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PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES
M OST comparisons across cultures are extremely difficult when they con-
cern nonmaterial traits. I n part, this is an obvious consequence of the
subjective nature of comparisons; in pert also, however, this difficulty is at-
tributable to the fact that nonmaterial traits must often be assessed through
the medium of language. Indeed, if the Sapir-Whorf psycholinguistic relativ-
ity hypothesis were taken literally and considered completely general to all
aspects of human cognition, such comparisons would be impossible. The essen-
tial point is this: to note differences within any phenomenal domain and order
them in any rigorous fashion, one must have certain similarities underlying the
phenomena as a frame of reference against which to compare them. Only to the
extent that physical objects share such attributes as length, weight, and vol-
ume, and to the extent that these attributes can be abstracted and quantified,
can comparison be made on anything other than an intuitive basis.
The denotative or referential uses of terms-the way the lexicon carves up
the world-appear largely arbitrary and unique to particular languages until
the ethnolinguist discovers a framework of semantic components that can be
imposed comparably on these phenomena. I n closely analogous fashion, our
own researches over the past few years provide evidence for a universal frame-
work underlying certain affective or connotative aspects of language. These
findings enliven the possibility of constructing instruments for measuring these
aspects of “subjective culture” comparably in diverse societies-in effect, cir-
cumventing the language barrier. Since the affective reactions people make to
symbols and events are important determiners of their overt behaviors with
respect to these symbols and events, having comparable means of measuring
affective meanings assumes some importance in a world that is rapidly shrink-
ing psychologically, socially, and politically.
A SEMANTIC SPACE
I n order to understand the research procedures we have followed and the
kinds of cultural data they can provide, it will be useful to begin with a brief
presentation of our theoretical model and its measurement implications.
Imagine a space of some unknown number of dimensions. This will be our
hypothetical semantic space, and we can explore it by analogy with the more
familiar color space. Like all self-respecting spaces, this one has an origin,
171
172 Transcultlcral Studies in Cognition
which we define as complete “meaninglessness” (analogous to the neutral grey
center of the color space). The meaning of a sign can be conceived as some
point in this n-dimensional space, and can thus be represented by a vector
from the origin to that point: the length of this vector would index the “degree
of meaningfulness” of this sign (like saturation in the color space) and its
direction would index the “semantic quality” of this sign (analogous to both
hue and brightness in the color space).
To talk about “direction” in any space requires that we have some refer-
ence coordinates. Again the analogy with the color space will serve: Just as
complementary colors are defined as points equidistant and in opposite direc-
tions from the origin in the color space, which when mixed together in equal
proportions cancel each other out to neutral grey, so may we conceive of
verbal opposites as defining straight lines through the origin of the semantic
space. Lexicographers assure us that true verbal opposites do cancel each other
out semantically, component for component, when “mixed.” Imagine now a
whole set of different straight-line “cuts” through the semantic space, each
passing through the origin and each defined by a pair of opposites. In order to
discover the location of concept x in this space, we might play a game of
“Twenty Questions’’ with our subject: it is beautijul, not ugly (cut no. l ) , it
is soft, not hard (cut no. 2), it is qaick, not slow (cut no. 3), and so forth. If
these “cuts” were at right angles to each other, and hence independent, then
each such binary decision would reduce uncertainty about the location of x
by half. Or, if each straight-line tccut” were scaled into seven discriminable
steps, as we have done in our work, then each decision would reduce un-
certainty of location by 6/7ths, and only three “cuts” would yield a space
of 343 discrete regions.
But the assumption of independence (orthogonality) of dimensions demands
justification, of course, and we still have the problem of reference coordinates.
Is the up-down, north-south, and east-west of the semantic space to be
completely arbitrary, or is there some “natural” built-in structuring of this
space analogous to the gravitational and magnetic determinants of geophysical
space? These are empirical questions, and the logical tool is some variant of
factor analysis. We need to take a large and representative sample of quali-
tative dimensions defined by verbal opposites, determine their intercorrelations
when used by subjects in differentiating a representative sample of concepts,
and then see if they do fall into “natural” clusters or factors which can serve
as reference coordinates. And one factor analysis is not enough-it is too liable
to the happenstances of sampling. Factor analysis becomes a hypothesis, con-
firming procedure only when analyses of the same domain are replicated,
when the rules of sampling this domain are independent of the factors previ-
ously discovered, and when, nevertheless, the same factors keep reappear-
ing.
Now let us look at the measurement model. I n the typical semantic differ-
entiation task, a subject judges a series of concepts (e.g., my mother, Chinese,
modern art, etc.) against a series of bipolar, seven-step scales defined by verbal
Semantic Dijerential Technique itz Study of Cultures 173
opposites (e.g., good-bad, strong-weak, fast-slow, hot-cold, fair-unfair, etc.). The
concept is given at the top of each sheet, and the subject judges it against
each successive scale by putting his checkmark in the appropriate position,
e.g., 4-3 extremely good, 4- 2 quite good, 4- 1 slightly good, 0 eqzcally good and bad
or neither, - 1 slightly bad, -2 quite bad, and -3 extremely bad. These particu-
lar quantifiers have been shown by Norman Cliff (1959) to yield approximately
equal degrees of intensity.
When a group of people judge a set of concepts against a set of adjectival
scales, representing what we call a “semantic differential,” a cube of data is
generated. The rows in this cube are defined by the scales, the columns by the
concepts being judged, and the “slices” from front to back by the subjects.
Each cell represents with a single value how a particular subject rated a par-
ticular concept against a particular scale. I n analyzing these data we are usually
-but not necessarily-interested in the correlations among the scales. We
may correlate them across subjects or across concepts; we may collapse the
subject dimension of the cube when we are interested in “cultural meanings”;
we may run separate analyses for single subjects or classes of subjects (cor-
relating scales across the concepts judged) to determine their individual seman-
tic spaces; or, we may do this for single concepts or classes of concepts (cor-
relating scales across the people judging) to determine the uniqueness of
judgmental spaces for concept classes, if such exist. In other words, there are
many ways one can slice this semantic space, each appropriate for answering
a different kind of question. For the most part, we have employed Pearson
product-moment correlation procedures to generate a scale-by-scale matrix of
intercorrelations and then subjected this matrix to principal axes factor
analysis and varimax rotation.
I n the past decade or more, we have made many such factor analyses of
data cubes obtained from American speakers of English. Much of this work
is summarized by Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum (1957). Despite deliberate
and independent variations in the sampling of scales, of concepts, and of sub-
jects, three dominant and independent (orthogonal) factors have kept reap-
pearing: an Evaluative Factor (represented by scales such as good-bad, pleas-
ant-unpleasant, and posilive-negafive), a Potency Factor (represented by scales
such as sfrong-weak, heavylight, and hard-soft) , and an Activity Factor (repre-
sented by scales such as fast-slow, active-passive, and excilable-calm). What this
means is that there are at least three “directions” in the semantic space which
are regions of relatively high density, in the sense of many closely related
modes of qualifying, and that these “directions” tend to be orthogonal to each
other, in the sense of being independently variable dimensions of meaning.
I t is also apparent that, contrary to my early expectations, these factors are
more reactive in nature than sensory, more broadly affective than discrimi-
natively cognitive, and thus closer to connotative than to denotative aspects
of meaning.
In the course of this early work we made many comparisons between
groups of people within the English-speaking American culture-between old
174 Transcultwal Studies ita Cognition
people and young, between males and females, between students exposed to
a new kind of course in international relations and those given the traditional
course, between Republicans and Democrats, and even between schizophrenics
and normals. The results of all these comparisons can be summarized very
simply: in no case have we found significant differences in the underlying
dominant factors. Note carefully that this does not indicate that the meanings
of particular concepts were necessarily the same. Females have a different
meaning of the self than do males. Republicans have a very different meaning
for Harry Truman than do Democrats, and so forth. What this does indicate
is that the semantic framework within which these affective judgments are
made is constant; the modes of qualifying concepts display the same corre-
lational structure, despite real differences in location of particular concepts
within the common framework. Indeed, it is only by virtue of this common
frame of reference that differences between people for the same concept and
between concepts for the same people can be specified.
THE SEARCH FOR CROSS-LINGUISTIC AND CROSS-CULTURAL GENERALITY
The research described so far has been limited to English-speaking partici-
pants in American culture. Although considerable generality of semantic factor
structure has been demonstrated for various groups within this particular
language/culture composite, the most critical test of generality remains: does
the same semantic framework hold for people who speak different languages
and enjoy different cultures? Demonstration of such generality would be of
considerable scientific interest in and of itself, but, more than this, the existence
of such a shared framework would permit us to devise comparable “yard-
sticks” for measuring similarities and differences in certain aspects of sub-
jective culture-the affective or emotive aspects.
Prior to the major research effort to be reported here, a number of studies
had been carried out designed to assess the generality of affective meaning
systems across selected language and culture groups. These included a study
by Kumata (1957), comparing Korean bilinguals and Japanese bilinguals and
monolinguals with American monolinguals, a study by Triandis and Osgood
(1958), comparing Greek and American college students, and one by Suci
(1960), comparing several Southwest Indian cultures with Spanish-speaking
Americans and Anglos. Even though the details of methods varied, as did the
selection of semantic scales and concepts judged-and the same factors never-
theless kept appearing-one dubious aspect of methodology ran through all
of these early studies: the samples of scales used were selected either partly
or wholly on the basis of results obtained in prior American investigations.
Such scales were often simply translated into the languages of the other groups
under study. Despite the care with which these translations were carried out
(cf. Kumata 1957), the fact that translation served as the vehicle for demon-
strating structural similarities in all cases seemed to be the most likely source
of bias, if indeed the similarities were artifactual. It was out of this back-
ground that we began, in 1960: to apply a design which we hoped would rigor-
ously test the limits of possible generality. To avoid the potential bias of trans-
Semantic Diferential Technique in Study of Cdtures 175
lation, and resultant ethnocentrism, the procedures for selecting modes of
qualifying were to be entirely intracultural; each language/culture group must
determine its own scales. However, in order to make possible the intercultural
comparisons essential for testing the generality hypothesis, the over-all
methodology of these intracultural samplings had to be carefully standardized.
Additionally, it was clear that our design required as heterogeneous a sample
of both languages and cultures as could be obtained practically.
The term “practically” here implied several things for us: first, we would
work only with literate, “high” cultures in the beginning, since data could be
collected more efficiently from groups of subjects in written form; second, we
would work with relatively homogeneous samples of young males (12-16 years
of age) rather than strive for representative samples of populations, since
what is “representative” is very obscure cross-culturally and would, in any
case, not be comparable; third, our original sample of six sites, along with the
United States as control, would include as many different language families
and as gross cultural differences as possible-efficiencies of our data-processing
later made it possible to extend our sample to some 16 sites. Table I gives the
research sites (original set indicated by asterisks), the languages involved, and
the names of field staff.
are for English. Given practice with such frames in their own language, 100
young males supplied one qualifier each for each of the items in Table 11. I n
collating these data, the field workers were instructed to use the same frames
for testing dubious items. To facilitate analysis on IBM and ILLIAC com-
puters (and to eliminate the need for translation), orthographic schemes were
devised for languages whose alphabetization practices made this necessary.
The total “basketful” of approximately 10,000 qualifiers (100 subjectsx 100
substantives) obtained in each site, organized in “alphabetized” lists under
each substantive, were shipped to Illinois for analysis.
SemaJic Dzferedid Techniqlce in Study of CuLlures 177
TABLE11. THE100 SUBSTANTIVE AS USEDIN QUALIFIER
STIMULI ELICITATIONS
Frequency Diversity
;t.
English 1 .OO .53 -66 .78 -76 .43 .58 .65 1 .OO .64 .56 .68 .70 .60 .53 .56 3.
Arabic 1.00 .29 .35 .31 .39 .37 -34 1 .OO .37 .58 .49 .46 .SO .40 9
Dutch 1.00 .73 .59 -29 .53 .95 1.00 .49 .48 .33 .41 .89 f.
Finnish 1.00 .66 .39 .62 .71 1.00 .54 -56 .64 .55 cr,
Kannada 1.00 .33 .45 .56 1.00 .39 .46 .52
Japanese 1.00 .33 .34 1.00 .47 .36 k
French 1.00 .55 1.00 .42 %
'
Flemish 1 .oo 1.00 0
E
k
2
180 Transcultural Studies i n Cognition
are highly stable, within about $ of a scale unit). This task thus involved 200
subjects. A 50 (scale) X 100 (concept) X20 (subject) cube of data was thus
generated in each language/culture community. Since we were here inter-
ested in cultural meaning systems, not individual, these data cubes were
collapsed along the subject dimension by summing and averaging over the 20
subjects for each concept-scale judgment. These data were shipped back to
Illinois for analysis.
Analysis of concept-on-scale data. Following the usual transfer of data to
IBM cards, the first step was to generate a 50x50 scale-by-scale correlation
matrix by correlating across the mean judgments for the 100 concepts. This
matrix was then factored by the principal component method and usually
rotated by the varimax method. This procedure yields a unique solution for
each language/culture community, and comparisons can only be made intui-
tively by inspection of the scales (as translated into English) having high
loadings on the factors. Table IVgives the six highest loading scales for each of
the first three factors for six language/culture communities. The first factor
in order of magnitude (70 variance extracted) is clearly interpretable as
Evaluation in every case, without any intuitive strain. The second factor in
order of magnitude is interpretable either as Potency or Activity, the former
with less intuitive strain than the latter, and the remaining factor is always
Potency where the second is Activity, or vice versa. In other words, on such
an interpretive basis, the first three factors in every case resemble the Evalua-
tion-Potency-Activity pattern repeatedly found for American English speakers.
To eliminate the problem of intuitive interpretation in comparing two (or
more) factorizations, i t is necessary to put the variables being compared into
the same mathematical space. In the usual two-way factor problem (people
against tests), this means that either the subjects must be the same or the
tests the same. I n our three-way problem (people against concepts against
scales) this would mean that one of these sources of variance would have to
be the same; this is clearly not the case for our people (different language/cul-
ture communities), for our scales (some are translation-equivalent, but many
are unique), nor for our concepts (translation equivalent, but no guarantee
of semantic identity). However, whereas there exist no possibilities of ordering
the data according to people or scales (there is no rationale for pairing), this
can be done for the concepts; that is, we can correlate scale x for Americans
with scale y for Finns directly, using the means for Americans on x and Finns
on y across the 100 pairable translation-equivalent concepts. T o the extent
that our assumption of common concept meanings is not justified, all this can
do is reduce the possible magnitude of correlations (by introducing random
“noise”) and hence work against the hypothesis of factorial similarity.
We have made two types of such “pan-cultural” factor comparisons. The
first type involves all of the scales in two language/culture groups (i.e., 100
scales) intercorrelated across the common 100 concepts. So far we have only
done this against American English as a common base. Tables V and V I illus-
trate these results for Finnish and Japanese against English, respectively.
Note, first, that the common factors of Evaluation, Potency, and Activity
Semantic ajerential Technique in Study of Cultures 181
I V. PRINCIPAL
TABLE COMPONENTFACTORSOF FULL-SCALE
INSTRUMENT
TASK*
AS USEDIN CONCEPT-SCALE
* Excluding Flemish; factor coefficients reported for that language were obtained by Varimax rotation,
are clearly identified in both comparisons; note, second, that rather than a
factor being defined by scales in one language (high loadings) and only faintly
supported by semantically related scales in the other language (lower loading),
here the factors clearly run through scale clusters simultaneously defined by
both languages (high loadings tend to alternate across languages). Needless
c
m
h;,
TABLE OF COMBINED ENGLISH
v. PRINCBALCOMPONENT FAC~ORIZATION PHASE
AND FINNISH II TASK
Factor I (36.5%) Factor II (9.1%) Factor (6.7%) Factor N (3.7%) Factor V (3.372
Amerkan English Ammican English American English American English American English
nice-awful .94 big-little .83 fast-slow .65 burning-freezing .44 dry-wet .62
sweet-sour .93 powerful-powerless .70 noisy-quiet .51 unknown-knom .42 burning-freezing -51
heavenly-hellish .91 deepshauow .67 alivedead .48 hotcold .41 hotcold .50
bPPY-=d .91 strong-weak .66 burning-freezing .36 high-low .40 known-unknown .32
good-bad .91 high-IOW .64 young-old .34 weak-strong .34 short-long .31 y
mild-- .90 long-short .61 .32 -4
sharpdull d
beautiful-ugly .90 heavy-light .59 hot-cold .32
faithful-unfaithful .88 bardsoft .46 2
Clean-dirty -88 Old-yOUng .45
helpful-unhelpful .88 sharpdull .44
IEXfUl-IlSelm .87
sane-mad .87
needed-unneeded .86 t,
he-coarse .86 K
honestdishonest -84 ib"-
*
C.
Finnish Finnish Finnish Finnish Finnish 3
nice-not nice -89 sturdydelicate -71 agil+umsy .70 light-dark -40 red-blue .54
light-gloomy .87 large-small .65 flmble-rigid -68 distant-near .39 hot-cold -44 op
pleasant-unpleasant .87 heavylight .54 fast-slow -67 high-low .35 steadycapricious .39
a3.
good-bad .84 strong-weak .52 lively-subdued -56 weak-strong -3.5 short-bng .35 3.
reassuring-frightening .79 thick-thin .46 lively-tired -50 deepshallow .34 shahw-deep .32 s
v-aluable-worthless .78 long-short .45 sharpdull .49
npe-raw .78 old-young .42 multimlored- .47
clean-dirty .78 high-low .41 unimlor
white-black .77 steady-capricious .34
haPPY-dPPY .77 brave-timid .33
honorabledespicable -76
flourishing-b m -76
sweetsour .76
right-wrong .75
smooth-rough .7Q
TABLE CO~~PONENT
VI. PRINCIPAL FACXORIZATION ENGLISH
OF COMBINED AND JAPANESE PMSE I1 TASK
Factor I (40.9y0) Factor 11 (10.9%) Factor ILI (6.3'33 Factor IV (3.9%) Factor V (3.9%)
American English American English American English Amwuan English American English
nice-awful .96 powerlesspowerfd .76 fast-slow .65 low-high .53 serious-funny .44 3
good-bad .93 little-big .70 noisyquiet .56 little-big .47 burning-freezing .44 3
sweet-sour .93 weak-strong .68 young-old .46 short-long .39 hotcold .44 g.
heavenly-hellish .92 shallowdeep .56 alivedead .41 known-unknown .36 few-many .42 0
hPPY-sad .91 short-long .56 burning-freezing .38 shallowdeep .35 weak-strong
mild-hanh .90 light-heav .54 known-unknown .37 unbroken-broken .32 .32 P
beautiful-ugly .90 low-high .51 hot-cold .36
helpful-unhelpful .90 Wf t - h d .50
needed-unneeded .88 smooth-rough .48
9.s
r..
cleandirty .88 funny-serious .48 fc
useful-useless .88
faithful-unfaithful .87 Y
honestdishonest .87
sane-mad .86
B3.
safe-dangerous .86
Japanese Japanwe Japanese Japanese Japanese
E
pleasant-unpleasant .93 light-heav .72 cheerful-lonely .73 plain-colorful .44 few-many .56
f'
good-bad .92 small-big .67 noisyquiet .68 near-far .40 rarecommon
comfortableuncomfortable.92 weak-strong .65 colorful-plain .65 narrow-wide .35 lateearly 2 p
happy-sad .91 cowardly-brave .63 active-inactive .55 sturdy-fragile .32 slow-fast .38 Q
elegant-vulgar .90 fragile-sturdy .62 red-blue .53 small-big .32 di5culteasy .36 <
thankful-troublesome .90 easy-difficult .61 fast-slow .53 low-high .31
beautiful-ugly .88 thin-thick .59 early-late .50 2
necessary-unnecessary .87 soft-hard .53 i?
great-unimportant .86 simple-complex .48 7
interesting-boring .86 loose-tight .47 (.I
wise-fwlish .86
optimistic-pessimistic .85
skillful-unskillful .80
great-not great .80
tasty-untasty .80
+A
m
G,
184 Transcultural Studies in Cognition
to state, these are most encouraging and convincing results, Limitations on the
capacities of our computers make i t impossible to throw all scales for all of
our 15 or more language/culture communities into a single pan-cultural factor
analysis. However, it is possible to take the highest loading scales on each of
the major factors derived in single community factor analyses and combine
them in a single analysis for all communities, Table VII shows the results ob-
VII. PAN-CULTURAL
TABLE FACTOR SCALE ANALYSIS(18 highest loading scales
for each pan-cultural factor arranged by culture)
.
tained when this is done for seven of our communities where data analysis
has proceeded to this stage. Again, there is clear and convincing confluence of
semantically similar (in translation to English) scales upon common factors
of Evaluation, Potency, and Activity. It is from data such as these that final
selection of specific scales for comparable differentials in each language/culture
community will be made.
Cross-linguistic and Cross-cultural Similarities: Summary
Before turning attention to cultural differences we will summarize the
major cross-cultural similarities found in the “tool-making” Phases I and 11.
(a) Salience and productivity of modes of qgalijying. It is evident in our data
that, even on the basis of crude and “noisy” translation into English, the
modes of qualifying experience that have high H-ranks (frequency and diver-
Semanlic Differential Technique i n Study of Cultures 185
sity of usage) in English also tend to have high rank in other languages. (b)
Qualijier frequency-of-usage junctions. When the total sample of qualifiers for
each language are plotted as lognormal functions (cf., Zipf-type functions),
they are found to have very similar slopes, albeit some interesting differences
in mean. (c) Oppositeness. The functional use of oppositeness in the qualifier
realm was clearly present for all languages studied-it did not need to be
forced. (d) Ajeclive factors. The major hypothesis of this research-that
human beings share a common framework for differentiating the affective
meanings of signs-is clearly borne out in the data. The dominant factors in
the affective meaning system are Evaluation, Potency, and Activity, usually
in that order. Whether this system will be found to hold up for non-literate
groups remains to be tested in future research, but pilot studies suggest that
it will.
EVIDENCE FOR DIFFERENCES IN SUBJECTIVE CULTURE
Differences between language/culture communities that can be drawn from
data we are collecting fall into three general categories. First, there are differ-
ences that fall out more or less incidentally from the “tool-making” procedures
just described. Despite the over-all similarities stressed above, certain differ-
ences between groups are also evident in each phase, and the standardization
of procedures enhances the significance of such differences. However, no
attempt will be made here to give cultural interpretations of these “incidental”
differences; this would require more intimate knowledge of the cultures than
the present writer possesses. Second, in our future work we plan to apply the
short-form differentials derived from the pan-cultural factor analyses to the
development of what might be called a “World Atlas of Affective Meanings.”
This will involve a greatly expanded set of concepts, deliberately selected for
their intercultural discriminating power. Third, we plan to undertake a num-
ber of pan-cultural comparative studies in particular concept areas, e.g., the
self-concept and kin-concepts more generally.
white 15 9 34 31 13 4 - 6 (fair)
black 11 11 14 23 19 6 - 5 (dark)
red 12 10 15 21 16 11 - 14
yellow 36 34 - 33 - - - -
green 40 32 - - - - - -
blue 21 - - 38 - 31 - 36
brown 25 - - - - - - -
H-rank
H-rank
Polarity Rank
1. Mother 12 14 8 17 9 12.0
2. Hand 70 63 71 60 70 66.8
3. Thief 6 4 13 1 12 1.2
4. River 57 62 56 48 49 54.4
5. Wednesday 100 99 91 100 84 94.8
6. Chair 80 73 58 75 69 71 . O
7. Battle 19 3 20 5 19 13.2
8. Truth 35 47 26 25 25 31.6
9. Rope 91 70 75 84 66 77.2
10. Courage 38 58 40 27 39 40.4
11. Anger- 28 40 30 54 51 40.6
12. Choice 69 98 74 82 91 82.8
13. Marriage 2 7 10 21 32 14.4
14. Love 4 8 4 33 14 12.6
15. Pleasure 32 52 18 32 35 33.8
16. Freedom 1 2 31 9 6 9.8
17. Fruit 36 36 11 35 11 25.8
18. Heat 86 61 78 72 99 79.2
19. Moon 26 31 14 49 12 26.4
20. Bread 20 15 12 41 44 26.4 15.0
21. Tooth 40 34 36 65 63 47.6
22. Fish 92 55 89 90 83 81.8 (4)
23. Smoke 68 37 79 67 58 61.8
24. Bird 43 24 53 43 61 46.0
25. Hair 77 94 65 85 53 74.8 (4)
26. Picture 63 42 88 66 61 64.0
27. Star 18 38 34 45 64 39.8
28. Head 81 51 46 61 31 55.2
29. Cup 72 50 70 36 76 60.8
30. Father 16 22 52 14 8 22.4 (1) 17.3
31. Seed 67 43 47 87 62 61.2
32. Window 60 44 60 74 28 53.2
33. Cloud 31 67 68 69 41 55.2
34. Rain 48 72 69 94 88 74.2
35. Knot 99 56 85 99 94 86.6 (4)
36. Map 79 49 72 37 73 62.0
37. Laughter 30 68 43 58 75 54.8
38. Food 39 83 50 40 43 51.0
39. Power 56 77 92 93 54 14.4
40. Book 62 64 63 71 23 56.6 19.1
41. Heart 8 5 49 30 7 19.8 (1)
42. Man 64 60 66 24 74 57.6
43. Death 73 29 32 31 56 44.2
44. Cat 85 45 44 81 78 66.6
45. Life 52 91 35 62 52 58.4
46. Wealth 59 95 55 98 60 13.4
47. Danger 66 17 39 15 47 36.8
48. Future 55 88 97 50 89 75.8 (4)
49. Music 49 21 57 46 5 35.6
50. Peace 23 59 6 11 46 29.0 22.8
~~ ~
XII. CONCEPT
TABLE DISTRIBUTIONS
BY OCTANTS
IN FOURCULTURES
Octant
Culture E+ E+ E+ E+ E- E- E- E-
P+ P+ P- P- P+ P+ P- p-
A+ A- A- A+ A+ A- A- A+
American 20 48 10 3 14 4 1 0
16 31 12 3 18 8
Flemish 16 31 12 3 18 8 3 I
23 25 9 24 9 2
Finnish 23 25 9 24 9 2 3 1
Japanese 31 21 8 13 3 0 11 4
Total* 90 131 39 43 44 14 18 6
* Total adds to 391 rather than 400 because a few concepts fell precisely at the midpoints of a
factor.
CONCEPTS
COMMONLY
ASSIGNED BY THREE
TO THE OCTANTS OR FOUR
OF
THE FOURCULTURES EXA~NED
NOTES
I wish to express my thanks for the contributions of many colleagues, both at Illinoia and in
many countries around the world, to this cooperative research.
* From January, 1960, to the present writing, April, 1963, this research has been supported
entirely by the Human Ecology Fund, and we here express our gratitude for this assistance.
a Phase I actually terminated with a correlational and factorial analysis of the interrelation-
ships among these scales when they are judged against each other (rather than used in differen-
tiating concepts), but since these analyses merely confirm later, more rigorous, tests of the general-
ity hypothesis they will be omitted from this report.
200 Transcullural Studies ilz Cognition
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