An Investigation of Work Alienation

Abstract

This investigation was carried out among a sample of blue-collar in Japan, by using the same research items as Melvin Seeman's study with his permission. He carried out this investigation in the United States and two other countries. Some research items were adapted for Japanese society and the items of ethnic prejudice were all excluded. However, this investigation is comparable with Seeman's study.
Thus, this investigation deals with powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, social isolation, cultural estrangement and self-estrangement. Seeman presents the view that alienation (especially work alienation) is not correlated significantly with consequences (behavior).
In the light of these evidences, Seeman provokes serious doubt about established theses concerning alienation ; centrality of work experience, the coherence of the syndrome of alienation from which contemporary men are said to suffer and the lost community.
Our evidence is presented in Tables. It is almost the same as Seeman's study, but we have several different points. This seems to be induced by social and cultural trait. However, we suggest a difficulty in Seeman's investigation itself.
We designed to search for new findings and propose some doubt about verifiability of the study of social psychology about alienation. Moreover, the investigation for white-collar was already completed.