Western concept of personality

There are three approaches that can be used to study personality in a cultural context: the
cultural-comparative approach, the indigenous approach, and the combined approach, which
incorporates elements of the first two approaches.

 The cultural-comparative approach seeks to test Western ideas about personality in other
cultures to determine whether they can be generalized and if they have cultural validity
They found applicability in numerous cultures around the world, with the Big Five traits
being stable in many cultures (McCrae & Costa, 1997; McCrae et al., 2005).
 The indigenous approach came about in reaction to the dominance of Western
approaches to the study of personality in non-Western settings (Cheung et al., 2011).
Because Western-based personality assessments cannot fully capture the personality
constructs of other cultures, the indigenous model has led to the development of
personality assessment instruments that are based on constructs relevant to the culture
being studied (Cheung et al., 2011).
 The third approach to cross-cultural studies of personality is the combined approach,
which serves as a bridge between Western and indigenous psychology as a way of
understanding both universal and cultural variations in personality (Cheung et al., 2011).

 culture

The beliefs, values, behavior and material objects that constitute a people's way of life.

 gender

The socio-cultural phenomenon of the division of people into various categories

according to their biological sex, with each having associated roles, clothing, stereotypes,
etc.; those with male sex characteristics are perceived as "boys" and "men", while those
with female sex characteristics are perceived as "girls" and "women. "

 trait

An identifying characteristic, habit or trend.

 norms

That which is regarded as normal or typical; a rule that is enforced by members of a

community.
American vs Indian culture
No two cultures are the same. The American and Indian cultures have very vast
differentiation between them..While the culture of America is a mixture of
different cultures, the Indian culture is unique and has its own values.

In another sense, it can be said that the American culture is more goal oriented and
the Indian culture is more people or family oriented. Indians may even forsake
their individual wishes and also happiness for the sake of families. But in
American culture, this trend cannot be seen.

In the United States, the Hutterites have a semi-religious subculture of their own
that prescribes isolation from others in their distinctive mode of clothing
themselves, attending religious services in German and not permitting their
members education at a level that is higher than the primary one.

Elizabath B. Hurlock makes a study of American and French children in this

context and finds that though the children of these two countries belong to what
may be described as the common Western way of life, the American child tends to
be self-dependent, while the French child shows in himself the characteristics of
reliance upon parents. American children can, therefore, more readily accept
responsibilities, and the French child lags behind in this regard.

Indian concept of personality

Culture traits and complexes may or may not always be shared by all members of a
society. When all the members of a society share a trait, it may be regarded as
‘universal’. A universal trait is that of wearing clothes, no one being excepted or
excluded from the rule. If, however, individuals have a choice of behaviour
between different norms that are equally acceptable to society, each such norm will
be known as an ‘alternative’.

Thus, in India today, particularly for menfolk, a choice between the indigenous
clothes and the Western attire will be an example of an alternative trait.
Alternatives are much more numerous than universals. Alternatives may be
distinguished from ‘specialties’ which stand for the norm and behaviour of certain
individuals and groups, determined according to the quality or characteristics they
possess.

Thus adult behavioural norms will not be the same as those relating to the child.
Politicians holding public meetings will follow norms that are different from the
ones followed by teachers in classrooms; and religious teachers will not have the
freedom of speech that is expressive of the truck driver s behaviour.

Sociologists do not fail to notice that fact that even within the patterns of a
particular culture there may be variations which may be described as ‘specific
cultures’, ‘subcultures’ or ‘contracultures’. The term specific culture may
recognize the fact that there is something known as the Indian culture, the Chinese
or the Japanese culture but, in this context, we are interested in pointing out the
variations that exist within the framework of a particular culture.

Even if Indian culture is taken into account, there will be variations formed in it
relating to its norms and behaviour concerning several practices like marriage,
child rearing, the status of the woman and succession to property, depending on
whether such norms and behaviour are observed regionally, community-wise or
according to the religious heritage.

A variation in the cultural pattern as has been described above as a ‘culture

speciality’ can take the shape of a “subculture’ when specialities become the
shared behaviour patterns of a group as distinct from behaviour patterns that are
shared by the larger society. The line of distinction between specialities and a
subculture is not very clear, but all that can be said here, to stress the line of
distinction, is that a subculture requires that the group observing it will tend to
maintain a social isolation from the rest in the society by subscribing to a distinct
way of life; specialities are very special types of behaviour pertaining to an
individual or a group or a class, and their distinctive traits will not necessarily call
for their isolation from society as such.

However, the psychological factor that stands in the way of the harmonising
process is the characteristic inability of an individual or a group to appreciate the
ways of the other. One easily finds the food Habits of others quite bizarre, without
for a moment pausing to consider whether or not aesthetic shortcomings prevail in
one’s own group also. In order to overcome this problem, sociologists advocate the
acceptance of an attitude of ‘Cultural relativity’
A villager will not condition all his activities by a mechanical division of the day
into time-hours and his approach will be leisurely. Similarly, if a person’s
occupation places him in any of the higher classes in society, his manners and his
reflexes will not be the same as the ones that characterize a lower class, or a caste.

In any party or gathering, therefore, bluntly to inquire of the price of any article or
garment will be indicative of a lower breeding, while decorating the living room
with protraits of family ancestors would still be regarded as a sign of one’s
association with the middle class.

Each culture almost equates itself with certain values with which it tends to get
identified in the course of time. An average Englishman’s obsession about fair play
and punctuality has almost equated him with those qualities. The Indian, on the
other hand, is associated with an obsession about keeping his caste pure and
undefiled.