Heritage of Exploitation: A Brief TAT Report on South Brazilian Youth

Abstract

STATUS INEQUALITY AS REFLECTED IN THE TATOver a number of years, starting in 1947, various colleagues and I have been using the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) to study comparatively the social attitudes of Japanese both in the United States and Japan and class differences among American youth. Subsequently, I have examined samples of Korean youth in Korea, Japan, and the United States. My most recent and still ongoing collaborative ventures have been involved with youth from Brazil and Venezuela. I have found that in eliciting unguided stories given in response to a standard set of pictures from given groups over time, and in given settings, I can gain some indirect reflections of cultural continuities in thought, as well as some changing attitudes related to shifting social circumstances. Throughout my work I have been concerned with the effect of minority status on the social attitudes of specific minorities starting in early childhood, but most readily available during the period of high school and college attendance. PROBLEMS IN STATUS INEQUALITY AND SOCIAL COHESIONIn two recent volumes, Status Inequality: The Self in Culture (De Vos and Suárez-Orozco, 1990) and Social Cohesion and Alienation: Minorities in the United States and Japan (De Vos, 1992), I have attempted some theoretical integration of themes tying together most of my writings about the experience as well as structure of social inequality. Throughout, my studies of "self" in society have been focused rather specifically on both the structural as well as experiential psychological effects of minority status as it influences both individual and group behavior with consequent political, social, and economic effects. These studies

Values Following a Major Terrorist Incident: Finnish Adolescent and Student Values Before and After September 11, 2001

“…A variety of ecological life circumstancesFincluding political structure, historical experiences, and even climatic conditionsFhas been seen as central to the formation of value priorities (Hofstede, 2001;Schwartz, Bardi, & Bianchi, 2000), with adaptation and change in value priorities taking place through both the reinforcement contingencies offered by life circumstances and the individual's desire to fulfill outstanding deficit needs (Maslow, 1970;Schwartz & Bardi, 1997 Value change is usually seen as taking place over a relatively long time period, typically decades (De Vos, 1997;Hofstede, 2001), with value stability reinforced by occupational class structures that maintain value consistency across generations (Kohn, Naoi, Schoenbach, Schooler, & Slomczynski, 1990;Morgan, Alwin, & Griffin, 1979). Indeed, even when social and political structures undergo radical restructuring, as has been the case over the last decade in Central and Eastern Europe, there has been little evidence of significant value change (Schwartz et al, 2000).…”

“…Value change is usually seen as taking place over a relatively long time period, typically decades (De Vos, 1997;Hofstede, 2001), with value stability reinforced by occupational class structures that maintain value consistency across generations (Kohn, Naoi, Schoenbach, Schooler, & Slomczynski, 1990;Morgan, Alwin, & Griffin, 1979). Indeed, even when social and political structures undergo radical restructuring, as has been the case over the last decade in Central and Eastern Europe, there has been little evidence of significant value change (Schwartz et al, 2000).…”

Internalized Achievement or External Authority: Some Cultural Comparisons of Responses to TAT Card 1

“…Overall, in some work already completed (De Vos & Vaz ND.), we could not find any significant differences between Brazilians from technically intact families with two parents compared with those from broken families. Specific hypotheses related to our intended comparison of youth from intact compared with separated family situations could not be verified.…”

Imaginary pictures, real life stories: the FotoDialogo method

“…Re-drawings of the standard Murray TAT set and administration of picture stimuli techniques have been used in various cross-cultural studies (Henry, 1956;Sherwood, 1957;Goldschmidt & Edgerton, 1961;Spindler & Spindler, 1965;Goldstine & Gutmann, 1972;Costantino & Malgady, 1983;Vaz, 1993;De Vos, 1997;Hibbard et al 2000;Monopoli & Alworth, 2000). Researchers in psychological anthropology have expressed concerns over the validity and reliability of projective techniques in cross-cultural studies (Edgerton, 1970).…”