TRADITION, MODERNITY AND BEYOND: CASE STUDIES FROM FIVE CULTURES (CROSS-CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY).

摘要

This dissertation is a study of the change in values experienced by two Mexican Americans, Austrians, Ethiopians, Asian Indians and Japanese living in the U.S. A man and a woman from each of these cultures were interviewed and asked about their values and their assessment of their cultures of origin and that of their host country. From this data a four called diagram was constructed whose axes represent external/internal and social/individual continua. Each cell stands for a set of human needs or values: authority/affiliation, achievement/freedom, nuturance/dependence, autonomy/isolation.;Conclusions include the following: (1) Informants reflect the dynamic tension between the need to belong and the need to separate, the desire for group affiliation and the desire for personal satisfaction. (2) Individuals from the same culture tend to face similar issues and devise similar solutions. (3) The interview process and accompanying interpretation tended to have a therapeutic effect and help informants to take stock of their lives and future possibilities. (4) Whole cultures as well as individuals may be placed in terms of the diagrammatic scheme. (5) Flexibility, combining the values and orientations of two or more quadrants, is part of a cross cultural definition of mental health and the attaining of wisdom and transcendence.;Each quadrant is further subdivided into four subquadrants. Material from each interview is placed in historical and cultural context and in the appropriate quadrants and subquadrants of the diagram. The researcher was also interviewed and the data analyzed along the same lines as informants' interviews.