternity rights are established by agreements based on property transfers and enforced by organized kin groups, women will be restricted to insure that nothing upsets the agreements. When such agreements cannot be made and enforced, paternity claims will be asserted by the husband's ritual involvement in the birth. These hypotheses were tested in a sample of 114 societies based on Murdock and White's Standard Cross-cultural Sample. The data confirm the hypotheses for the birth practices of' both sexes. We suggest that birth practices represent a special case of bargaining mechanisms iii societies without centralized authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model for cross-cultural measurement was studied. The analysis was based on data on the level of living of 1,654 families in Puerto Rico and 549 families in Broome County, New York. The first problem is encountered in obtaining a sufficient number of items for study in both cultures. It may be assumed that this problem will become more acute as other cultures are added to the sample. There may be "clusters" of nations for which a sufficient number of items can be found. Additional problems are encountered in testing the validity of items. The need to control culture in these tests is demonstrated. The range of level of living is great from one culture to another. Therefore, cutting points for "possession" of an item cannot always be the same for every culture. It is tentatively suggested that items go through the same "stages" in each culture, and that several cutting points may be drawn for these stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the decision to utilize the social set as the rating frame in the Japanese cross-cultural comparison of the social-desirability (S-D) of trait-descriptive terms was a highly arbitrary one. Indeed, from the larger body of literature, somewhat discrepant findings have been reported with respect to the effects of variations in instructional set upon S-D ratings. Several investigations have reported that differing instructional sets produce substantial rating differences. Illustratively, college students have made rather low correlations for S-D ratings under a social and personal set. Other investigations, however, report the opposite--i.e. a very high degree of relationship among S-D ratings across diverse sets. For example, some scholars have found that found a 0.90 correlation between "personal" and "social" desirability ratings of personality-test items. It is difficult to know whether such discrepant findings reflect true differences in rating sets, or whether they may, at least in part, result from differences in testing conditions, content, etc.

The article discusses social aspects of touring. It makes an effort to outline the nature and interrelations of some of the more important of these socio-cultural dimensions. From the social-psychological standpoint, touring may be seen to consist of a series of "encounters" in which one or more visitors, or outsiders, interact with one or more hosts, or insiders, in a network of supplementary goals and sets of expectations. Touring means the juxtaposition, at each of a sense of different locations, of visitors who are on the move to enjoy themselves and see the world and hosts who are relatively stationary and who have the function of catering to these visitors' needs and wishes. International touring is that particular series of situations in which the national, and usually the cultural backgrounds of the visitor and the host are different. One of the social quality characteristics of touring is the recognition by both participants host and visitor of the transitory and mainly non-repetitive character of their relationship. The host is aware that tomorrow or next week, or soon, the visitor will move on. And the visitor also knows he will shortly be somewhere else, doing other things, seeing other people. This temporary nature of the encounter may cause both parties to take a more tolerant view of the strange or threatening fancies and foibles of the other.

During the past decade, and especially during its latter half, historians and philosophers of science have given increased attention to the logical and empirical foundations of the social sciences. In part, this is a reflection of the growth of the disciplines so designated, in part, it is due to new developments in philosophical inquiry. Whatever the reason, several books have appeared recently wherein the social sciences are examined at length along with the physical and biological sciences. Comparisons are inevitably made, one outcome of which is a general consensus that the former have not yet produced laws of the same order, reliability, or applicability, as have the latter. This conclusion is not surprising, but some of the reasons for it deserve the consideration of those who believe that the comparison is a justifiable one. There is no intention of reviewing those reasons here. Rather, the author proposes to concentrate attention upon a particular aspect of the problem, namely, the circumstances which hamper the formulation of laws of socio-cultural change. To some extent these impediments are generally operative, some, however, are specifically related to change in human behavior. The term socio-cultural is intended to have its widest connotation. It signifies any customary or socially standardized concept, belief behavior, or artifact.

Cross-cultural variation in type of marriage appears to be largely explicable in terms of specified patterns of socioeconomic organization. A study of preferred type of marriage for some 500 societies shows that whether a society is characterized by a cultural value of monogamy or one of polygyny is related to such structural traits as subsistence economy, social stratification, political integration, settlement pattern, and community size; but only indirectly related to such normative traits as religion and sex taboos. In general, monogamy is found to be favored by societies with more complex attributes of socioeconomic structure, while polygynous societies are more prevalent at the intermediate or simple range of a societal complexity scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an attempt to test the hypothesis which the economist, Gunnar Myrdal termed "the Negro rank order of discriminations." He states that his observations led him to believe that whites in the U.S. insisted on the retention of discriminatory practices against Negroes in a specific order according to the type of discrimination. He asserted that they insisted most on retaining the barriers against Negro men having access to white women for sexual intercourse or marriage. Myrdal further hypothesized that the Negro's rank order of discriminations is parallel but inverse to the white man's rank. The Negro, according to Myrdal, resents and resists economic discriminations most and discriminations in sex relations and intermarriage least. It was found that generally Negroes in Columbus, Ohio resent all discriminations moderately or very much. A second general finding is that the sensitivity of Negroes to discrimination can be quantified. On a basis of the findings of this study there are no significant differences between the sensitivity of male and female Negroes to discrimination.

Using national sample data the family composition, living arrangments, and family contacts of persons aged 65 and over in the United States are compared with those of the elderly in Denmark, Britain, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Israel. In every country the right of older people to live separately from adult children is recognized. Nonetheless, a majority of the American elderly with children live either with a child or within ten minutes' distance from him. Old people in the United States are seen frequently by their children, their siblings, and their relatives. In the United States, as in other countries, the elderly find their primary supports in the family and kin network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the system of identifying factors that are important in the education of culturally deprived children in the U.S. These factors can be described in terms of language development, concept, social skills and cultural differences, and characteristics that are important in curriculum planning. The strength of the identification system described lies in its transferability to the area of curriculum development that will enhance the language, social skills and self-concept of culturally deprived children

The article focuses on assessing originality of thinking in the cross-cultural studies in the U.S. Originality was defined in terms of statistical infrequency of a response within a given culture. One type of school experimentation now growing in popularity is introducing a discontinuity in the first grade which apparently is associated with personality disturbance for some children and apparent losses in creativity, as described by one mother. The shape of the developmental curves for originality in other cultures should help us determine whether or not the various drops we find in our culture are biologically or culturally determined.

An intensive study was undertaken based upon the chart review of a large number of consecutive male admissions for acute alcohol withdrawal syndromes to a university psychiatric service. Basic psychosocial characteristics were examined along with the characteristics of the presenting picture and the clinical course. The patients had been treated with paraldehyde along principles described elsewhere. The analysis of this data would document an extensive experience gained in a circumscribed zone of time and space. It was expected that it would contribute to a better understanding of the natural history of this group of related withdrawal syndromes by yielding information about etiologic and prognostic factors. It would also summarize and make possible the evaluation of the treatment program. It would also serve to make a large body of data available for subsequent cross-cultural, cross-temporal and cross-therapeutic comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study that makes a cross-cultural comparison of managerial behavior in England and France. A successful manager is a very efficient learning system. He uses the values that he inherits from his culture to forge conditions sufficiently strong for the execution of business. Very often the desired goal, or sub-goal. is not achieved, and this may cause the manager to modify his beliefs--within the limits of his culturally determined value system--and thus his future behavior. According to the model used in the article, the notion of profit is an intellectual abstraction for the French, whereas for the English manager it is more the result of a personal effort. In the French model, if the organization is efficient then profit ensues automatically; if there is no profit, it is due to malformation of some part of the system. In England, personality is brought into play. Lack of profit implies personal failure, which is traceable to managerial weakness, or perversity, an excessive preoccupation with boundary defense perhaps, or lack of cooperation. The Frenchman will react to defeat with detachment or resignation, the Englishman with aggression and defiance. In neither case is such a reaction necessarily logical. The logic of the reaction depends upon a careful a priori evaluation of the value of goal achievement.

The article presents information on a cross-cultural comparative research of juvenile deviance in two specific cities--one in the United States and the other in Argentina. Data from the juvenile court files at Toledo, Ohio, and Rosario, Argentina, for the years 1966 and 1967 were used. This study used statistical court records, participant observation notes, and published documents. The statistical data from Toledo were taken from the juvenile court reports for the years 1966 and 1967, and from the Model Cities Crime and Delinquency Report published in 1969. Toledo and Rosario are both in the northern temperate zones of their respective countries. Both are inland port cities that handle goods moved internationally by way of the Atlantic Ocean. There are, however, notable differences. Rosario does not have a racial minority as does Toledo with its Afro-American and Mexican populations. Although Toledo is about two-thirds the size of Rosario, it had more juveniles adjudicated by its juvenile agencies during 1966 and 1967. Specifically, Toledo had 2.5 times the adjudicated delinquents that Rosario had.

The article cites a study which presents a cross-cultural comparison of hostility in children's drawings. Subjects were 2382 boys, the majority of whom were 11-13 years of age, comprising 26 cultural groups. The method employed was the interpretation of children's drawings which is a useful approach in the design of cross-cultural investigations. These included the following: presence of weapons (any figure with a gun, knife, sword, etc.), figures of boxers, wrestlers, soldiers, or other persons shown in a posture preparatory for physical struggle--i.e. bared fists or kicking--representations of death or injury, and the delineation of insignias (badges, emblems, medals) commonly associated with cowboys, military figures, etc. Previous research drew attention to the considerable social and psychological strain produced in Thais as a result of an early emphasis upon the desirability of harmonious interpersonal relationships and prohibitions against extreme emotional expression, particularly hostility and aggression. The present study demonstrated differences revealed by children's drawings which, broadly speaking, appear to differentiate a broad range of cultural groups on the variable of hostility.