The Instrumental Activities Inventory: A Technique for the Study of the Psychology of Acculturation

PURPOSE AND RESEARCH SITE O UR PURPOSE is to describe the development and application of a research technique that we have chosen to call the Instrumental Activities Inventory, which we feel to be particularly useful in the study of acculturating communities, and to place it in the context of our study of one particular community. We will summarize inpreliminary fashion some of the research results obtained to date, but our major emphasis is methodological. The inventory technique consists of 24 line drawings that depict specific instrumental activities in three catgeories current on our research site. By instrumental activities we mean those activities that an individual engages in for the achievement and maintenance of a life style and status in the social groups of which e is a member or aspires to be a member. The technique is applied to the Blood Indian Reserve in Alberta, Canada. It is the largest Canadian reserve, with approximately 3,000 Blood Indians in an area of 540,000 square miles. It is a rich reservation, with unusual resources of well-watered grazing and prime wheat-growing la d. A tribal herd and wheat