Filial piety
Posted by ampontan on Friday, December 7, 2007
THE MARGINAL REVOLUTION BLOG, written by two economics professors, discusses a questionnaire from the World Values Survey.
Here’s one of the questions:
With which of these two statements do you tend to agree? (CODE ONE ANSWER ONLY)
A. Regardless of what the qualities and faults of one’s parents are, one must always love and respect them.
B. One does not have the duty to respect and love parents who have not earned it by their behaviour and attitudes.1. Always
2. Earned
3. Neither
They then list the percentages of (1) Always answers for several countries.
Where does Japan rank among the other countries? You might be surprised. The link is here.
This entry was posted on Friday, December 7, 2007 at 12:12 am and is filed under Social trends, Traditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
JpBizDirect said
Very interesting survey. And you’re right; I was surprised! I thought Japan would rank higher than that…
James A said
I was surprised how low Denmark ranked. Is the Shakespherian stereotype of the melancholy estranged Dane truer than thought?
Personally､ I take the survey with a grain of salt.
Overthinker said
I’m not surprised. I have seen many studies and surveys that end up putting Japan closer to the US, and the US closer to Japan, than either side would seem to expect.
T.K said
James,
The survey itself was simple and innocuous. How the results were interpreted is where the salt goes. Danish kids might well respect their elders just as much as Americans do, as long as the respect is earned.
I can’t think of any reason why a high ranking here is desirable. Irresponsible or abusive parents should get no respect, least of all from their kids.