In this paper we present several attempts at data analyses concerning the East Asian peoples' attitudes and social values on the data of our East Asia Value Survey conducted in Japan, China (Beijing, Shanghai, Kunming, Hangzhou), Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore during 2002-2004. Among these, we focused on the response patterns to the open-ended question “What is the most important thing(s) for you ?” Although the responses were so various, overall each country or region shows some distinctive features closely related to their own social values. We also show the relationships between the respondents' attitudes and their answer patterns to items relating to the question, using the data of our East Asia value surveys as well as the previously conducted cross-national survey including European countries and USA. These results show that the social systems may influence attitudes and values of these people under racial, cultural and geographic diversities and life.
In the contemporary world conflicts of different cultures among different nations and regions have become a serious problem. Specifically, religions exist as the basis for different cultures. In our Cross-national survey results, it was found that only 30% of the Japanese have religious faith but 70% think that religious feeling is important and that the meaning of religion is different between the Japanese and Westerners based on our cross-national surveys. The meaning of religion can be understood in the relation between religious attitudes and other social attitudes. The structure of thinking about religion and its relation to other items in our East Asia Value Survey were analyzed using multivariate analysis. The results concerning the differences among these areas were as follows. In Japan, Korea and Hong-Kong, satisfaction about daily life and religious feeling are related positively, whereas in Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan, these are related negatively. Concerning attitudes toward science and technology, in some areas, including Japan, the medium attitude is related to religious feeling. We are continuing our on-going analysis toward seeking the meaning of religion in contemporary societies by including the results of seven Western nations' surveys.
The objective of this paper is to examine the structure of trust on organizations of the East Asian countries and the possibility of a cross-national comparative study, using data analysis of the East Asia Value Survey. Multiple Group Analysis and Categorical Principal Component Analysis are principally used in this study. This paper first examines the structure of trust in organizations. Two findings were made. Two types of common factors (establishment trust and civil trust) can be assumed. In addition, these factors can only be considered completely the same either in mainland China or in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. This paper also investigates whether trust in individuals can explain trust in organizations. Results indicate that trust in individuals cannot alone explain trust in organizations. This suggests the need for synergy trust in organizations.
Relationships between four elements of cognitive social capital (i.e., law-abiding spirit, normative consciousness, attitude toward contracts, and trust) were examined as part of the “East Asia Value Survey” conducted by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics. To avoid aggregation bias, micro-data analysis, such as multiple group structural equation modeling with categorical variables, was conducted. A significantly positive relationship between normative consciousness and trust was found for China; however, the relationship between law-abiding spirit and trust was nonsignificant. Additionally, in China, token acknowledgement affected responses to law-abiding-spirit questions but did not affect responses related to normative consciousness. Attitude toward contracts and trust had a positive relationship in Japan and China but a negative relationship in Taiwan and Singapore. This research also showed that the way demographic variables affect each element of social capital varies according to countries/areas.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the conceptual framework of people's environmental consciousness (EC) and its influences on the pro-environmental behavior based on analyzing the characters of EC and its influence factors in various countries using the East Asia value survey data collected from 2002 to 2004 by the face-to-face interview. The factors contain two types of variables, one is the attitudinal variable which contains health satisfaction, life satisfaction, trust, and attitudes toward science & technology etc., and the other is the demographic variables including gender, age, education level, household income, and religion etc., have been employed in this research. As results derived from statistical analysis on the relation between people's EC and factors, it has been revealed that the response patterns on EC are definitely different, and the significant factors are also diverse in China, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan.
Under the current financial and economic situation, risk control of financial institutes is becoming one of the most significant factors to stabilize the economic condition. One of the most important methods for risk controlling is the evaluation of rating for each company, and now a generalized linear regression model such as the ordered logit model has been widely used in the preceding studies of the rating forecasting model. In statistical modeling, the multi-nominal logit model as well as many other models have been developed from the multi-nominal logit model and are expected to decrease the I.I.A. (Independence from Irrelevant Alternatives) assumption. However, these models have not usually been used in the study of rating forecasting model so far. In this study, we will construct a rating forecasting model based on the normal ordered logit model, multi-nominal logit model and nested logit model, and compare the model performance among these models. Finally, we will confirm the validity of these models by applying them to actual publicly disclosed rating data.