Why is it important to study general social attitudes? To compare social attitudes across nations? To conduct such research longitudinally? The answers reveal the significance of such social research under unprecedented globalization, which creates imperatives for mutual international understanding.Though principally focused on Japanese social attitudes, these attitudes must be compared across nations and time, one means being cross-national attitude surveys, encompassing special methodologies and data analytic techniques. In 1953, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics began nationwide, longitudinal surveys of the Japanese way of thinking. All of the work described in this book stems from this research.This book is intended as a learning tool for those engaged in or contemplating social scientific research. At both national and international levels, survey and analytic methodologies are explored, explicated and applied to real world data.This publication has also been published in hardback (no longer available ISBN 90 04 11853 5).