Krus, D. J. & Ishigaki, Y. (1992) Kamikaze pilots: the Japanese vs. the American perspective. Psychological Reports, 70, 599-602.

Kamikaze pilots: the Japanese vs. the American perspective
David J. Krus
Arizona State University
Yoko Ishigaki
Japan College of Social Work

Summary.- Semantic differential ratings of Kamikaze pilots by 90 Japanese and 37 American subjects are contrasted. The observed differences are interpreted within the context of Hasegawa’s phenomenological analysis of contemporary Japanese society.

Toward the end of the Second World War, American aircraft carriers were closing in on the Japanese islands and the aerial bombardment intensified. The use of incendiary bombs increased so many Japanese cities were on fire. Postwar interviews with American pilots indicate that during the bombing raids they often felt heat through soles of their shoes in cockpits of their airplanes. The high number of civilian casualties together with the imminent danger of invasion of their homeland created a generally shared, highly emotional and protective attitude among Japanese pilots. The presence of this state of heightened emotionality bears direct relevance to our narrative.
Japanese pilots, struggling to avert the advancing American armada, faced overwhelming odds when attempting to break through the wall of concentrated firepower surrounding the enemy aircraft carriers. As the probability of penetrating the defenses of the naval targets and returning alive decreased, the probability of not reaching the targets and perishing anyway increased. With the rapidly diminishing military might of Japan these two probability continua were shifting so the probability of not reaching the target and at the same time of sacrificing one’s life in vain rapidly increased. At this point, some Japanese pilots loaded their planes with explosives and dove toward the American carriers to avert the high probability that their sacrifice will be in vain. Postwar interviews with surviving Japanese pilots indicate that they viewed the actions of Kamikaze pilots as being rational, justified, and meaningful.

The preceding explanations contrast sharply with the standard American and contemporary Japanese interpretative framework of Kamikaze pilots as fanatical, illogical, and irrational. These perceptions are affirmed by the current societal climate of Japan, well captured by Michiko Hasegawa (1984). In a section of her paper subtitled ‘From darkness to nothingness,’ she opens her phenomenological analysis of the contemporary Japanese postwar generations with the observations (pp. 29-30) excerpted below.

Individuals in any era perceive a demarcation between the years preceding and following their own births. The years preceding one’s birth are bathed in darkness. Birth is the beginning of time for an individual; anything occurring before this precedes time itself. Those of us born in the postwar years see ourselves as children born of darkness. The war years were said to resemble the Dark Ages. We were taught that for inexplicable reasons the entire country had gone mad, thinking it could achieve the impossible and convinced that wrong was right. Defining oneself as a product of darkness is not comforting. We imagined that those responsible for the creation of the dark age had been punished and that the rest had repented and exorcised the darkness from themselves. The period, in short, was obliterated. Instead of seeing ourselves as children of darkness, we became accustomed to the idea that we were born of nothingness.

This perspective provided by Hasegawa helps to understand contrasting Japanese and American views in the Kamikaze pilots, the subject of the present paper.

Method

Questionnaire  A questionnaire was constructed using bipolar adjectives to describe the Kamikaze pilots. The adjectives were selected from a list provided by Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum (1957, p. 43). Each adjective pair was associated with a seven-point rating scale. The following instructions accompanied the scale: Toward the end of World War II some Japanese pilots dove their planes into enemy carriers, sacrificing their lives. They became known as Kamikaze pilots. Using the rating scale below, please indicate your feelings about these pilots. There were two sets of questionnaires-one in English and one translated into Japanese.

Subjects  The questionnaire was administered to groups of both American and Japanese students. The American subjects were 37 graduate students at the Arizona State University. Their average age was 36.1 years (SD = 12.4). The Japanese version of the questionnaire was administered at the Japan college of Social Work in Tokyo to a group of 90 undergraduate students whose average age was 19.5 years (SD = 1.4). There was a tendency for males to outnumber females among the Japanese students. The opposite tendency was observed in the American group.

Results

Results of this study are summarized in Table 1. Some of the scales were reflected so the obtained scores point in the same direction. The highest possible rating was 7 points, the lowest possible, 1 point.

Table 1. Mean Ratings and their Associated Standard Deviations of
Kamikaze Pilots on Semantic Differential Scales

High mean ratings indicate judgments toward warm, bright, beautiful, sweet, good, fair, brave, and meaningful poles of the scales; low mean ratings are indicative of judgments toward cold, dark, bitter, ugly, bad, unfair, cowardly, and meaningless poles of the bipolar adjectives. The standard deviations of the ratings are also given. Inspection of the differences in mean ratings of Kamikaze pilots as judged by Japanese and American groups of students show that rated adjective pairs fall into two groups. The differences in mean ratings are significant for the scale clusters, capturing the subtle differences in meaning of the rated concepts. By using adjective pairs capturing the obvious value judgments, the differences in mean ratings are not significant. The differences in meanings on the subtle scales all point in the same direction. The Japanese subjects describe Kamikaze pilots significantly closer to the positive end of the subtle scales on the semantic differential than do the American subjects.

Discussion

An interpretation of the observed differences in the obtained ratings of Kamikaze pilots has to include consideration of the existential niveau of the postwar Japanese generations, well outlined by Hasegawa, as excerpted in the introduction to this study. The results of our empirical observations support the findings of her phenomenological of the contemporary young Japanese generations. On the level of the obvious scales of the semantic differential the Japanese students do not see more meaning in the actions of the Kamikaze pilots than their American peers. Nor do they see more good, fairness, or bravery in their actions. However, on the level of the indirect descriptions using the subtle scales, they describe the Kamikaze pilots in terms that suggest a positive emotional response associated with the Japanese pilots wearing the God’s Wind scarf over their foreheads during their final encounter with the enemy.

References

Hasegawa, M. (1984) A postwar view of the Greater East Asia War. Japan Echo, 11, 29-37.
Osgood, C.E., Suci, G., & Tannenbaum, P. (1957) The measurement of meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Accepted February 29, 1992.