Anomia and Achievement Values and Attitudes toward Population Growth in the United States

Abstract

On the basis of available evidence, it appears that a majority of Americans view population growth in the United States with considerable concern. A national survey conducted in the Fall of 1967 found that 54 per cent felt the growth rate of the United States population to be a serious problem (Kantner, 1968). A probability sample survey of women 18 years of age and over living in a relatively isolated city of 27,500 in the Fall of 1967 found 56 per cent of the respondents agreeing with the statement that America is rapidly reaching a point where she'll have too many people, and this coming overpopulation is one of the greatest threats today to the future social and economic wellbeing of the country (Barnett, 1968a: p. 5). Thus, the evidence would seem to require a revision of the allegation made in 1964 by Lincoln and Alice Day in their book, Too Many Americans, that arguments in favor of continued population increase [in the United States] predominate to such an extent that they suggest the existence of an 'American Fertility Cult' [p. 133]. Unfortunately, there is no systematic research allowing one to determine if an unfavorable view toward continued population growth in the United States has become increasingly prevalent during the past 10 years. Personal impression suggests that it has and, moreover, that it will become even more widespread in the next decade.1 Yet, even though such a view presumably has and will become more prevalent, there is, and will probably continue to be, a substantial body of persons who are neutral or opposed to the view. The present study is based on the assumption that there are general behavior patterns which can explain the existence of the view that additional population growth is undesirable and unnecessary in the United States. Following on that asumption, two such patterns that have received considerable attention and interest in social science literature were examined for their