Abstract

A 177-item questionnaire was administered to 600 Korean married adults, 300 in their twenties and 300 in their fifties or older, in a study designed to assess changes occurring in values, attitudes, and beliefs among Koreans over the span of past 30 years. The present report presents only the results from the 45 items that dealt more directly with values. An incidental sample of 50 were interviewed at their residence for each of the cells formed by a Sex (2) x Generation (2) x Education/Urban-Rural Residence (3) orthogonal design. Data were analyzed for (1) the current status of values as of 1979 and (2) evidence for epochal changes and the directions of such changes in the values studied. Of the items analyzed, 20 did not show any generational differences, but the remaining 25 did show generational differences between the adults in their twenties and those in their fifties or older. Significant inter-generation differences as well as significant main effects of the education-residence variable and interaction effects between the generation and education residence variables, indicated that 15 of the values covered underwent changes sometime in the past 30 years and that 14 other values did not go through any significant changes in the same span of time. The present study represent a first application of a methodology which permits determination of possible epochal changes in values, attitudes, and beliefs as well as their generational differences from synchronic (cross-sectional) as contrasted with diachronic data.