National Character: A Psycho-Social Perspective

Alex Inkeles approaches the subject of national character by surveying various definitions, tracing developments through the twentieth century, and by examining the regularity of specific personality patterns among individuals in a society. Reviewing previous studies, Inkeles canvasses the attitudes and psychological states of different nations in an effort to discover a set of values in the United States. He concludes that, despite recent advances in the field, there is much to be done before we can have a clear picture of the degree of differentiation in the personality structure of modern nations.