The survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews with individual respondents.


  • 13th Installment

    Open or Close
    This installment of the survey was consigned to the Nippon Research Center Ltd. However, a portion (80 locations of the 400 locations, including Tokyo, and three other surrounding prefectures) of the document sampling (sampling of individuals from the Basic Resident Register) prior to the interviews was handled by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics. The document sampling researchers visited the city halls, ward offices, and municipal offices of the towns and villages they were charged with, and sampled from the Register there using a specified method.

    Next, request forms were sent to the subjects in advance by mail. The interviewers then visited their houses, met directly with the individual, handed them a request form from the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and requested their cooperation. When the target individuals could not be met due to being absent or any other reason, a new time and date were set, and the interviewer visited their house again.
    When the individual agreed to cooperate with the survey, the interviewer read the questions on the questionnaire, and recorded the answers provided by the individuals verbatim on the questionnaire. For questions indicated with [List], the list of answer choices were presented to the individuals.
    Stacks Image 1964
  • 12th Installment

    Open or Close
    This installment of the survey was consigned to the Shin Joho Center. However, a portion (80 locations of the 400 locations, including Tokyo, and three other surrounding prefectures) of the document sampling (sampling of individuals from the Basic Resident Register) prior to the interviews was handled by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics. The document sampling researchers visited the city halls, ward offices, and municipal offices of the towns and villages they were charged with, and sampled from the Register there using a specified method.

    Next, request forms were sent to the subjects in advance by mail. The interviewers then visited their houses, met directly with the individual, handed them a request form from the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and requested their cooperation. When the target individuals could not be met due to being absent or any other reason, a new time and date were set, and the interviewer visited their house again.

    When the individual agreed to cooperate with the survey, the interviewer read the questions on the questionnaire, and recorded the answers provided by the individuals verbatim on the questionnaire. For questions indicated with [List], the list of answer choices were presented to the individuals.
  • 9th to 11th Installments

    Open or Close
    The Institute of Statistical Mathematics carried out the surveys up to the selection of the sampling points; sampling of the individual respondents and the actual fieldwork was consigned to the Central Research Services, Inc. (However, in the 10th and 11th installments, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics carried out the sampling to select respondents in the Kanto region). Sampling staff visited an appropriate governmental office in the concerned city, ward, town, or village, and selected samples according to a procedure specified by the ISM. The sampling researchers visited the city halls, ward offices, and municipal offices of the towns and villages they were charged with, and sampled individuals based on a method specified by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics.

    Next, request forms were sent to the subjects in advance through the mail. The interviewers then visited their houses, met directly with the individual, handed them a request form from the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and requested their cooperation. When the target individuals could not be met due to being absent or any other reason, a new time and date were set, and the interviewer visited their house again.

    When the individual agreed to cooperate with the survey, the interviewer read the questions on the questionnaire, and recorded the answers provided by the individuals verbatim on the questionnaire. For questions indicated with [Answer Sheet], the list of answer choices were presented to the individuals.
  • 1st to 8th Installments

    Open or Close
    Numerous universities across Japan cooperated in carrying out these installments. First, a member of the ISM Committee for the Surveys on the Japanese National Character visited the universities to explain the survey procedures to students who were to act as survey staff. The survey staff then visited the city halls, ward offices, and municipal offices of the towns and villages they were charged with, and sampled individuals based on a method specified by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics.

    The interviewers then visited their houses, met directly with the individual, handed them a request form from the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and requested their cooperation. When the target individuals could not be met due to being absent or any other reason, a new time and date were set, and the interviewer visited their house again.

    When the individual agreed to cooperate with the survey, the interviewer read the questions on the questionnaire, and recorded the answers provided by the individual verbatim on the questionnaire. For questions indicated with [List], the list of answer choices were presented to the individuals.