We carry out the survey using face-to-face interviews with individual respondents.


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Target Population and Survey Method
All of these Surveys on the Japanese National Character are sample surveys that target Japanese men and women aged 20 years or older (age was restricted to 20 years or above and below 80 years for installments 11 and 12, and to 20 years or above and below 85 years for installment 13). Each installment has also used a stratified random sampling of between 2,254 and 6,400 individuals, with face-to-face interviews conducted with individual respondents.
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Survey Content
The survey content includes items selected to adequately express the features of national character from as broad a scope as possible. Many items have been used repeatedly across installments; however, not all of the items have necessarily been used in each installment.
All items are given # numbers so that they can be identified in each installment. Additionally, all items are categorized into 9 areas—from `1: Basic information' to `9: Japaneseness and race.'
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Survey Questionnaire
We used only one type of questionnaire for the 1st, 3rd and 4th installments. There were two versions of the questionnaires, a blue and white form, during the 2nd installment carried out in 1958. The questions on the blue form begin at 1, and the questions on the white form begin at 101.
Beginning with the 5th installment carried out in 1973, we have utilized two types of questionnaires: the one is the K-type, which mainly recapitulates previous questions; and the other is the M-type, which emphasizes new questions. The K-type and M-type questionnaires were employed to lessen the burden borne by the survey subject (in terms of interview time). The survey sample was divided into two groups, and one group answered the K-type, while the other answered the M-type.