ABSTRACT
Interpersonal relations in the domains of gender, age, and authority are often the focus of public policy and social change. Social influences on cultural values, our third category, are virtually limitless, if interpersonal contacts are taken into account. This chapter examines three kinds of research questions. The first concerns the differences and similarities in prevailing cultural values concerning human relationships, across the two countries. The second research question deals with a two-dimensional issue: empirical structuring of the value measures. Third research question focuses on the sources of influence on these cultural values, both factors that might maintain or account for stable values and those that might be producing change. Egalitarian movements with regard to gender, age, race, and authority are newsworthy precisely because they arouse a great deal of opposition in American society. Cultural values governing social relations, far from being a domain of understanding, are for American businessmen a major source of frustration in dealing with their Chinese counterparts.
