Mark William Henshaw wrote:

> Mark wrote:

> But looking through the research, Neuroticism seems to fit quite well
> with subjective impressions of what a Field Dependent individual
> should look like. Look at what psychometric N is predictive of:
>
>
> 6. Uncertainty Avoidance in a culture; high Uncertainty Avoiding
> cultures being described as Xenophobic, emotionally expressive, and
> highly regulated, with feelings of stress and confusion in ambiguous
> situations. Uncertainty Avoidance also correlates strongly with the
> percentage of its citizenry which is Catholic; Protestants are less
> Uncertainty Avoiding.
>
> ams: Wow, this certainly leads to a chicken-or-egg question. I'd
> *really* like to see a h^2 estimate for Uncertainty Avoidance. The
> world's most UA culture may be the Haredim (fundamentalist Jews). It
> seems as though every detail of their existence, private as well as
> public, is highly regulated. The Talmud regulates them more tightly
> than the Mosaic Law does, and that's saying quite a bit. Of course
> they are (in)famous for their xenophobia/ethnocentrism. Another high
> UA culture was Confucianist China. The Confucianists were very
> concerned with precise rules of social propriety, and China is another
> culture famous for its xenophobia. Ditto Japan. Amish and Old Order
> Mennonites also have very regulated societies. They don't blindly
> reject new technology, but are highly selective, following agreed upon
> written regulations for what innovations may used, where, and when;
> and the Amish have a reputation for being highly impenetrable to
> outsiders, including law enforcement.

But does UA lead to rules or do rules lead to UA? Did RC's, compared to
Prots, become less UA after Vatican II? Do people accustomed to living
by detailed social regulations simply feel uncomfortable without them?
(For that matter, how does a low UA individual feel when inserted into a
high UA culture with whose rules and expectations he is unfamiliar? If
he seeks to avoid such situations, is this reverse-uncertainty
avoidance?) Can the imposition of a common code of regulations for
everyday life make a society more xenophobic? Can reducing or abandoning
these rules make it less xenophobic? In the 1960's, the Boomers coined
phrases like "Do your own thing," and "Let it all hang out." (Not
really sure what that second one means, but my guess is: "let go of
your inhibitions.") That was also the decade that gave us the civil
rights movemnent and a new, easy-going immigration law based on family
reunification rather than the half century old country-of-origin/racial
balance ideal.

Can xenophobia be socially engineered? (Not that it would be easy even
if the anwer is yes; one theme of Dean Kelley's _Why Conservative
Churches Are Growing_ was that social strictness, once lost, was very
difficult to regain. Although he focused only on religious sects, he
mentioned that the idea might also be applicable to other institutions.)

~Alypius