Psychological Problems Relating to the Educated Elite in Some Pacific Peoples *

Abstract

The educated elite of many Pacific peoples are exposed both to traditional cultural influences on the one hand and to a Western mode of education and an urban life style on the other. Examples are given of the problems that arise among the Melanesians of Fiji, the Polynesians of Tonga, Western Samoa and the Cook Islands and the Aborigines of Australia from the existence of these two sets of values. Conflict areas include money, property ownership, health care, family boundaries and adoption. The content and form of the conflicts are shaped by the original culture but the basic cause in each case is differential rates of modernization among members of the same ethnic group.