ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on what is perhaps the most extensive investigation ever undertaken to explore the psycho-cultural factors influencing development. Using interview data from some 6,000 young men in six developing countries (Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Nigeria, and East Pakistan), the authors and their fellow researchers devised an “overall measure of modernization” they call their “OM scale.” The characteristics of the “modern man” are described in the portions of their work that follow; the interested reader may consult the original book for the methodological details of the study. The authors discuss the developmental implications of the presence or absence of such modern men in a given society and argue that modern attitudes produce modern behaviors that are essential to development. Moreover, without modern men, modern institutions are bound to fail. In sum, for these researchers, “underdevelopment is a state of mind.” The reader should compare the qualities of n Achievement discussed by McClelland with the qualities of OM discussed in this chapter. In what ways are they similar, and how persuasive is the argument that attitudes are, as Inkeles and Smith state, “the essence of national development itself?”
