ABSTRACT
As Chapter 3 showed, there are differences, but on the average no sharp contrast, between respondents from East and Southeast Asia and respondents from Western Europe in terms of attitudes to basic societal values. As Chapters 4 and 5 then showed, no clear signs suggest that average variations, within ‘sub-regions’, in geographical conditions, in culture and in particular in religious practices, in economic and social development, constitute, despite what is often thought to be the case, major sources of intra-regional distinctions in attitudes to basic societal values either among respondents from Western Europe or among respondents from East and Southeast Asia. These sets of rather negative findings strongly indicate, therefore, that one should not expect to discover simple and straightforward ‘explanations’ of variations in basic societal values, either in general or, in the particular case of this study, at the level of regions or sub-regions in either East and Southeast Asia or Western Europe.
