Download Comparative Sociology, 1950-1963

Comparative Sociology, 1950-1963
by
ROBERT M. MARSH
1. Introduction
I.i.
.
Definition, Scope
and Rationale
of the Field
Comparative sociology may be defined as that field which is concerned with
the systematic and explicit comparison of social phenomena in two or more
societies. Cross-societal (cross-cultural, cross-national) comparison is the
essential ingredient; intra-societal comparisons may or may not be made
concurrently with cross-societal comparisons. Studies which are clearly excluded from comparative sociology as defined are those which make intrasocietal comparisons-e.g., between middle and working class voting patterns
in one society-without also making cross-societal comparisons. Even with
this stipulation comparative sociology is a broadly inclusive field indeed. It
contains a great variety of methodological strategies-&dquo;holistic,&dquo; descriptive
analyses as well as studies which rigorously test theoretically-derived, or at
least theoretically relevant propositions and hypotheses. Comparisons may
be of total societies [940-976], though more usually they are of subsystems
of different societies, such as socialization practices or polity. Moreover, as
here conceived, comparative sociology includes both social psychological and
social anthropological studies, providing, of course, that they are genuinely
cross-societal and not limited to data from one society.
The rationale of this field needs to be stated clearly, for there are skeptics
who would not dignify cross-societal comparisons as constituting a field in
their own right. The skeptic remarks, &dquo;I am interested in organizational
theory, attitude formation, etc., and I am quite indifferent as to the societies
from which my data are taken.&dquo; The reply, and the rationale of comparative
sociology, is that, as an historical fact, what passes today as &dquo;sociological
theory&dquo;-be it attitude theory, organizational theory, or whatever-has been
developed primarily in one, rather small corner of the world and may
therefore be highly limited as a general explanatory scheme. Many sociological propositions are, of course, stated as universals. That is, they are
5
6
stated as though the relationships and generalizations hold for all societies,
for all social systems, even for all social action. But such propositions have
rarely been tested outside of modern United States, or Western industrial
society. The fundamental rationale of comparative sociology is, then, the need
to universalize sociological theory.
It is sometimes claimed that complex societies contain within themselves
enormous and sufficient variation for most comparative purposes, and that
therefore cross-societal comparisons are unnecessary or extraneous. Against
this view it may be pointed out that Murdock has shown there is only a
small degree of overlap in cultural elements as between European and
non-European societies [54]. Almost 50 per cent of the cultural items (concerning economy, family, government, etc.) contained in a random sample
of non-European societies belong in cultural categories which were completely unrepresented in any of 10 selected European societies [54]. This
suggests that while complex societies do contain much internal variation,
the degree of variation is nevertheless severely limited. The same conclusion
appears justified on the basis of several analyses of variance in comparative
studies. In at least four different studies, cross-societal differences in the
phenomena being studied-e.g., achievement motivation, value orientations,
and other social psychological variables-were shown to be statistically
significant relative to intra-societal differences, as between social classes, etc.
~422, 432, 535, 699]. In sum, there is considerable evidence that intra-societal
variations, even those within complex societies represent a much narrower
range than do cross-societal variations.
When sociologists are asked to foretell the likely outcome of submitting
existing theory and hypotheses to extensive cross-societal tests, the reply is
often either: (1) Modern sociology may be a product of the West, but its
theory will be shown to be universally applicable. One needs only to specify
the minor, culturally idiosyncratic &dquo;initial conditions&dquo; of different societies
in order to apply the theory successfully. Or, (2) Modern sociological theory
is so intimately bound to the distinctive characteristics of modern Western
industrial society, that it will totally fail to predict and explain social
phenomena in other societies; it must be thoroughly reconstituted.
On the basis of the hundreds of cross-societal comparative studies published
between 1950 and 1963 and reviewed here, both these extreme positions may
safely be repudiated. (1) is refuted because some Western-based propositions
have had to be sharply modified or have been disconfirmed altogether. (2) is
refuted because some Western-based propositions have been shown to &dquo;hold&dquo;
for other societies. The rationale of comparative sociology can now be restated in a way that gives full recognition to its high calling. Comparative
sociology has tlae task of progressively specifying which theories, propositions, etc.
hold for all societies, whicla for only certain classes or types of societies, and
which for only individual societies.
7
comparative sociology is a legitimate field in its own right. The
cross-societal analysis it carries out is a necessary extension of intra-societal
analysis. It is a necessary step, but a step which many sociologists, social
psychologists, and even some anthropologists (!) abrogate. The purpose of
this trend report is to codify the experiences of those who, since 1950, have
In short,
taken this step.
In order that the trends of the period 1950-1963 may be seen in perspective,
my report appears under the following three main headings: (1) Comparative
Sociology in the Past, (2) Comparative Sociology in the Present 1950-1963,
and (3) Comparative Sociology in the Future. In ( 1 ) I shall briefly contrast
the &dquo;comparative method&dquo; of the nineteenth-century with present-day comparative sociology. In (2), the main body of the report, the emphasis will
be on developments in the following fields:
A. Kinship, family and marriage
B. Polity and bureaucracy
C. Social stratification and mobility
D. Social Psychology: socialization, personality, national character
E. Conformity and deviance
F. Cultural patterns and value orientations
G. Ecology and urban sociology
H. Economic development and social change
’
-
Some of these fields have, of course, been reviewed in earlier issues of
Current Sociology. There, cross-societal comparative studies were reviewed
along with individual society studies. A consequence of this mode of presentation is that, since in all these fields individual society studies far outnumber
cross-societal comparisons, the focus of attention could not be centered upon
the distinctive problems and contributions of cross-societal analysis. For this
reason, the present review adopts a different strategy of presentation. Its
focus is exclusively on cross-societal comparative studies; at the same time
it does not limit coverage to any one sub-field, such as kinship and the family.
It is hoped that by examining cross-societal comparative studies in a number
of sub-fields of sociology, social psychology and anthropology, concentration
will be upon the distinctive problems and contributions of the field of com-
parative sociology.
Finallv, after reviewing comparative studies in the period 1950-1963, I
shall, in (3), sketch a strategy by which some of the limitations of present-day
comparative sociology may be overcome, and the somewhat scattered efforts
of comparativists may become more integrated and cumulative.
Lii.
Comparative Sociology
in the Past
Present-day comparative sociology is anything but a wholesale
late and little-lamented
&dquo;comparative
method&dquo; of the
revival of the
nineteenth-century
8
In the hands of Comte, Bachofen, Maine, McLennan, Spencer,
Westermarck
and others, that method was relatively highly unified
Frazer,
in terms of the &dquo;theory&dquo; of unilinear social evolution. Today’s comparative
sociology, on the other hand, includes a heterogeneous assortment of partly
conflicting theories, frames of reference and assumptions: we have no widely
accepted general theory to match nineteenth-century evolutionism. A second
difference is that the general level of methodological sophistication is higher
in present-day comparative analysis. In the nineteenth-century comparative
method, data from primitive, ancient and modern societies were fitted to the
procrustean bed of one or another &dquo;stage&dquo; of evolution. The methodology
was all too often argument by illustration. Today, on the other hand, comparativists are more likely to follow accepted canons of sampling, measurement, &dquo;deviant case&dquo; analysis, and the like.
The reaction against evolutionism in the early part of the twentieth-century
tended to throw out the baby with the bath. Cross-societal research into
problems of co-variation was superseded by intensive analyses of particular
societies and by discussions of general concepts. The revival in recent years
of comparative sociology can be seen, therefore, as a counter-reaction in
which some of the concerns of nineteenth-century studies are again being
taken seriously. White, Service, Parsons, and others have made important
contributions to evolutionary comparative theory and analysis [6, 7, 927, 937]
Other comparativists have begun to apply scale analysis, factor analysis and
other modern statistical and mathematical techniques to the study of evolutionary social change [18, 19, 27, 38, 69, 105, 119, 134, 174, 227, 266, 891,
905, 924, 939]. What is of paramount importance is that these and other
recent developments in comparative sociology must be evaluated in their own
terms, not dismissed out of hand as a wholesale return to the nineteenthcentury comparative method.
[1-5, 8-11].
II.
ILi.
The
Comparative Sociology
Kinship, Family
and
in the
Present, 1950-1963
Marriage
continuity of research interest from nineteenth-century to contemporary
comparative sociology is well indicated in the problem of the relative
primitiveness of matrilineal and patrilineal institutions. Aberle has shown
[105] on the basis of Murdock’s 1957 World Ethnographic sample of
565 societies [101] that matrilineal descent is clearly not a characteristic of
one general stage of cultural evolution. Instead, its incidence is explained
in terms of specific evolutionary adaptations. Driver and Massey (119] and
Blalock [16] have dealt with one aspect of this same problem, namely, is
9
parallel evolutionary sequence in societies with matricentered institutions, those with patricentered and those with bicentered institutions ? The
hypothesized sequence is : (1) change in sexual division of labor in subsistence
pursuits, (2) postnuptial residence, (3) land tenure, (4) descent and (5) kinship
terminology. Methodologically, Driver and Massey show how synchronic
there
a
data from
over
200 North American Indian tribes
can
be
interpreted
as
diachronic, thereby testing hypotheses of evolutionary
though they
change. The data support the hypothesized multilinear evolutionary sequence.
Driver and Massey [119] and Driver [27] have also made cross-societal tests
of the relative predictive power of evolutionary, functional and historical
theories. The conditions under which matrilineal, patrilineal and other forms
of descent systems occur and vary have been specified by other comparativists
[142, 184]. The influence of economic variables on marital residence, authority
and interaction patterns within extended families has been highlighted by
Richards [181] and by Heath [150].
A second broad range of problems in the kinship area concerns the variable
kinship solidarity, especially when the degree of solidarity is measured among
extended kin, rather than restricted to solidarity within the nuclear family.
When degree of kinship cohesiveness or solidarity is related cross-societally
to the overall degree of societal complexity, there is at least some evidence
which supports the hypothesis of a curvilinear relationship [128, 159, 174].
That is, clan organization, indicative of highly developed unilineal kinship
systems and high degrees of kinship solidarity, tends to be absent in both
the simplest and the most complex (industrialized) societies. In these two
types of societies kinship ties between related nuclear families tend to be
weaker. It seems clear, furthermore, that the findings of recent studies in
the United States and Britain [145, 197], to the effect that extended kinship
ties are still viable, do not contradict this curvilinear relationship. The degree
of kinship solidarity in these modern urban areas is considerably lower than
that observed in &dquo;middle range&dquo; societies with unilineal clans, etc. Variations
in demographic aspects of &dquo;family life cycles,&dquo; as between India and the
United States, also explain why industrialized societies have less kinship
solidarity [115]. The measurement of kinship solidarity is a needed area of
research, and Bardis’s 16-item Familism scale is a step in the right direction
were
[109].
A third focus in comparative studies of kinship and the family has to do
with world changes in family patterns during the last century or the last
few decades. Goode [140] has brought together a considerable body of data
from the modern West, Arabic Islam, Sub-Saharan Africa, India, China and
Japan. He argues that recent changes in the family, in contrast to earlier
changes, are not only more momentous, more universal and perhaps more
rapid, but, most importantly, are moving all societies toward a single, similar
family type. Regardless of the family type from which change takes place,
10
conjugal type toward which family systems everywhere are now
is an important corollary of this proposition. When societies
There
tending.
undergo modern changes in family patterns, the base lines from which change
takes place may vary greatly from society to society. Therefore, the societies
may appear to be moving in different directions, even though in fact they
are converging toward the conjugal type. For example, in both Arabic Islam
and Tokugawa Japan, divorce rates were already high (by United States and
Western standards) prior to industrialization and modern social changes.
With these changes, divorce rates in Arabic Islam and Japan have declined,
rather than increased, as in the West at a similar &dquo;stage.&dquo; Some analysts
have taken this fact as disconfirmation of Western-based theory. To the
extent, however, that divorce rates in the West, in Arabic Islam and in Japan
&dquo;level off&dquo; at similar (and relatively high) levels-as is predicted by Goodethe overall trends will have been trends of convergence, and at least a modified
version of Western-based theory will have been confirmed.
In a fifth area of comparative family analysis-marital dissolution and its
causes-traditional assumptions based on individual Western industrial societies have been questioned. Comparative evidence suggests that divorce rates
in the United States and other industrial societies are not uniquely high in
world history, and that in no society can high divorce rates necessarily be
taken as indicators of the disorganization of that society’s family system
[140, 172]. For example, in many societies where divorce has been institutionalized for centuries, the family system qua system has remained intact.
Anthropological and sociological studies have both dealt with causes of
differentials in divorce rates, the former stressing some aspect of kinship
structure, the latter the homogeneous versus heterogeneous social attributes
of those who marry. The analytical parallels between these sets of causes
were inadequately noticed, since anthropologically-cited causes tended to be
specific to simpler societies, and sociologically-cited causes appeared to be
specific to more complex, differentiated societies. It remained for Ackerman
[106] to integrate these explanations of divorce rates in terms of hypotheses
concerning the conjunctive versus disjunctive structural affiliations of spouses.
Ackerman’s theory of affiliations as a structural determinant of differential
divorce rates is, indeed, a model of the kind of leverage cross-societal comparative analysis can provide. Another major proposition in this area is
Goode’s : divorce rates are inversely related to social class. Goode has not
only confirmed this proposition in a number of nations, but has also developed
it from a synchronic into a diachronic statement in which the relation between
social class and divorce rate is specified according to the industrialization
phase of the society [138, 140].
Radcliffe-Brown had stated that the tensions which arise between parents
and children, given the unequal distribution of authority during early socialization, tend to draw closer together the grandparent and grandchild. In
it is the
11
years, by means of some elegant comparative analysis, this proposition
has been modified by Nadel and Apple [5, 107].
In a final body of comparative family research, problems of the Oedipal
situation and of incest have received attention. Somewhat competing explanations of these phenomena-Freudian theory, learning theory, social structural theory and cultural theory-have been sifted and better integrated
recent
[17, 130, 143].
Il.ii.
Polity
and
Bureaucracy
In their concern with the political organization of primitive societies and
the evolution of polity in more differentiated societies, modern comparativists
have kept alive some of the interests of the nineteenth-century evolutionists
[206, 209, 210, 215, 216, 217, 226, 237-240, 250, 261, 272, 275, 278, 284,
294, 297]. Yet here, as in kinship studies, new problems, methods and
conclusions have come to the fore. One of these is the shift from formal
functional definitions of &dquo;government&dquo; [272]. Instead of asking &dquo;What
ought a government to look like ?&dquo; and concluding that primitive societies
lack government, since they have no collectivities which resemble Western
governmental collectivities (legislatures, formal councils, etc.), the question
has become, &dquo;What does the polity or ’government’ do in any society ?&dquo; On
this basis, all societies can be said to have a polity, i.e., protection of members
of the community &dquo;against lawlessness within and enemies without,&dquo; and
decision-making on behalf of the community in matters which concern all
to
[272,
p. 16).
Much has been written, by British social anthropologists in Africa and
others, about &dquo;stateless, segmentary lineage&dquo; societies [187, 275]. These are
societies which lack centralized authority and whose major social groups are
segmentary unilineal lineages. The question raised recently by LeVine [264]
is whether this class of societies is sufficiently similar so that one can predict
their contemporary political behavior, both under colonial rule and after
independence. By following the history of two African segmentary societies,
the Nuer and the Gusii, LeVine asserts a negative answer to the question.
Specifically, &dquo;stateless, segmentary&dquo; societies may vary significantly as to
authority values, and socialization practices. These variations give rise to
different responses to colonial rule and political independence.
Moving more in the direction of modern, complex societies, there have
been a number of attempts by comparativists to formulate general models
of political systems and to analyze the governments of modern nations [202204, 208, 214, 222, 223, 230, 238, 244, 252, 257, 271, 295, 298, 308]. The
structure of political parties, their membership and partisan voters have also
been
analyzed [211, 219, 221, 236, 241, 280, 281, 301].
problem of the social, economic and other requisites
The
of
political
12
in the modern world is one with which sociologists have been
concerned than anthropologists. In recent comparative studies the same
substantive findings have tended to recur: political democracy (Almond and
Coleman’s &dquo;modern political system&dquo;) is associated with a relatively high
degree of economic development; democracy is likely to be present only in
the more economically developed societies [203, 227, 256, 266, 268]. In these
studies one finds an increasingly sophisticated grasp of methodology. The
methodological trend is from descriptive studies within one region of the
world, e.g., the Middle East, to correlation and regression analysis, based
upon a world-wide sample of societies.
The best study to date in this area is Cutright’s [227]. Cutright develops
more objective measures of democratic political development than Lipset.
Lipset had concluded that economic and political development are positively
correlated. Cutright re-analyzes some of Lipset’s own data and shows that
this conclusion does not hold up as well on a world-wide basis as it does
within regions. Societies Lipset classifies as &dquo;European dictatorships&dquo; have
greater wealth, industrialization, and education than have Lipset’s &dquo;Latin
American democracies.&dquo; This is counter to Lipset’s proposition. In other
words, a &dquo;regional&dquo; factor is important, as well as level of economic developlent, in determining degree of political democracy. (The same point is made
by Coleman [203] in his comparison of Latin American and Asian-African
nations. On five of eleven indicators of economic development, Latin
American countries are higher in economic development than Asian-African
countries, regardless of degree of democratic-competitiveness in their political
system.) Cutright finds that a communications development index (based on
newspaper consumption, telephones, and domestic mail per capita) is a better
predictor of political development than is economic development, though,
of course, communications and economic development are themselves highly
correlated. With data on 77 nations, Cutright constructs a scattergram and
a prediction equation for the regression of political development on communications development. This enables him to emphasize what Lipset did
not emphasize, namely, the tendency for many countries to be either overdeveloped politically relative to level of communications development, or
underdeveloped politically relative to level of communications development.
This moves Cutright to raise such questions as, Do both these kinds of
&dquo;deviations&dquo; make for disequilibrium and strain within the nation ? When
a given nation is either more of less democratic than its level of communications development &dquo;warrants,&dquo; which is more likely : the &dquo;regression&dquo; of its
political institutions toward less democratic forms, the advance of its communications level, or some other type of &dquo;strain to consistency&dquo; ?y
Given the large number of voting studies done within individual societies,
it is not too surprising that a number of cross-societal analyses of electoral
behavior have also been published in recent years. Most of these deal with
democracy
more
13
voting
and other forms of
political participation
among all
strata
in the
population [199, 212, 213, 228, 246, 267, 268, 286-288, 290-292, 032, 306].
Some studies, however, focus on voting patterns among specific groups, such
as the working class [234, 242, 268, 270], or women ~233, 283]. A number
of closely related comparative studies analyze attitudes on political issues,
apart from voting behavior itself [218, 224, 225, 229, 232, 263, 289]. The
political attitudes and behavior of those in various elites-legislators, ruling
classes, intellectuals-have also been explored [249, 262, 274, 296].
Since comparative voting studies have been reviewed in an earlier Trend
Report, in this Journal, I shall conclude my remarks on studies of polity
by citing
a
few other
of research which have received some attention
these would be comparative studies of the sociology
293, 305, 494], communism and communists [200,
areas
in recent years. Among
of law [254, 255, 282,
207, 220, 259, 260, 310], community
power
structure
[247, 248, 276, 277]
and interest groups [201]. Finally, another hopeful sign is the extension from
intra-societal studies to cross-societal comparisons of the applications of
&dquo;boundary&dquo; fields to the study of the polity. I refer here to laboratory small
group studies of political processes [279, 307], studies of cultural values
concerning authority and obedience [299], and studies which relate personality variables to comparative political behavior [243].
At least one comparative study has much potential relevance for the field
of bureaucracy (large scale organization, formal organization) as for polity.
March [273] tests and confirms with data from 15 societies the following
two hypotheses : (1) The greater the autonomy of a subsystem with respect
to a larger system of which it is a part, the greater the range within which
the subsystem can manipulate the orientations of the individual members
of the subsystem to behavior situations. (2) The more autonomous the
subsystem with respect to the larger system, the more effective will be the
subsystem’s control over its members and the less frequent the deviation
from the norms of the subsystem. March’s analysis is highly suggestive.
Explicitly comparative empirical studies of bureaucratic organization have
been much less numerous than studies of the polity. There are some hopeful
signs, however. One is that the few comparativists in studies of bureaucracy
exhibit much concern with Weberian theory and have attempted to test
further such aspects as authority and obedience patterns [312, 313, 317],
charisma ~316, 328], diffuseness versus specificity in work organizations [311],
particularism, performance and professionalism [314, 315, 320], advancement
of executives [326], and role conflicts, as between &dquo;of~cial&dquo; roles on the one
hand and kinship or political roles on the other hand [318, 319]. One of the
most important developments is the attempt analytically and empirically to
segregate the influences of (a) the external socio-cultural environment, (b) the
technology used by the organization, and (c) organizational variables per se :
here the work of Udy [333-337], Richardson [329] and Harris and Kearney
.
14
merits serious attention. Another methodological
attainment of Guttman scales for bureaucratic variables
[324]
II.iii. Social
Stratification
and
development
[315, 334].
is the
Mobility.
Comparative studies in this field fall under at least four major headings.
First, nineteenth-century evolutionary questions have again claimed attention. For a number of Polynesian societies, Sahlins [438], working in the
evolutionary tradition of Leslie White, has demonstrated that the form and
degree of stratification is a positive function of the economic productivity
of the society, which is in turn dependent on physical environment and
technology. Goldman [455] has also analyzed data from Polynesian societies
to show the changes in stratification and mobility concurrent with increasing
societal complexity and cultural evolution. It is to be regretted that so little
comparative work has been done on the evolution of systems of stratification.
A second body of comparative analysis has been concerned with the
replication of United States occupational prestige studies in other societies.
At first, as might be expected, these replicational studies were restricted to
other highly industrialized Western societies, the Soviet Union and Japan
[478-482]. Because all these studies revealed a relatively invariant structure
of occupational ranking among industrial societies, despite differences in
culture and history, Inkeles and Rossi [477] advanced a &dquo;structural,&dquo; as
opposed to cultural explanation, an explanation in terms of the &dquo;requirements
of any industrial society.&dquo; One of the most significant break-throughs of
cross-societal research since 1950 has been the repeated discovery, unexpected
from the point of view of the Inkeles-Rossi theory, that occupational prestige
ranking in relatively non-industrialized societies-India, Brazil, Indonesia,
and the Philippines-also correlates highly witla that of the industrial nations
[475, 476, 483, 484]. These findings make clear that the Inkeles-Rossi industrial society explanation is inadequate. All these findings, on the other
hand, can be accounted for by the functionalist theory of stratification, which
asserts that in any society, industrial or non-industrial, major roles, e.g.,
occupational roles, are ranked on the basis of the degree of knowledge and/or
responsibility called for in that occupation [416, 430a].
A third group of comparative studies focuses on the amount of vertical
social mobility in different societies. The proposition that the rate of mobility
is high and basically similar in all industrial societies [460, 461] has been
subjected to close scrutiny; lB1iller’s analysis [465] makes clear that when
the strata between which mobility occurs are analyzed according to finer
distinctions than the manual-nonmanual one, there are considerable differences among industrial nations’ mobility rates. Another
approach accepts the
that
the
amount
of
is
finding
mobility generally higher in industrial than in
non-industrial societies, but goes on to separate, analytically and empirically,
15
in any society. One source is changes in the labor
in the proportion of middle- and high-status
increase
force structure, e.g.,
occupations relative to lower-status occupations. A second source, often
hypothesized as &dquo;explaining&dquo; differences in mobility rates, is the degree to
which universalistic-achievement values are institutionalized in mobility
channels. Both Rogoff [437] and Marsh [463] have sought to test these
competing explanations by comparing societal mobility rates when intersocietal
differences in occupational demand are held constant. The conclusion suggested
by these studies is that the greater rate of social mobility in industrial societies
is due almost wholly to sheer quantitative occupational demand differences,
rather than to values and norms of a universalistic-achievement type. That
is, values have not been shown to have a significant relationship to mobility
rates, independent of occupational demand structure.
Another development in comparative mobility studies has been the application of mathematical models, e.g., Markov chain models, to intergenerational
mobility data [454, 466-468].
If the third body of research is concerned with the question of how much
mobility there is, the fourth directs attention toward the processes of mobility,
ie., the ways in which mobility takes place, whatever its amount. The formal
educational system of a society, insofar as it recruits people on the basis
of &dquo;intelligence-related&dquo; criteria, is often believed to be a major mobility
channel. It is no accident, therefore, that a number of recent comparative
studies have dealt with mobility in the educational system [449, 453, 456,
457, 470]. Two interesting developments in this context have been Anderson’s
&dquo;skeptical note&dquo; on the alleged positive relationship between education and
vertical mobility [448] and Turner’s concepts of &dquo;sponsored&dquo; and &dquo;contest&dquo;
types of mobility processes [473]. Finally, several propositions concerning
mobility processes, originally tested in the United States, have been replicated
in other societies. Propositions about the mobility-relevant values and aspirations of lower class people have been partly confirmed, and partly disconfirmed, in Japan [415]; Janowitz’s hypotheses about the recruitment processes
in the military elite in the United States have had the same mixed fate in
a British study
[469].
two sources
of
mobility
an
ILiv. Social
Of the
Psychology : Socialization, Personality,
National Character.
relatively numerous cross-societal studies in this area in the 1950-1963
period, a number share common orientations to theory and method to such
an extent that they can be spoken of as a &dquo;school.&dquo; The
&dquo;Whiting-ChildLambert&dquo; school has in common (a) the concern with systematic empiricalstatistical tests of propositions from neo-Freudian and learning theories,
(b) the use of extensive, world-wide samples of societies, chiefly those drawn
from Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) data, (c) the development of
16
sophisticated techniques for the coding, rating, etc. of data taken from
secondary ethnographic sources, as in the HRAF. The particular causal
theory which has come to be associated with this &dquo;school&dquo; can be schematized
as
follows :
Not all these studies have dealt with the entire chain, of course; several
focus on only one or two links in it. The studies of the Whiting-ChildLambert school have analyzed a large number of child socialization variables:
indulgence, nurturance, obedience, independence, self-reliance, responsibility, achievement, frustration-aggression, identity, anxiety, etc. [495-497,
499, 500, 505, 519, 529, 540, 541, 544-548]. Cultural variables are seen as
a &dquo;projection&dquo; of personality and child-socialization practices. Among the
cultural variables that have received attention from this school are: folktales
[505, 528, 600], religious and magical beliefs [545, 547, 744, 751], beliefs
about the causes of sickness and curing practices [546], and games [534, 724].
Perhaps the major study to emerge from this tradition is Whiting and
Child’s Child Training and Personality [546]. The argument presented was
as follows: in the socialization process in any society, each of five drivesoral, anal, sexual, aggressive and dependence-typically may be frustrated
and treated with underindulgence, or gratified and indulged or overindulged.
The former treatment gives rise to socialization anxiety, the latter to socialization satisfaction. Popular &dquo;explanations&dquo; of illness in a given society are adult
symptoms (&dquo;projections&dquo;) of socialization anxiety. Notions concerning how
to cure illness in a given society are adult &dquo;projections&dquo; of socialization
satisfaction. Thus, the following hypotheses were tested: (1) the severity of
weaning (oral socialization anxiety) is associated with &dquo;oral explanations of
illness,&dquo; e.g., when sickness is said to be caused by eating or drinking
magically poisoned food, or by the verbal spells and incantations of sorcerers.
(2) The severity of aggression training (aggression socialization anxiety) is
associated with explanations of illness which involve aggression, e.g., hostility
toward or disobedience of the spirits, use of magical weapons by a sorcerer,
etc. (3) The severity of independence training is associated with dependence
explanations of illness, e.g., the belief that illness results from &dquo;spirit possession,&dquo; and so forth.
The rise of the Whiting-Child-Lambert school with its explanations of
cross-societal socialization practices, personality and cultural patterns, has
17
gone unchallenged. Young in particular has mounted a frontal attack,
in which he recodes Whiting and Child’s own data from 54 societies and
attempts to demonstrate the explanatory superiority of a very different
hypothesis : namely, that initiation ceremonies are the dramatization of the
sex-role characteristics of societies with a high degree of male solidarity [549].
Some of the same problems studied by Whiting, Child and others have
also been studied by investigators who collected their own original data
instead of using the HRAF. These investigators have necessarily therefore
been restricted to much smaller-scale cross-societal tests of their hypotheses,
typically to two or three societies per study [498, 501, 503, 513, 517, 518,
523, 526, 530, 533, 535, 538, 539]. Among researchers which have collected
their own primary data, some of the more interesting have involved systematic observations of child play situations [503, and Whiting, Child and
not
Lambert, forthcoming].
Studies of &dquo;national character&dquo; have also been conducted on a crosssocietal basis [508, 512, 537]. But it appears that this type of analysis has
declined somewhat in the 1950-1963 period, in contrast to its vogue in the
’thirties’ abd ’forties’. If this downward trend is real, it may be due in part
to the well-directed attacks on the older traditions of &dquo;national character&dquo;
and culture and personality studies. A closely related body of explicitly
comparative analysis published between 1950 and 1963 deals with national
stereotypes; the images the members of one society have of other societies
[506, 508, 532, 610].
A number of new developments in comparative studies of socialization
and personality should be noted. One is the comparison of responses to the
California F-scale for authoritarian personality by subjects in a relatively
non-authoritarian society with those of subjects from more normatively
authoritarian societies. Data on authoritarianism have been explicitly compared for the United States, Britain and several European countries, Latin
America, Lebanon, Egypt and other Arab states, and India [617-617]. Not
only is there some evidence that people in authoritarian societies have higher
mean F-scores than those in more democratic societies, but children in the
two types of societies have also been shown to differ in several other behavioral
manifestations
[618].
A second development has been a movement away from studies in which
the culture is treated as a unitary thing which produces a model personality
type or national character, and toward studies which present a more differentiated analysis. Thus, socio-economic status differences within societies
have been related to personality variables [422, 432, 520].
The extension of research on &dquo;the Achievement motive&dquo; (Need-Achievement, nAch) from clinical studies within the United States to extensive
cross-societal tests is a third important development [578-580]. In the work
of McClelland and his associates data have been gathered from ancient
2
18
Greece, England between 1400 and 1800, and from 40 contemporary nations,
bearing of levels of achievement motivation
upon successful entrepreneurship and economic development.
Two other pieces of comparative analysis deserve mention for their originality and theoretical relevance. The first of these is that the historian Elkins
has heightened our understanding of the &dquo;Sambo&dquo; personality syndrome,
documented in historical writings on the ante-Bellum American plantation
Negro slave [509, 510]. He has done so by comparing the United States
Deep South with data on the history of slavery in Latin America, and with
data on Nazi concentration camps. Elkins shows that the &dquo;Sambo&dquo; personality
syndrome appeared both among Negro plantation slaves, and among prisoners
of Nazi concentration, but not among Latin American slaves. He explains
these variations in personality in terms of a common set of variables, including
the diversity of the symbols of authority, and the range of permissible
adjustment to them. The second piece of work has direct bearing on one
major aspect of Parsonian theory. In that theory, social, cultural and personality systems are said to have boundaries, and boundary-maintaining
mechanisms which handle the inputs of functional exigencies from other
systems, &dquo;external&dquo; to the system being analyzed. Siegel has shown that in
the social systems of the Hopi Indians, the European Ghetto Jews and the
Hutterites, &dquo;The conscious maintenance of relatively high anxiety plateaus
as an adaptive pattern occurs among those infrequently encountered groups
whose cultures are tightly integrated and faced by serious threats by hostile
environmental forces&dquo; [538, p. 48]. Here, then, is a comparative study which
explicitly demonstrates the role of a personality variable (high anxiety
plateaus, restrictions on the release of anxiety) as an adaptive, boundarymaintaining mechanism, in the face of the functional exigencies of the social
and physical environment.
in order
II.v.
to
demonstrate the
Conformity
and Deviance.
Comparative studies in this field may be grouped under five headings :
(1) general studies of norms and social control, (2) homicide and suicide,
(3) illegitimacy rates and sexual mores, (4) drinking behavior, alcoholism and
drug addiction, and (5) delinquency and crime. The more or less explicit
common problem in all these studies is the identification of the norms of
given social systems and the analysis of the conditions and consequences
of conformity and deviance with respect to these norms. A few words about
these studies are in order.
1. Among the general studies of norms and social control, the more
interesting deal with group autonomy in relation to internal deviance [273],
conflicts between universalistic and particularistic norms, in which Philippine
students are found, unexpectedly, to be more universalistic than are American
19
[667], patterns of permissiveness and internal inconsistencies within
primitive societies [664 and 670, respectively], and sorcery as a form of social
control [669]. At least one study attempts to compare tendencies to con-
students
behavior by Norwegian and French students in a laboratory experimental situation [663].
2. Given the early work of Durkheim and others, it can be said that the
theory of suicide is much better developed than the theory of homicide.
Moreover, until recently, suicide and homicide behavior were studied in
relative isolation of each other. Henry and Short’s Suicide and Homicide,
though limited in its data to the United States, made a theoretical advance
by suggesting that suicide and homicide could be viewed as two forms of
aggressive behavior. Suicide represents aggression directed toward the self;
homicide, aggression toward others. Some of the elaborations of this theory
were tested in Ceylon, where some findings on the relationship between
economic cycles and the male suicide rate were contrary to United States
findings, thereby necessitating some revision of theory [671, 672]. Another
offshoot from Durkheim’s theory of suicide has also been replicated in Ceylon
[657]. In a more anthropological vein, suicide and homicide patterns in tribes
in Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya have been analyzed [646].
3. Comparative studies in the area of sexual behavior have dealt with the
causes of illegitimacy rates in Latin America and the Caribbean [658, 659],
general patterns of deviation from sexual mores, e.g., incest, abduction and
rape, and punishments for these deviations [647], and, finally, with premarital
sexual intimacy [651-653, 655]. The latter studies present an interesting
research design, and considerable real variation in the phenomena to be
explained (from the conservative sexual norms of the Utah Mormons, and
the &dquo;typical&dquo; United States midwestern pattern, to the more permissive
premarital sex mores in the Scandinavian countries). These studies are
noteworthy because they chart some of the systematic relationships among
sexual norms, personality-level consequences of deviation from these norms
(e.g., guilt, satisfaction), and social consequences of deviance, i.e., illegitimacy
rates and marriage.
4. A pioneering comparative study by Horton, &dquo;The functions of alcohol
in primitive societies,&dquo; appeared in 1943, prior to the period covered here.
More recently, Horton’s analysis has come under attack in Washburne’s study
of drinking in primitive societies [668]. Another study of alcohol in primitive
societies [661] and one of alcohol consumption rates in Scandinavia [648,
649] also deserve note. In one of these studies [648] a Guttman scale of
drinking permissiveness was shown to correlate highly with drinking habits.
In the one comparative study of drug addiction found in the literature,
Clausen’s proposition was tested with United States and British data. The
hypothesis states that &dquo;the prevalence and consequences of addiction in any
society depend as much upon the social and legal definitions placed upon
formity
20
the non-medical use of narcotics as upon the nature and effects of narcotics
the nature of the persons who become addicted&dquo; [666]. This and another
hypothesis were supported: Britain had less prevalence of narcotic addiction
than the United States, less crime connected with it, and a less developed
narcotics subculture than in the United States. These facts are explained
in terms of the differing social and legal definitions of addiction in the United
States and Britain.
5. Comparative studies of juvenile delinquency have gained some leverage
by viewing gang delinquency as an adaptive mechanism in societies in which,
unlike many simpler societies, there is an inadequate legitimate patterning
of the transition from adolescence to adult status [645]. Other studies in
this area describe patterns in several modern nations [665] and analyze
anti-social and delinquent behavior among Mexican and United States
children as a product of &dquo;value disturbance&dquo; [662]. A few studies deal with
adult crime and penology [650, 654, 669, 671, 672].
While the studies of conformity and deviance just alluded to cover at least
four specific problem-areas-homicide and suicide, illegitimacy and sexual
deviance, drinking behavior and drug addiction, and delinquency and crime
-as well as a few more general areas of deviance, they do so rather thinly.
There has simply been too little comparative research in this area, and a
number of problems have been almost totally neglected, e.g., the role of
deviant behavior in conflict and in social and cultural change, the analysis
of conformity and deviance in the context of work organizations and other
large-scale organizations-is the &dquo;Organization Man&dquo; a distinctively Amerior
phenomenon, or does the concept betray
spective on the part of its creator ?
can
the lack of
comparative
per-
II.vi. Cultural Patterns and Value Orientations.
Under the influence of Boas and the Historical school of American anthropology, the prevailing conception of &dquo;configurations of cultural patterns and
value orientations&dquo; was radically relativistic. Values and configurations of
culture were described and analyzed in ways which were &dquo;too particularized
to single cultures to permit systematic comparisons betzveen cultures&dquo; [699,
p. 3). The emphasis was on the uniqueness of each society’s values and
culture. One of the most important trends in comparative analysis since 1950
has been the movement away from the older relativism and toward the
delineation and measurement of values and configurations of culture, seen
as systems of analytical variables on which all societies can be compared.
The older tradition, typified best perhaps by Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of
Culture, still of course has its adherents. But the contrast with this tradition
can best be seen in recent comparative work by Cattell, Schuessler and
Driver, Morris, Rettig and Passamanick, Rodd, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck,
21
and others
I shall
in method and theory, yet basic
between the Boas-Benedict school and these
[20, 22, 23, 65, 75, 685, 693, 696, 699, 703, 705, 706].
up the
sharp
briefly point
similarity in problem-focus,
recent comparative studies.
The first advance made by the newer comparative analysis has been to
show that if Benedict was right in her insistence on the uniqueness of the
values and cultural configurations of a given society, she was not justified
in her inference, &dquo;Because uniqueness, therefore incommensurability.&dquo; In
Benedict’s own words, the ends and the means of one society &dquo;cannot be
judged in terms of those of another society, because essentially they are
incommensurable&dquo; (Patterns of Culture, 1946 ed., p. 206). Modern comparative analysis here follows the lead of the field of linguistics: the uniqueness
of natural languages is not denied; rather, both the unique and the common
elements of different languages are given more precise statement in terms
of key linguistic variables, and treated analytically and quantitatively.
Second, modern analysis has shown that the analysis which Benedict and
her school carried out intuitively, qualitatively, through &dquo;total immersion&dquo;
in a given culture, can also be done in more formal, systematic, quantitative
and replicable ways. For example, a number of recent studies have used
factor analysis to get at three of Benedict’s major concerns: (1) the problem
of the major factors which define a given culture or value system, (2) the
problem of distinguishing types of cultures and culture areas from one
another, and (3) the problem of identifying unique cultural configurations
and values. Let us consider these three problems in turn.
1. With respect to the major factors which define a given culture, Cattell’s
factor analysis of over 70 cultural variables in samples of 69 and 40 modern
nations has revealed &dquo;factors&dquo; such as &dquo;enlightened affluence versus narrow
poverty,&dquo; &dquo;vigorous order versus unadapted rigidity,&dquo; &dquo;size,&dquo; etc. [22, 23].
These factors have stable meanings and help to define the particular configurations of given cultures. Schuessler and Driver have factor analyzed
2,500 cultural items in a sample of 16 California Indian tribes; two major
try
to
contrast
factors emerged: a &dquo;Northwest California culture pattern&dquo; and a &dquo;Central
California culture pattern.&dquo; The former is defined by wealth-orientation,
competitiveness, and individualism; the latter is more cooperative, outgoing,
and nomadic than the former, but also is less accomplished [75]. The
philosopher Morris factor analyzed his comparative data on 13 &dquo;Ways of
Live&dquo; and uncovered such underlying factors as &dquo;social restraint and self
control,&dquo; &dquo;enjoyment and progress in action,&dquo; &dquo;with-drawal and selfsufficiency,&dquo; &dquo;receptivity and sympathetic concern,&dquo; and &dquo;self-indulgence&dquo;
[703]. In these and other studies, the &dquo;factors&dquo; have the same logical status
as Benedict’s &dquo;appolonianism&dquo; and &dquo;dionysianism,&dquo; or her characterizations
of Kwakiutl culture as dominant in rivalry and Zuni as dominant in group
activity and orderliness. But because the methods are more precise and
22
because different societies can be compared in terms of a common set of
factors, real gains can bc realized in the newer approach.
2. The greater use of quantitative methods in recent studies also lends
itself to the distinguishing of types of cultures and culture arcas from one
another. Thus, (.’attell’s Index of Pattern Similarity measures the degree of
similarity between the &dquo;cultural syntality&dquo; profiles of two or more societies
[22, 23]. An index score of -~-1.00 indicates perfect similarity, .00 indicates
complete lack of similarity, and -1.00 indicates that the cultural profile of
one society is the inverse of that of the other society. From this Index of
Similarity, Cattell defines clusters and &dquo;families&dquo; of societies, each having
similar culturel profiles. With the same objective in mind, Morris calculates
a statistic, D, to measure the difference between any two &dquo;Ways to Live&dquo;
factors. There are 13 variant Ways to Live, e.g., &dquo;preserve the best that
man has attained,&dquo; &dquo;control the self stoically,&dquo; etc. By means of the D statistic
every society can be represented as a point in 13-dimensional space, the
location of each society being determined by its scale values on the 13 Ways
to Live. In another recent study, the similarities and differences in values
among societies have been measured in terms of invariance coefficients and
&dquo;transformation analysis&dquo; [65]. In this study, American and Korean college
students’ evaluation of 50 morally prohibited types of behavior was factor
analyzed. Two of the factors which emerged together accounted for over
64 per cent of the explained item variance in each sample. These factors,
&dquo;general morality&dquo; and &dquo;religious morality,&dquo; had very high invariance coefficients, indicating that the evaluations by American and Korean students
are highly similar with respect to these factors. Still another study of values
used the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values test cross-societally in
order to identify similarities and differences among American, Japanese,
Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese subjects [706].
3. It is but a short step from the above attainments of recent comparative
studies to a third advance, the more precise delineation of unique cultural
configurations and values. Each of the measures cited above can do this.
In Morris, unique cultures can be defined in terms of extreme scores on
the &dquo;Ways to Live&dquo; factors. For example, in comparing United States, Indian,
Chinese, Japanese, Canadian, and Norwegians students’ responses, Americans
were shown to be lowest on the Restraint factor, highest in Self-Indulgence,
highest in Self-Orientation and lowest in Society-Orientation ; Chinese appeared as the most action- and socially-oriented of the cultural groups, etc.
Cattell found that about 10 percent of the 69 societies in his sample are
isolates in the sense that their individual syntality pattern profiles have little
resemblance to any other societies. The isolates include both leading countries, Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom
and Japan, and some very small countries, Nepal, Salvador, Luxembourg,
and Eire. Uniqueness here, then, is defined by being an isolate, having a
23
cultural syntality pattern that is &dquo;off on some unique track of its own&dquo; [22, 23].
The contrast between the Benedict tradition and modcrn comparative
analysis of value-orientations is most fully epitomized in the Harvard Values
Project [695, 696, 697, 699, 709-711, 714]. The summary volume of this
project, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Variations in Value Orientations [699],
weaves together the several dimensions of this developing field of comparative
value analysis. First, it presents an explicitly comparative conceptual scheme,
based on the assumptions that there are five universal &dquo;existential problems&dquo;
which all cultures must come to terms with, and three logically exhaustive
alternative &dquo;solutions&dquo; to each of the five problems. Second, it presents a
number of testable theoretical propositions concerning the relationship
between given value orientations and other aspects of society and culture.
For example, certain types of value-preference ordering are more likely than
others to be found in societies undergoing rapid social change. Third, instead
of characterizing societies only in terms of dominant values, assumed to
characterize virtually all people and all situations in the society, value systems
are seen as &dquo;interlocking networks of dominant and variant value positions
which differ only in that there is a variable ordering of the same valueorientation alternatives&dquo; [699, p. 366]. Fourth, a formal, structured interview
schedule is the instrument with which the basic data on value orientations
in different societies are collected. Fifth, predictions about the ordering of
value orientations are made on the basis of standard ethnographic data and
then compared with the findings based on the interview schedule of 22 items.
There was a rather high degree of correspondence between these two independent estimates.
On the basis of their comparison of five cultural groups living in the
Rimrock area of the American southwest, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck conclude that there are &dquo;significant within culture regularities and significant
between-culture differences&dquo; [699, p. 139]. In elaborating these findings,
Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck do all the things Benedict would have done. They
characterize the value orientations of each cultural group. They test whether
pairs or groups of cultures are significantly different in their mean values
on given value orientations, and accordingly cluster together similar cultures.
They identify cultural groups which are &dquo;unique&dquo; in comparison with other
groups on given value dimensions.
In short, there are healthy signs of both continuity in problem-focus and
increasing theoretical and methodological sophistication when recent comparative analysis of values and cultural configurations is judged against the
background of the Boas-Benedict Historical tradition.
’
II.vii.
Ecology
and Urban
Sociology.
In the three decades prior to 1950
generalizations concerning &dquo;the City&dquo;
,
a
of theory and a number of
formulated in the field of ecology
body
were
24
and urban sociology. This research was largely restricted to North America,
but at first little attention was paid to the question whether &dquo;the City&dquo; could
be analyzed independently of degree of industrialization, culture, and other
elements. Then, as more sociologists began to conduct cross-societal studies
of cities, particularly pre-industrial cities, criticisms of the &dquo;Chicago school&dquo;
of ecology and urban sociology began to mount [791, 797, 798, 800, 802,
806, 816, 835, 836, 838, 840]. On the basis of studies of cities in latin America,
Europe, Asia and Africa, these recent comparativists have noted the following
ecological features which deviate sharply from what would be expected on
the basis if American generalizations. ( 1 ) The center of the city is more often
the hub of administrative, governmental and religious activity than of
business, (2) Where there is an approximation to the central business district,
it lacks the dominance found in the United States. (3) There is a minimum
of specialization in land use; less separation of place of residence from place
of work: residence and shops occupy the same buildings and both are scattered
throughout the city. Many sites concurrently serve religious, educational,
business and residential uses. (4) The elite and higher socio-economic status
groups tend to live in or near the center of the city, while the poorer strata
live in the periphery of the city, the reverse of the United States pattern.
(5) Given the above, slums are found at the periphery of the city and there
is no &dquo;zone of transition&dquo; next to the business district (if indeed there is
a central business district at all). (6) Processes of invasion and succession
are much less in evidence, since traditional land use patterns are maintained.
(7) There is less centralization, and no marked increase in centralization as
city size increases. (8) There is no uniform tendency for population density
to decrease toward the periphery of the city. (9) Suburban growth from
residential decentralization is limited. (10) Land values are not all-important
determinants of urban patterns-historic parks, palaces, etc. are able to
resist commercial encroachments.
Assuming that these are, with variations, the facts of non-Western ecology,
we can justly acknowledge the significance of the empirical contributions of
the recent comparativists. On the other hand, the theoretical conclusions drawn
by some of the comparativists must be regarded much more skeptically.
Sjoberg, for example, notes that there were great limitations on economic
expansion, credit and capital formation in the pre-industrial city, that the
upper classes often denigrated business values and entrepreneurial activity
[836]. He is aware that these differences subject the pre-industrial city to
very different parameters than those assumed in the &dquo;Chicago school.&dquo; But
Sjoberg and some other comparativists do not draw the correct conclusion
from all this. Given that industrial and pre-industrial cities differ in their
parameters and in the values of the major independent variables specified
in &dquo;Chicago&dquo; ecology, the crucial comparative theoretical question is not,
&dquo;Does the structure of industrial and pre-industrial cities differ ?&dquo; Of course
25
differs ! Classic &dquo;Chicago&dquo; theory could have predicted that
(pre-industrial) cities without a dominant and expanding central business
district, etc. would differ from (industrial) cities which had an expanding
central business district. The fault with classical ecological theory is not that
it is wrong, but that it is oriented to a narrowly conceived range of variation
in its major variables, namely, the variation comprehended by cities in only
the most highly industrialized societies.
Fortunately, a few of the recent comparativists realize this, and have
qualified the theoretical import of their findings accordingly [798, 816, 838].
Caplow, for example, wisely pointed out that &dquo;... the trend in Guatemala
has been toward increased centralization, suburbanization, outward displacement, and commercial dominance. If we arrange Mexico City, Guatein order of size, it is at
mala City, Merida, Quezaltenango and Oaxaca
that
the
the
the
further it has departed
once apparent
community
larger
from the traditional colonial pattern, and this rough relationship appears to
hold in some detail&dquo; [838, p. 347].
In summary, the proper conclusion which should be drawn from ecological
analysis is that the ecological patterns of industrial, pre-industrial and
&dquo;developing&dquo; cities are determined by the same set of variables. Since the
values of these variables differ among these different types of cities, the
ecological patterns observed also differ. But if and insofar as the values of
the independent variables in pre-industrial and &dquo;developing&dquo; cities change
in the direction of the industrial city, the other, dependent variables and
patterns should also come to resemble those of the industrial city.
A closely related body of &dquo;Chicago&dquo; theory which developed between the
two world wars asserted that the heterogeneity, mobility and centralization
of large cities resulted in a new form of social organization : the weakening
of primary group ties and atomization of social relationships, secularization,
social disorganization-in a word, &dquo;mass society.&dquo; At least part of this theory
has recently come under attack in studies of American and British cities,
which have shown that primary groups survive, even flourish, among kin,
and friends, in work groups and in large organizations, despite their metrothe
structure
...
politan settings.
If
think of the ratio of
primary group relationships to secondary group
continuum, or of degrees of &dquo;primary-ness&dquo; versus &dquo;secondrelationships
then
the
crucial question is: where on this continuum do these
ary-ness,&dquo;
recent United States and British findings belong ? They are stated often as
though they belong well over toward the &dquo;primary group dominance&dquo; end
we
as a
of the continuum. Before accepting this conclusion, we need much more
cross-societal comparative evidence. And it is precisely here that we are
worst off. The deplorable situation is far from unfamiliar in sociology: the
recent American and British studies were not explicitly designed to collect
and measure data in ways that would allow ready comparison with the studies
26
of primary and secondary groups in Timbuctoo [829], in Cairo [791] and
in other pre-industrial cities [835, 836]. Nor do the latter, non-Western urban
studies reveal much awareness of the findings of the recent American and
British studies. (1B1iner’s book, of course, appeared in 1953, before the recent
British and American studies were published, and this criticism cannot apply
to his work on Timbuctoo.)
In short, the theoretical relevance of these two bodies of research on
primary versus secondary group ties in cities is compromised by the fact
that each body of research, in effect, talks past the other one. Until this
defect is remedied, the comparative analysis of &dquo;mass society&dquo; in industrial,
pre-industrial and &dquo;developing&dquo; cities can only continue to flounder. Students
of this problem in different societies must work out cooperatively a common
set of variables, measures and analyses, so that the comparative problems
in this field can have a happier resolution.
ILviii. Economic
Developnrent
and Social
Change.
A relatively large number of comparative studies of economic development
and industrialization were published between 1950 and 1963 [338-375]. Of
these, several explicitly confronted the problem of whether contemporary
underdeveloped societies can and will recapitulate the developmental histories
of the highly industrialized nations during the last century or two. That
this is unlikely, at least in some respects, is the conclusions of Kuznets [356],
Hoselitz [352, 353] and Habakkuk [346]. The level of economic performance
in today’s underdeveloped countries is lower than that of the already developed countries prior to their industrialization. Agricultural densities are
three or more times as high in Asia today as in Europe at a corresponding
time. Urbanization is running ahead of industrialization to a greater extent
than in the history of the European cases. If underdeveloped countries do
make a successful transition to industrialism, it is probable that it will be
through models other than that of European capitalism [195, 912]. For
example, societies with high densities in their agricultural population may
drain off their labor surpluses by small-scale, labor-intensive industry [350,
352].
Sociological and social psychological variables have been shown to influence
economic development. Of particular interest here is the work of McClelland
and his associates on need-achievement [578, 579], Hagen on personality
variables [908], Goldschmidt’s test of the Weber &dquo;Protestant Ethic&dquo; thesis
among California Indian tribes [687], and Levy’s analysis of the internal
social structural elements which account for Japan’s conspicuously greater
success in industrialization than China’s
[917].
Among the more dramatic processes of social change are, of course,
revolutions, rebellions
and
disasters, and
we
have had
a
number of
com-
27
of these [251, 676, 896, 897, 899, 903, 910, 918, 928b].
One of the most important problems in this area is to determine the types
of, and conditions under which, revolutions, rebellions, and disasters actually
give rise to basic social change, as opposed to merely elaborating or restoring
previous social arrangements. Among other processes of social change which
have been investigated comparatively are ideology and mass movements
[892, 929], and the role of the military in developing nations [898]. On a
different plane from all these relatively specialized studies are the macroscopic
analyses by Sorokin [931] and White [937].
The studies of economic development and social change referred to above
have for the most part cut across two or more regions of the world, and
emphasized generic comparative problems. Comparative studies couched in
regionally-specific terms should also be noted as a continuing trend. Thus,
we have studies of change and development in Central and South America
[351, 362, 374, 890, 904, 918, 935], Africa [892, 894, 901, 932], the Middle
East [909, 915], Asia [344, 350, 352-355, 358, 363, 917, 919, 920], Oceania
(388, 933~ and, of course, Europe and North America [346, 347, 349, 368-370,
parative analyses
375, 377, 378, 381-383, 385].
In concluding my review of substantive studies of social change in the
period 1950-1963 I wish to emphasize the revival of interest in the analytical
variable societal differentiation. This variable had a central place in 19th century comparative analysis, especially in the work of Spencer, and though
comparative analysis from 1950 to 1963 has only begun to return it to its
earlier central position, its potential significance is great indeed. Not only
has social change itself been conceived as a process of differentiation (or
de-differentiation), but the variable, societal differentiation, has begun to
appear even in synchronic comparisons in such sub-fields as kinship, conformity and deviance, etc. In the final pages of this Report I want to argue
the case for making the variable of societal differentiation the major organizing
principle for the future integration and progress of the field of comparative
sociology.
The re-emerging concept of differentiation refers to social-structural level
variables. It is defined as the multiplication of one structure of a society
(e.g., a role, a collectivity) into two or more new structures, each structurally
distinct. Each new structure typically becomes more functionally specialized
than the earlier single structure out of which it emerged. The functionally
specialized and differentiated structures make complimentary contributions
to the larger system of which
they are a part. But taken together, they are
functionally equivalent to the original unit. Differentiation must not be
confused with segmentation, in which two or more structurally distinct units
perform essentially the same function in the system, rather than complementary functions. Thus, populous agrarian societies may be highly segmented
-e.g., thousands of village communities, millions of peasant households, all
28
performing essentially the same functions-but they are typically much less
differentiated than are modern industrial societies [4, 6, 7, 10, 362, 895].
The measurement of structural differentiation at the societal level is in
its infancy, but there have been some advances in recent comparative analysis.
Naroll [924] has proposed a &dquo;preliminary index of evolutionary social development,&dquo; one of whose indicators is occupational craft specialization. Naroll
counts the number of differentiated occupational crafts in each of 30 societies
and thereby provides us with an ordering of societies, ranging from the
Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego to the Inca and Aztec, on what we should call
degree of structural differentiation. In the same manner, more complex
societies could be ordered by the number of differentiated occupations in
their labor force. Freeman and Winch [905] have shown that the variable
of societal complexity, which underlies the classical typologies of Tönnies and
others, has the property of a unidimensional Guttman scale, and that a sample
of 48 societies can be ordered in terms of the six scale types. In their Guttman
scale of community development, Young and Young [939] have been able
to order some 54 societies on a scale of which at least some items tap the
variable of structural differentiation. The same is true in Carneiro’s application of scale analysis to evolution [18, 19]. Carneiro is particularly lucid in
distinguishing between the kinds of evolutionism implied in Guttman scalogram analysis and nineteenth-century evolutionism. Carneiro and Tobias [18]
impressively scale 100 societies, ranging from the least differentiated to Han
dynasty China, according to pools of 354 and 50 cultural traits. The list
of traits would have to be pruned in order to restrict it to only social structural
differentiation type variables.
Another approach to the measurement of societal differentiation has been
in terms of factor analysis. Here, instead of compiling an ever larger list
of items which presumably measure societal differentiation, the attempt is
to reduce such lists to a few basic factors. To date factor analyses have,
not unnaturally, incorporated mostly technological, economic and other
kinds of relatively extensively available data. Until such time as more direct
measures of social structural differentiation can be obtained for large samples
of societies, one can only assume that these data are valid. Among factor
analytic studies in this area, those by Berry [340] and Schnore [371] are
outstanding. Berry factor analyzes 95 nations on 43 indices of development,
and finds five factors which account for 94 per cent of the total sum of squares.
Factor one-a technological factor-alone accounts for more than 84 per cent
of the total sum of squares. This technological factor results from the similar
ranking of societies on such variables as energy production and consumption,
Gross National Product, etc. Whereas the classical typologies of Gemein-
schaft-Gesellshaft, Mechanical-Organic, Folk-Urban,
or
a
ordinal scale categorizations, the
different conclusion. On all of
findings
Berry’s
etc.
emphasized binary
of Berry’s factor analysis suggest
five factors, the distribution of
29
societies is continuous and linear; there are no sharp breaks of discontinuities
between richer and poorer countries. The implication of this is that any
typing of societies, at least on this technological factor, can be done only
by arbitrarily introducing cutting-points in the continuous array of societies.
III.
There is
a
Comparative Sociology
serious limitation in
most
in the Future
studies which have
attempted to measure
societal differentiation, complexity, development and the like and then scale
order societies accordingly. Each study tends to deal with societies only
end of the scale: either the relatively more primitive societies [18,
19, 905, 924] or the relatively more complex societies [340, 371]. One might
have no objection to this division of intellectual labor were it not for the
fact that different indicators are used in measuring degree of differentiation,
and that while societies at one end of the scale may be nicely distinguished,
societies at the other end are too grossly lumped together. The Freeman
and Winch scale [905] for example would group all of the one hundred-odd
modern nations, from Gabon and Laos to the United States, in the same
scale type. Obviously, if the field of comparative sociology is ever to have
a valid measurable variable of societal differentiation, its measurement must
be in terms of indicators for which there are at least convertible data in
all societies, from the simplest hunting and gathering bands to the most
differentiated modern industrial nations. This requirement greatly restricts
the possible indicators that might be used.
It is difficult to predict how this problem will eventually be resolved.
Among the indicators of societal differentiation more likely to be widely
adopted are: ( 1 ) direct indicators, such as craft and occupational role differentiation [813, 924], and degree of social stratification and of political integration
[101]; (2) indirect indicators, such as amount of energy consumption per
capita from all sources [340, 371].
However these problems of measurement are resolved, it is possible now
to sketch briefly how the variable societal differentiation may be utilized as
an ordering principle in terms of which both the results of comparative
analysis in recent years may be codified and the integration and cumulativeness of future work in comparative sociology may be maximized.
I shall first outline a logic of codification for comparative sociology, and
then illustrate how existing substantive findings may be integrated in terms
of this codification scheme. It should be clear that from this point on in this
Report, my primary task changes from being a reporter of what has been
done in the field to being an advocate of what I should like to see done. I
claim that the codification scheme to be presented can make a great and
or
at one
30
much-needed contribution
parativists,
IILi. The
now
the somewhat disconnected efforts of
and in the future.
to
com-
Logic of Codification for Comparative Sociology.
When one assesses the findings of
or subsystems thereof have been
questions that can be asked:
given study in which two or more societies
explicitly compared, there are three major
a
1. What is the range of the societies compared in the study, in terms of degree
of societal differentiation ? Obviously, other things equal, we have more
confidence in a study which tests some general proposition in societies
of low, middle and high differentiation than where the proposition is tested
only among primitive societies, or only among English-speaking de-
mocracies,
etc.
2. In any given comparative study there should be some &dquo;phenomena to
be explained,&dquo; or dependent variables. The first question one asks of these
phenomena or variables is: do they vary among t7te societies compared?
Thus, if the phenomena to be explained are &dquo;storm and stress in the
adolescent phase of the life cycle,&dquo; we want to know whether all societies
have this feature in essentially the same degree, or whether the societies
vary in this respect.
3.
Finally, if the phenomena to be explained vary significantly among the
societies compared, we then ask, do the phenomena to be explained vary
with degree of structural differentiation (as defined in (1) above), or do they
vary independently of degree of differentiation ? That is, a given comparative study may test the relationship between an independent variable,
x, and a dependent variable, y, in a sample of N societies. After ordering
these societies according to their degree of differentiation, we can then
hold constaiit degree of differentiation in order to see whether (a) the
dependent variable y, or (b) the relationship between x and y, do or do
not vary with degree of differentiation.
These are the only logically necessary questions to ask in codifying any
piece of comparative analysis. Before generating some categories which arise
from the various combinations of these three questions or criteria, it should
be noted that there are important further steps in comparative analysis,
steps which go beyond the requirements of codification per se. Specifically,
if, in (3) above, one has shown that &dquo;the phenomena to be explained&dquo; do
vary with degree of societal differentiation, the next step-a theoreticalmethodological step-is to attempt to explain the phenomena in terms of
degree of differentiation. That is, one should not stop when a correlation
has been established between degree of differentiation and the phenomena
to be explained. One should go on to show what it is about differentiation
31
in this particular study that influences the phenomena to be explained. This
link in the chain of a full-blown comparative analysis (of which, alas, we
have all too few examples in the published literature) cannot be gone into
further here (See 923).
The three criteria give rise to the following codification categories, by
which comparative studies may be classified.
* But phenomena to be explained may vary systematically with other socio-cultural
variables, not correlated with degree of structural differentiation.
z
What remains to be done is to illustrate the
with reference to a few of the hundreds of
earlier in this Report.
III.ii. Illustrations
of how Comparative
of this codification schema
comparative studies discussed
use
Studies
are
Codified.
considerations prohibit any but the briefest illustration of the application of the codification schema to comparative studies.
We begin with Goode’s test of the hypothesis that there is an inverse
relationship between social class position and divorce rates [140]. The
societies compared are the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden,
France and England. All these societies have a roughly equal (high) degree
of differentiation. The hypothesis is confirmed on the basis of the societies
compared. The phenomena to be explained (the relationship between class
and divorce rates) do not vary among these societies. That is, the relationship
is inverse in each society, not positive in some, but inverse or independent
in others. Given these characteristics, Goode’s study must be codified as
an example of
replication; it cannot be any of the other three codification types.
Now consider the findings of a number of comparative studies concerning
the ranking of occupational prestige [475-484]. Considered together, these
Space
32
studies show that functional roles (e.g., occupations) whose expected activities
are relatively similar in different societies tend to be evaluated hierarchically
in a similar rank order. Here, the range of societies on the differentiation
variable is greater than in Goode’s study: the occupational prestige data come
from societies at the highly differentiated extreme (the United States, Western
Europe, Australia and New Zealand) and also from less differentiated societies
(Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines and India). The range is sufficiently
great to warrant treating these societies as representing more than only one
type on the differentiation variable. The hypothesis of an invariant occupational prestige hierarchy is supported, though of course only a very small
number of occupations has thus far been ranked in all these societies. The
phenomena to be explained (occupational prestige ranking) do not vary
significantly among the societies compared. Therefore, these comparative
studies are codified as an example of a universal generalizations, at least tentatively, until larger samples of occupations can be ranked across societies.
As an illustration of the third codification category, contingency generalizalion, lB1arch’s study of group autonomy and social control [273] may be cited.
Communities in 15 societies were compared; the communities were deliberately varied in the extent of their integration versus autonomy in the larger
society of which they were a part. The 15 societies themselves varied significantly in degree of overall differentiation, from the relatively undifferentiated
Jivaro, Andamanese and Siriono to the much more highly differentiated
Ashanti, Kazak and Yapese. The two hypotheses tested were both confirmed:
&dquo;The range within which a group can manipulate the orientations of the
individual members to behavior situations increases monotonically with
increase in the autonomy of the group&dquo; [273, p. 325], and the more autonomous the group, the less frequent the deviation from group norms. The
phenomena to be explained-extent of manipulation of group members’
orientations and frequency of their deviance from group norms-vary among
the societies compared; moreover, these phenomena vary with degree of
differentiation of society. The more differentiated the society, the less the
group can manipulate its members and the more deviation there is from
group norms. March’s hypotheses, then, are codified as contingency generalizations.
Finally, a study of cleavages in voting behavior by Alford [199] may be
used to illustrate the codification category of specification. Alford compared
four English-speaking democracies (the United States, Britain, Canada and
Australia), which are so highly similar in degree of differentiation as to be
one &dquo;type&dquo; of society, yet despite this similarity, there were marked intersocietal differences in the degree of political cleavage along class lines. Canada
and the United States have less cleavage along class lines than do Britain
or Australia. The phenomena to be explained-class cleavage in votingvary among the four societies; since the societies do not vary commensurately
33
be explained vary independently of differentiation. This discovery that societies similar in degree
of differentiation have &dquo;unexpected&dquo; variations in the extent of class cleavage
in voting is the first step in the decision to codify the finding as specification.
That is, we begin with a negative finding: class cleavages in voting behavior
are not due to societal differentiation. Unfortunately all too many comparative studies stop at this point, when the analytic task is only half completed. To complete the task of specification, one should ideally be able to
state the variable(s) with which the phenomena to be explained do vary.
This variable or variables necessarily will be independent of degree of societal
differentiation. In the Alford study, voting cleavages in the United States
and Canada are much more along religious, ethnic and regional lines than
is the case in Britain or Australia. Thus, the relative significancc of religiousethnic-regional cleavages versus class cleavages in voting, which at least in
these four societies varies independently of societal differentiation, appears
to account for the phenomena to be explained.
In Alford’s study, the societies compared arc similar in degree of differentiation. Research in which the societies compared are dissimilar in degree
of differentiation may also be codified as specification, provided, of course,
that the phenomena to be explained vary among societies but do not vary
systematically with degree of differentiation. An example is Aberle’s study
of matrilineal descent [105]. The sample, the 565 societies in Burdock’s
World Ethnographic Sample, includes a range of societies from the simplest
to the most differentiated. Aberle’s analysis shows that the matrilineate is
associeted less with degree of differentiation of society than with factors
such as type of ecological adaptation. Even when given types of ecological
adaptation are associated with a given degree of societal differentiation, the
matrilineate is not the only kinship type found; patriliny and bilaterality are
found under the same conditions. Aberle’s analysis is a full-blown case of
specification: he not only shows that the matrilineate does not vary significantly with degree of differentiation, he also demonstrates which variables
are associated with the marilineate.
In summary, insofar as propositions tested cross-societally are confirmed
only in societies of the same degree of differentiation, the propositions can
only be codified as replication. When the societies compared are dissimilar
in degree of differentiation, if the phenomena to be explained. do not vary
in
differentiation, it is clear that the phenomena
to
among societies, the propositions are codified as universal generalizations; if
the phenomena to be explained do vary among societies and also vary with
degree of differentiation, the propositions are codified as contingency generalizations. Finally, no matter whether the societies compared are of similar
or dissimilar degrees of differentiation, if the phenomena to be explained
vary independently of degree of differentiation, the propositions are codified
as
3
specifications.
34
IV. Conclusion
of 1950-1963, cross-societal comparative analysis began to
There is every indication that the field of comparative
gain
sociology-the systematic and explicit comparison of social phenomena in
two or more societies-will in the future flourish on an even greater scale.
Yet certain tendencies exhibited between 1950 and 1963 must be checked.
Chief among these is the failure to ask the right questions when judging
the results of comparative studies, the tendency toward a looseness of criteria,
in which one comparative study is regarded as essentially as good as another
comparative study. I have proposed a codification schema for comparative
sociology which, if adopted, will correct this tendency. It compells us to
sort out the findings of different comparative analyses according to such
major criteria as the range of differentiation of the societies compared, the
sampling base of the study, and whether the phenomena to be explained
do or do not vary systematically with degree of societal differentiation.
The variable of degree of societal differentiation is beginning to re-emerge
as a major ordering principle in the comparative analysis of societies. A
general theory is developing in which many of the processes and relationships
of interest to sociologists, social anthropologists and social psychologists are
being shown to be a function of the degree of societal differentiation. On
the other hand, it would be folly to insist that all these processes and relationships are a function of differentiation: some are clearly a function of other
culturally and historically variable elements. The codification schema proposed has as its objective the sorting out of these different outcomes of
comparative studies. The schema is a vehicle by which we may approach
the goal of comparative sociology, which is to distinguish which theories,
propositions, etc. hold for all societies, which for only certain classes or types
of societies, and which for only individual societies.
In the
period
momentum.