ABSTRACT
According to Krauss et al. (1984) social science research on Japan for most of the post-war period has emphasised the collective, hierarchically ordered interpersonal relations and the consensual decision-making characteristics in social organisations. Many micro-level studies of individual and small groups have portrayed Japanese as ‘polite people seeking the social harmony idealised in traditional Japanese culture’ (Krauss et al. 1984:3). Furthermore, De Vos suggests there exists ‘a Japanese pattern of relatively non-conflictful emotional interaction’ in the traditional ‘hierarchical social structure’ (1992:16), where everyone had their place within a harmonious, age-graded hierarchical status system (1992:20).
