Social Structure and Personality Under Conditions of RadicalSocial Change

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This project is a collaborative research effort in Poland and the Ukraine, testing the generality of a theory already well documented with data from the U.S. and Japan. The theory descri- bes relations between social structure and intellectual function- ing. In particular, the theory explains why individuals working in more bureaucratic organizations display greater creativity and intellectual flexibility than those in less bureaucratic environ- ments. This project explores the generality of the theory, cross-culturally and across time. Because the theory has been tested in advanced industrial societies, an important question is whether it also will be confirmed in the more agricultural and pre-industrial Ukraine and Poland. Second, because data were collected in Poland in 1970, replication of the earlier study permits a before-and-after design to study effects of the recent social and economic changes in Poland. Results of this project include expanding the scope of one of the most influential theories in sociological thought, and increased understanding of the consequences of the capitalist revolutions of 1989 and 1990.