Summary.The present investigation was carried out on the assumption that social attitudes are mainly based on the feeling of responsibility towards certain social objects. 512 subjects were taken from high school students of various Indonesian towns. They were asked to state their attitude towards fifteen situations constructed like Havighurst and Taba's Life Problem Test. By means of the method of paired comparisons, the fifteen situations were linked in such a way as to get a complete set of comparisons among six kinds of responsibilities, namely towards oneself, family, friends, school, society and an abstract value (honesty).The analysis of the students' replies was conducted according to (a) the direction of their choice; (b) the reasons underlying their choice; and (c) the difference between their replies on the normative level (‘what should be done’) and the realistic level (‘what would be done’).From the results of the analysis in the main, the following conclusions were drawn:1.—It was evident that responsibility towards society had a high percentage of choices, both on the normative and the realistic level. As this tendency was found in all the six types of schools investigated from the various towns, it can be said that at present, in general, the social orientation of Indonesian students is relatively high if compared with their individualistic orientation, especially in situations where they are directly faced with the interests of the society and the country.2.—There are four main attitude types among the subjects: (1) social type; (2) common type; (3) individualistic type; (4) double‐valued type. The social type which puts a stronger emphasis on social values comprises the majo