SUPERCULTURE AS A FRAME OF REFERENCE FOR CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISONS OF NATIONAL CHARACTERS

Abstract

This paper shows the utility of a psychometric model called the generalized high threshold (GHT) model to cross-national comparative studies of national characters based on public opinion data. This model provides a sort of scalar measure of conformity of each nation to a hypothetical culture called the superculture. The superculture is a “standard” against which those nations are compared for the elucidation of their mutual relationships. Furthermore, a new representation method called the vectorial angular (VA) representation is developed for a graphical representation of the GHT model. In this representation all nations are represented as vectors, and the measures of conformity and the matching rates of responses of cross-national public opinion research are represented by the angles between those vectors. The GHT model and the VA representation are applied to two cases: the comparative study of national characters (France, FRG, Japan, the UK and the USA); the comparative study of opinions on the issues of EC unification (12 European countries). These applications show the utility of the model and representation for both domain-independent and domain-specific comparative studies of national characters at the exploratory phase of research.