Abstract
This article aims to present a new analytical scheme for social mechanisms: the concept of complex social mechanisms. This concept is based on the famous Coleman boat scheme (Coleman 1990). While the traditional Coleman boat scheme presumes only one causal relation between system behaviors, the concept of complex social mechanisms enables different causal relations between system behaviors to be presumed to coexist. Hence, the concept of complex social mechanisms enables us to understand complex social phenomena more accurately than the traditional scheme. Using finite mixtures of regression models to analyze gender role attitudes among Japanese as an example, this article demonstrates the usefulness of this new analytical scheme. Certain recent opinion polls have shown inexplicable trends in gender role attitudes in Japan. Corresponding to the greater diffusion of higher education and the promotion of female labor force participation, changes in gender role attitudes in Japan have gradually lost consistency of direction and have become more unstable. This phenomenon can be explained only by presuming two social mechanisms: one mechanism strengthens the denial of traditional gender role norms among some people who desire better opportunities for status attainment, whereas another mechanism prompts other people to accept traditional gender role norms in order to escape the work-family conflict. The coexistence of these mechanisms has led to an unstable tendency in gender role attitudes in Japan. Analytical results based on data from SSP-I 2010 (N=1,739) support this hypothesis, implying that greater attention to complex social mechanisms is warranted in order to properly comprehend complex social phenomena.
