VALUES OF JAPANESE AND AMERICAN STUDENTS,

Approximately 1800 high school and college students in Japan completed a version of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule and were compared with the norms obtained from American college students. It was hypothesized that the Japanese college sample would differ from the American norms in those values which characterized the stereotype of traditional Japanese and which appear to underlie the past political behavior of the Japanese. However, it was further hypothe sized that the rural high school sample would show even greater differences in these same respects with the American norms. The findings reveal that the Japanese college men were less dominant and more self-abasing than Americans but were less deferent. Progressions toward American norms were evident only in achievement, dominance and abasement among the men, but among the Japanese women successive samples of students in rural, urban and college populations showed trends away from American norms for achievement and nurturance. Although the data are equivocal, on balance, they suggest that the Japanese are not adopting those psychological values that characterize the American college population, in spite of outward appearances to the contrary. This report draws some inferences and implications from these data concerning the political behavior of the Japanese and the extent to which the existing value pattern supports the democratic political structure set up by the Occupation Forces. Author