The seven virtues of samurai : Revisiting a classic through computational language analysis

Clicks: 31
ID: 328674
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #20 of 151 articles by views in PNAS nexus

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 151 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract The longstanding dominance of values rooted in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies has increasingly come under scrutiny across the social sciences. This has renewed interest in how value systems cultivated in less-WEIRD contexts are articulated and widely received by WEIRD audiences. Recent advances in natural language processing make it possible to examine how such values are articulated in classical texts, using psychologically grounded analytical frameworks. The present study focuses on Bushido: The Soul of Japan, a widely read classic written by Inazo Nitobe to introduce Japanese ethical ideals to Western audiences. Using Contextualized Construct Representation (CCR), a theory-driven computational approach to psychological text analysis, we examined how moral concerns are structured and expressed in Bushido relative to other Japanese culture-, Christianity-, and Bible-related texts. Results showed that Bushido exhibits a distinct and structured moral profile that corresponds to psychologically defined moral dimensions. Moreover, among Japanese culture-related texts, greater moral profile similarity to Bushido was associated with broader reception in Western contexts, as indexed by independent indicators of publication, translation, and scholarly attention. Analyses of virtue-level structure further identified Meiyo (名誉; honor) as the conceptual core of Bushido’s moral framework, a form of honor distinct from Western pride-based conceptions. Together, these findings suggest that Bushido conveys moral values rooted in Japanese cultural traditions in forms that are psychologically intelligible to Western readers, illustrating how less-WEIRD cultural values can be communicated across cultural boundaries without losing their distinctive meaning.
Reference Key
openalex_W7213463083 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Ryota Takano, Minoru Karasawa
Are you one of these authors? Claim your profile
Journal PNAS nexus
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag314
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag314
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.