ABSTRACT
Reprinted from Economic Development and Cultural Change, 4 (July, 1956): 335–53, by permission of the University of Chicago Press (copyright © 1956). Robert F. Murphy is Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University. His recent work has concentrated upon symbolic interaction processes but he has maintained his earlier interest in social change. This paper was written as a contribution to the University of Illinois Research in Cross Cultural Regularities and is partially based upon Murphy*s ethnographic research in South America. Murphy also has conducted field investigations in western North America and West Africa. For a biographical note on Julian H. Steward, see Selection 5.
