The lone cowboy
McCarthy, Abigail
Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy THE LONE COWBOY GALLUP-ING TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER IN MAY OF THIS YEAR the Gallup organization, in cooperation with CARA, a Washington-based Catholic research...
...Confidence in institutions is higher than in Europe...
...In this connection it is to be remembered that religion is, and has been, for Americans a means of identification and an organizing factor...
...Eighty-one percent consider themselves religious...
...Businessmen, especially those who trade or sell in many countries as most businesses do today, can look at such a comprehensive study as a rather grand form of market research...
...Father Yuhaus, as might be expected of a man directing applied research (CARA, the acronym, stands for Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate), hopes that the study will help social thinkers to bridge the gap between those caught in poverty and "those who grow richer every year...
...The study, however, is expensive...
...And it is surprising...
...The values study shows us to be most like the British in general attitude and we have lately seen the British stoutly supporting the war in the Falklands...
...But does it tell what we will do...
...A Japanese, on the other hand, as a specialist in Oriental Studies noted in discussing this result with the research team, does not think of his work as his...
...Gordon Heald, Gallup's London director, clearly thought the American results somewhat surprising and certainly significant...
...They range, according to Heald, from a Swedish insurance company to the Japanese Leisure Development Center, a government-related organization...
...Governments-and this could be disturbing-can study the survey to determine what support there is for present or future policy...
...Why do they care...
...There is one at every press conference, of course, and there was a reporter at this one who was moved to ask "Who cares...
...Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy THE LONE COWBOY GALLUP-ING TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER IN MAY OF THIS YEAR the Gallup organization, in cooperation with CARA, a Washington-based Catholic research organization, held a press conference to report on the findings of the American phase of its multi-nation values study...
...And what of the West Germans...
...It cost $500,000 in the United States alone...
...This is a better question than it seems at first glance...
...The Reverend Cassian Yuhaus, president of CARA, called the project "the most exciting study that's been done in modern times...
...Ninety-five percent of Americans say they believe in God (compare with sixty-two percent in France...
...They are not only from academic, church, and charitable institutions by any means...
...He is always part of a group, of a corporate structure...
...But reflection on the study raises questions...
...Only fifteen percent of them assert that they take pride in work as compared with eighty-four percent of Americans...
...It makes one wonder what the freedom is that Americans seem to prize so highly...
...Purveyors of mass entertainment can find out what the people want and what the traffic will bear...
...If he did not take pride in it, he would be lessening his picture of himself...
...The results in Japan and Germany on this one item are the most surprising in the light of the high level of productivity in those countries...
...It has been funded in Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Holland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Spain, Italy, West Germany, Sweden, Finland, South Africa, and Japan...
...Can one say, then, that putting value on work, as Americans apparently do, makes for better workers...
...Consider the first paragraphs of the CARA press release: "If they had the choice between freedom of the individual and equality (nobody underprivileged and no strong class differences), [Americans] more than anyone else in a new sixteen-country study . . . would choose freedom...
...in satisfaction with life . . . and among those most ready to claim that they are very happy...
...Americans Willing to Fight, Proud of U.S...
...ABIGAIL MCCARTHY...
...It would seem to him boastful and immodest to claim a personal pride in his work...
...The people involved in the values study consider it an important and unprecedented investigation of the fundamental attitudes that determine human behavior...
...At first blush the study is encouraging to American business and the current administration...
...Americans take more pride in their national identity than people of any other country, and are more willing to fight for their country than anyone else...
...CARA, whose research is at the service of the church, is not necessarily church-funded...
...The findings caused something of a stir...
...Its various projects are done by contract or funded by grants from foundations and individuals...
...This study tells us what we think of ourselves...
...SURVEY FINDS Work Rated High In U.S.-"Suggests Americans Are Most Willing to Fight for Country," announced the New York Times...
...Can it be that this happy, patriotic, religious American is-in the words of Professor Kenneth Keniston commenting on two other studies-still "the lone cowboy seeking personal fulfillment in an empty desert...
...An American's work, for example, is a matter of self-definition...
...Obviously people who do care are financing it...
...Never mind that we know there are 220 million Americans crowded into our desert and four billion more human beings around the edge,'' he adds...
...It is often what an American is in his own and other people's minds-a farmer, a mechanic, a writer, a businessman...
...Scholars whose field is the study of human behavior undoubtedly are interested in the results for their own sake...
...In other words the traditional values hold-and to an extent the researchers found surprising...
...They are least likely to justify car-stealing (cars can presumably be equated with property in general...
...Americans are among the highest...
...In a post-Vietnam world, in a world of nuclear proliferation, in a world in which even many bishops have jettisoned the concept of a just war and say that no form of war is acceptable-in that world are Americans really so willing to fight for their country...
...Funding is being sought for Mexico...
...Americans also claim more pride in their work than any other nationality . . . more than the Japanese and West Germans...
...But these same Americans are less likely than others to think children need a two-parent family...
...How much are the values claimed simply part of the respondent's mental image of himself, herself, and the country...
...Compared to Europe and Japan, Americans as a society are more religious, with American blacks more than all the others saying God is extremely important in their lives...
...Multinational manufacturers and developers can find in it clues and information about labor supply...
...They have a higher tolerance than any other nation for killing in self-defense, divorce, euthanasia, and abortion...
...They also believe in the personal application of the Ten Commandments to themselves...
...trumpeted a headline in the Washington Post...
...The crucial question is how, and to what extent, values influence behavior...
...Perhaps...
...Florence Rosenberg, psychologist on the CARA staff, says, "I would hope that people would see the study as a contribution to our general knowledge...
...That is a beginning...
...The researchers plan to go into Canada, Hungary, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Brazil, Singapore, Trinidad-perhaps the Soviet Union...
Vol. 109 • August 1982 • No. 14
