12
RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
project led the collective enterprise away from classical anthropological
models concerned with small-scale cultural wholes.
Research by other behavior science disciplines is also recent. Sociopsy-
chological work on Japan today is founded on attitude survey techniques
developed in Japan during the Occupation and extended into the universities
after the Occupation ended (Passin 1951). Psychocultural studies, begun
originally by anthropologists during World War II, have moved out of the
hands of these professionals in part because of the bad repute of some of the
early studies (Norbeck and DeVos 1961). Various collaborative efforts by
Japanese and American psychiatrists and psychologists have emerged in
the past decade: a few anthropologists, such as Betty Lanham, continue to
work in the field. Cultural pattern research began with Benedict, received
an infusion of interpretive analysis of the David Riesman type in the early
1950’s in the Shiso no Kagaku movement (Kawashima 1951; Tsurumi 1954;
Kato 1959), and has come along slowly since then. A few subjects, notably
the studies of buraku structure, received an impressive impetus in the late
1950’s when Western anthropologists began using the earlier work of
Japanese scholars going back into the 1930’s. The same can be said for some
aspects of family social anthropology, hierarchical social structures, and
exotic items like prostitution, Shinto rites, and everyday humor. But this
prewar work did not loom very large, and Western behavior scientists, as
well as their Japanese colleagues, had to construct a science of Japanese
society and culture in the 1950’s.
Since that time, the field has developed along predictable lines: nearly
all standard subjects of contemporary sociocultural anthropology are repre-
sented by research on Japan, with certain fields predominating. These
standard subjects are listed in rough order according to the number of items
in some standard bibliographies checked by the writer: (1) kinship, family,
and related aspects of social relations, and special-function groups based
on kinship role models; (2) community studies, particularly rural com-
munities; (3) psychocultural studies of several types, usually done in collabo-
ration with psychologists; (4) research on any topic featuring linguistic or
semantic analysis; and (5) all others. This hierarchy probably conforms
with the anthropological order of professional preference for topics during
the 1950’s and early 1960’s.
This introduction would be incomplete without noting the relationships
among the several behavior science disciplines. Sociology is identified as
customarily dealing in broad, transcommunity frames of reference whereas
anthropology characteristically displays a narrower focus. This difference
is apparent in studies on Japan. Psychology is oriented toward the study of
individuals, but psychological research in Japan in the past decade has
shown an increasing awareness of sociocultural frames, and in the valuable