Social Structure and Personality during the Transformation of Urban China

SES-0549345梅尔文科恩约翰霍普金斯大学这是一项关于中国城市转型期间社会结构和人格的研究，旨在检验先前关于社会结构中的地位与人格之间关系的研究结果和解释的普遍性，这些研究结果和解释主要基于对美国就业男性的大规模调查。 这项研究后来扩大到波兰社会主义时期的就业男子，以检验美国研究的结果和解释是否也适用于社会主义社会;进一步扩大到日本就业男子，以检验这些结果和解释是否可推广到非西方资本主义社会;最近，一项针对波兰和乌克兰向新生资本主义过渡早期阶段的研究重新审视了这一观点，以检验这种解释是否有效即使是在东欧和前苏联从社会主义向新生资本主义过渡期间发生的激进社会变革的条件下，也是如此。对中国的研究不仅将提供一个独特的机会，进一步检验研究结果的普遍性，并解释在一个完全不同的转型时期社会结构与人格之间的关系，而且还将研究更大的社会进程，特别是私有化的程度和成功，如何影响这些关系。先前的研究一致表明，在阶级结构和社会分层等级中的地位与人格的基本维度密切相关，如智力灵活性，自我导向的方向，以及幸福感或痛苦感。此外，对社会结构地位和人格之间关系的解释在所有研究的时间和地点都是一样的：在阶级结构和社会分层等级中的地位与促进或限制自我指导工作的机会的工作条件高度相关-特别是工作的实质性复杂性，监督的密切程度，以及它的工作环境。反过来，这些工作条件又与智力的灵活性、自我导向性以及（除了社会主义时期的波兰）幸福感或痛苦感密切相关。更广泛的影响：中国的研究将把这种比较扩展到一种完全不同的转型类型：与东欧和前苏联在政治体制崩溃后进行的经济体制转型不同，中国的经济体制正在共产党的庇护下进行“私有化”，迄今为止，几乎没有证据表明政治体制发生了重大变化。社会结构中的地位影响（以及受）人格的过程可能与过去研究中发现的情况大不相同，社会结构和人格之间的关系可能会以不可预测的方式改变。这项研究将研究财富和私有化程度以及人口规模各不相同的城市的这些可能性。这项研究将把中国社会科学引入社会结构和人格的研究，这是中国以前没有研究过的。作为这项研究的前奏，中国社会科学院目前正在将PI的两本关于社会结构和人格的书翻译成中文，由他们的学术出版社出版。美国，另一个是比较波兰和乌克兰在过渡时期与社会主义时期的波兰。因此，这项研究对中国社会科学的影响可能是相当大的，因为它可能是社会规划的效用。

SES- 0549345Melvin KohnJohns Hopkins UniversityThe is a study of social structure and personality during the transformation of urban China that tests the generality of previous findings and interpretation about the relationships between position in the social structure and personality that were developed in analyses based primarily on a large-scale survey of employed U.S. men. The study was later extended to employed men in Poland when it was socialist--to test whether the findings and interpretation of the U.S. study applied as well to a socialist society; further extended to employed Japanese men--to test whether the findings and interpretation were generalizable to that non-Western capitalist society; and most recently re-examined in a study of Poland and Ukraine during the early stages of their transition to nascent capitalism--to test whether the interpretation was valid (both for men and for women) even under the conditions of radical social change that took place in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union during their transitions from socialism to nascent capitalism. The China study will not only afford a unique opportunity to further test the generality of the findings and interpretation of the relationships between social structure and personality during a much different type of transformation, but also to study how larger social processes, especially the extent and success of privatization, affect those relationships. The prior studies consistently showed that position in the class structure and in the social stratification hierarchy are closely linked to such fundamental dimensions of personality as intellectual flexibility, self-directedness of orientation, and a sense of well-being or distress. Moreover, the explanation of the relationships between social-structural position and personality was much the same in all the times and places studied: Position in the class structure and in the social-stratification hierarchy are highly correlated with job conditions that facilitate or limit the opportunity to be self-directed in one's work--notably the substantive complexity of the work, how closely it is supervised, and how routinized it is. These job conditions, in turn, are reciprocally related to intellectual flexibility, self-directedness of orientation, and (except for Poland when it was socialist) a sense of wellbeing or distress. Broader impacts: The study China will extend the comparisons to a radically different type of transformation: Instead of the transformation of the economic system following the collapse of the political system, as in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, in China the "privatization" of the economic system is taking place under the aegis of the Communist Party, with thus far little or no evidence of the political system changing substantially. The processes by which position in the social structure affects (and is affected by) personality could be quite different from what has been found in past studies, and the relationships between social structure and personality might be altered in unpredictable ways. The research will study these possibilities in cities of varying wealth and degree of privatization, as well as population size. The research will introduce Chinese social science to research on social structure and personality, not previously studied in China. As prelude to this study, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is now translating into Chinese, for publication by their Academic Press, two of the PI's books on social structure and personality, one comparing socialist Poland to the U. S., the other comparing Poland and Ukraine in transition to Poland when it was socialist. Thus, the impact of the research on Chinese social science may be considerable, as may be its utility for social planning.