Social Organization and Differential Social Change in Two Hawaiian Communities.

Studies of the effect of social organization on the behavior of individual members appear to have gained increasing attention in recent years. Part of the reason is quite clearly the extraordinary examples that have received so much publicity such as concentration camps and brainwashing. While this interest is not new, it seems to have gained added impetus from the type of analysis, which has been employed focusing on the organizational characteristics, the analysis of role and authority, the rites of induction, and the form of expectations. In studies of social change it is generally the extreme or starting case, which becomes the object of attention. The present study is concerned with a case of quite subtle difference. Nevertheless it is the author's conviction that only through the study of subtle as well as more startling instances that the adequacy of ideas. While making a study of Hawaiian acculturation in one of the more remote areas of Hawaii in 1957, the author came across a situation, which demonstrates a case of quite subtle differentiation. In brief, the topic of the article may be stated in this fashion. Given two communities, 25 miles apart, similar in economic opportunities, size, degree of isolation, population composition, and whose members are acquainted and intermarried, how can people account for differences in orientation to economic activity and several related values.