This paper applies a quasi-experimental design to the problem of the causal relation between intellectual and political movements. A sample of 122 consecutive generations (or 20-year periods) was drawn from European history (540 B.C. to 1900 A.D.). A cross-lagged correlation analysis indicated the following intergenerational influences: (1) political fragmentation has a positive impact on the emergence of empiricism, skepticism-criticismfideism, materialism, temporalism, nominalism, singularism, and the ethics of happiness; (2) war has a negative impact on the appearance of most of these just mentioned beliefs; (3) skepticism-criticism-fideism and perhaps materialism have a positive influence on the appearance of war; and (4) civil disturbances tend to polarize beliefs on all major philosophical issues. Psychologists frequently prefer to think that individual motives, thoughts, and behaviors have significant repercussions in larger human affairs (e.g., Donley and Winter; Osgood; Simonton, a; cf. Wood). One of the most conspicuous illustrations of this orientation may be McClelland's The Achieving Society where economic prosperity-indeed the very ascent and decline of civilizations-is explained in terms of personal needs and values (also see DeCharms and Moeller). Sociologists, anthropologists, and historians, by comparison, often adopt the position that the causal relation between individual and society operates in the contrary direction-that human dispositions and intentions are the product of sociocultural influences (cf. Sorokin). The most commonplace example of this different orientation is the effort on the part of many social scientists to show how even individual genius or creativity is but an epiphenomenon of larger sociocultural movements (e.g., Gray, a, b; Kroeber; Kuhn; Ogbum; Schmookler; Simonton, c, e; Toynbee; White). But probably the single most persuasive and systematic effort in this vein is found in Pitirim A. Sorokin's Social and Cultural Dynamics (a). Sorokin views personal beliefs as a response or reaction to prevailing political and cultural events (also see Sorokin, b, c). As an example, whenever major social upheavals, calamities, and crises appear, he argues (a) that skepticism and singularism (individualism) tend to increase: particularly interesting is Sorokin's (c: 487-88) law of polarization which holds that extreme beliefs and attitudes tend to emerge in times of severe sociopolitical unrest and crisis. Thus, the attempts to demonstrate how both temporalism (belief that reality is in constant flux) and eternalism (belief that reality is fundamentally changeless) tend to flare up in times of sociocultural turmoil and *The political data for the present study were collected as part of the author's doctoral dissertation in Social Psychology for the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, with David A. Kenny thesis advisor.