ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of generational continuity has long and justifiably excited the interest of behavioral scientists (Oliver, 1993). As Atkinson and Dodder (1990) observed:
The long standing concern over generational conflict and continuity may be because it is through generational transmission that culture is continued and the world of today becomes the world of tomorrow…. Generational transmission…serves as the mechanism through which values, attitudes, and ways of life are kept alive (and)…as the major mechanism for social change. Each generation determines what aspects of human culture will be retained from the previous generation and what aspects of culture will be discarded or changed. (pp. 193-194)
The significance of events at any time and in any place is gauged by the nature and moment of the adaptive responses by individuals or collectivities to the events. The extent to which such adaptations endure is a function of the transmission of the responses over time from one generation to another or of the stability of the circumstances that evoke such responses. To understand the continuity of patterns of human social behavior over time is to understand the mechanisms through which adaptations are transmitted and the forces that maintain the circumstances that evoke similar response patterns over time. Conversely, to understand individual or social change is to understand the mechanisms that impede intergenerational transmission and that modify the conditions demanding personal or collective adaptations. The analyses to be reported here should be understood in this context.
