With the recent appointment of Pablo González Casanova as director, Mexico’s major center for social research has been reoriented toward a more technical and less philosophical conception of the sociological enterprise. A full-time member of the Institute’s staff, Miss Rodríguez self-consciously (but modestly) flies the new banner. “It is incongruent,” she writes, “to call oneself a specialist in sociology without a knowledge of statistics” (p. 57).
Fifteen hundred subjects, equally divided by sex, were provided with a check-list of more than a hundred characteristics and asked to underscore those which they considered descriptive of the Mexican, both nationally and regionally. Most of the characteristics were presented as “forced choices”: for example, dark-brunette-blonde, happy-sad, worker-idler. The author is less explicit than she might be with respect to just how the sample was drawn. Judging from the data on age, the subjects were predominantly students at the University.
A brief summary can scarcely do justice to the extremely interesting findings. If we take the first five characteristics most often chosen for the national stereotype, these subjects believe that the Mexican is happy, hospitable, clean, sociable, and optimistic in that order (p. 92). “Courteous” ranks twentieth, and “proud” is surprisingly twenty-third. Two contradictory traits—self-confidence and lack of self-confidence—rank at the bottom of those characteristics underscored by fifty percent or more of the subjects.
Taking the first three choices as illustrative of the regional stereotypes, we find that northerners are thought to be frank, hardworking, and active. Los Yucatecos are clean, hospitable, and happy. The people of the center are brunette, religious, and of moderate stature. Those on the coasts are happy, amusing, and back-biting. Finally, southerners are thought to be hospitable, happy, and clean.
The main audience envisioned for this little volume is quite obviously students. More sophisticated readers will be less satisfied with Miss Rodríguez’ orientation and interpretation than they are with her data, although she writes interestingly and well. We are provided with a short and rather seriously dated sketch of the social psychology of stereotypes, followed a lengthy discussion of elementary statistical method. The data themselves are interpreted within the context of a fairly extensive review of the existing literature by Mexican writers on the national character; most often cited are Gómez Robleda (the author’s favorite), Ramos, Paz, and Iturriaga. In the end the paradoxes and complexities of the problem remain—illuminated, shall we say, but perhaps not fundamentally elucidated. With this conclusion Miss Rodríquez would doubtlessly be the first to agree.
