Thursday, 31 October 2019

CULTURE PERSONALITY

- INTRODUCTION:

In the 3rd AND 4th decade of the 20th century, a new theory emerged in
anthropology, the culture and personality school of thought.

- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Scholars of this school were interested to find out relation between culture
and personality, in course of their study they applied cultural and ethnographic data
as well as psychological technique. Therefore, this school of thought is also termed
as psychological anthropology.

this school introduced a large number of well known anthropologists:

Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Ralph Linton, Kardiner and Du bois.

- BASIC PREMISES:
1. Culture influence collective behaviour or personality

2. Personality influences culture

3. Culture and personality both influence each other

4. Primary aim of culture personality school is to examine interrelationship

between culture and personality

• adult behavior is “culturally patterned,”

• childhood experiences influence  the individual’s personality as an adult,
and
• adult personality characteristics are reflected in  the cultural beliefs and
social institutions ( levine,2001)

- MEANING AND FEATURES OF PERSONALITY:

Meaning of personality: It is defined as the integrative and dynamic
organisation of physical, mental and social quality of an individual that
manifest itself during give and take in social life.

1) Personality is not rooted to bodily structure alone

2) Personality is an individual unit

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3) Personality is neither good, nor bad, every personality is unique

4) Personality is persistent and acquired

5) Personality can be individual as well as collective

6) Various factors affect personality

HEREDITY

HABITS
ENV.

VALUES &
BELIEFS

PHILO
SOPHY INTEREST

- BOOKS:

• ‘Crysanthemum and the swords’

• ‘Coming of age in Samoa’

• ‘Study of man’

• ‘The psychological frontiers of society’

• ‘People of Alor’

- SCHOLARS

- METHODOLOGY: They employed the following methodologies:

1. Clinical interviews

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2. Participant observation and field work

3. Projective technique or Distant culture study

4. Photographic techniques

5. Case studies

6. Content analysis

7. Ethnography

8. Psychological tests.

9. Rorschach test

- MERITS:

• Culture and Personality studies have greatly limited the number of racist,
hierarchical descriptions.

• A new emphasis on the individual emerged and made one of the first links
between anthropology and psychology

- CRITICISM:

• criticism to concept of modal personality by du bois: According to Wallace and

Kaplan, the results obtained from modal personality are very neat but they are not
very satisfactory

• The approach requires an expert knowledge of psycho dynamics which imposes

severe restrictions on recruitment of workers or collaborators

• Criticism to Ruth Benedict’s culture pattern classification: According to Morris

Opler, there existed several cultural patterns , contradictory to the two proposed
by Ruth Benedict

- CONCLUSION

RUTH BENEDICT:
- INTRODUCTION:
Ruth Fulton Benedict (1887-1942) was an American
anthropologist, and a student of Franz Boas. She belongs to the
culture personality school of thought.

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- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
She interviewed many Japanese prisoners of war in America
to understand their culture and thus came up with the concept of
‘national character’. She also studies native Americans like pueblo,
apache, Blackfoot and Serrano.
- BOOKS:
• Patterns of Culture (1934)

• The Chryasanthemum and the sword (1946)

- CONTRIBUTION: In the above mentioned books she has given

the following contributions :—

• Concept of culture pattern:

Culture trait is the smallest unit of culture—> Multiple
culture traits combine to form culture complex—> multiple culture
complex constitute culture pattern —> Multiple culture pattern
make culture configuration

• Impact of personality on culture:

According to her there are 2 kinds of cultural pattern:

1. Apollonian: characterised by docile, cooperative and simple

(eg. Pueblo Juvi of New Mexico)

2. Dionysian: Characterised by aggression,luxuriousness and

competitiveness (eg. Kwakiutl of North West America, Dobu
of Melanesia)

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• National character:
(i) She conducted interviews of Japanese prisoners of World
War II and immigrants

(ii) Examined historical documents, literature and art forms of

Japan

(iii) collected data through life histories and case studies.

Based on this she gave the concept of national character

- MERITS
• With this theory she refuted racism

• She approached anthropology through a humanistic background.

- CRITICISM
• According to Morris Opler, there were several bases of cultural
integration, contradictory to two bases (Apollonian and dyonisian)
postulated by Benedict.
- CONCLUSION
In spite of the criticism that she recieved, her contribution
provided feedback to many social scientists to undertake further
researches in those areas.

MARGARET MEAD:
- INTRODUCTION:
- Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was an American anthropologist
and was influenced by Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict and Edward
Sapir. She belonged to the culture personality school of thought.
- BASIC PREMISES:
Culture affects Personality

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- BOOK:
‘Coming of age in Samoa’ (1928)

‘Growing up in New Guinea’ (1930)

‘Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies’ (1935)

- CONTRIBUTION:
In the above mentioned books the following contributions have
been given:

• Impact of Culture on Personality:

She tested the range of variations of cultural patterns in one
geographical area

Among the tribes of New Guinea

1) Arapesh —> Cultural Environment is such that both males and

females have submissive temperament

2) Mundugumor —> male and female are aggressive ; husband is

entitled to exchange his daughter for a new wife, which leads to
female foeticide by the mother

3) Tschambuli —> female dominations in the family and males are

dependent on them.

• Use of Photographic Techniques:

She employed camera and tape recorders to capture behavioural
events (eg. Balinese of Indonesia)

• Her use of photographic technique led to development of visual

anthropology,

• Study of National Character:

It means the study of character formation of civilisations of national
territory or place.

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• Re-study approach:
To see continuity and change in formation of character and
personality (eg. Manus of New Guinea- studied in 1930 and 1955)

- CRITICISM:
Criticised by Ralph Linton and Kardiner who believed that
there was an inter relationship between culture and personality
- CONCLUSION:
Although she was criticised by some, Her contribution of
photographic techniques led to the development of the branch of
visual anthropology.

RALPH LINTON:
- INTRODUCTION:
• Ralph Linton (1893-1953)

• American Anthropologist who belonged to culture personality

school
- BOOKS:
• ‘The Study of Man’ (1936)

• ‘The Cultural Background of Personality’ (1937)

- CONTRIBUTIONS:
In the above mentioned books, he has given the following
contribution:

• Status and Role: He divided roles into two categories :

• Ascribed role ( determined by birth)

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• Achieved roles ( determined by achieved status)

• He mentioned two kinds of needs:

• Biological needs

• Psychic needs

• The satisfaction of needs is important fro the survival of the

society

• He was the first anthropologist to talk about psychodynamism

• He divided culture into three groups:

• Real Culture- actual behaviour

• Ideal culture- philosophical and traditional culture

• Culture Construct - what is written about culture

• He also divided culture based on :

• Overt Culture: that which is tangible and are in public

1. Material Culture- it is tangible and in public (eg.
Dress, food)

2. Kinaesthetic Culture- not tangible, but in public

(eg. Caste system and democracy)

• Covert culture:It is the hidden meaning of culture.

Kinaesthetic culture + Interpretation ( eg. Inequality)

• Developed concept of basic personality with Kardiner:

It states that in every culture there is common characteristics of
personality among all members of a group, which is the basic
personality of that group.
- CRITICISM
The basic personality theory was criticised on the grounds that it
could not explain variations in personality trait.

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- CONCLUSION
Although Linton was criticised but with his theory he
introduced Psycho-dynamism

ABRAHAM KARDINER:
- INTRODUCTION:
• Abraham Kardiner who was a psycho analyst from New York.

• He studied under Sigmund Freud and was known as neo-

Freudian

• He belonged to the culture personality school

- BOOKS:
• ‘The psychological Frontiers of Society’ (1945)

• ‘The Individual and his Society’

- CONTRIBUTION:
On the basis of above works, he contributed:

• Concept of Basic Personality:

Refers to the adaptive psychological skills shared by all or most
members of the society.

Basic personality structure is the outcome of cultural influences of

the individual

• Institutional aspect of culture:

• Primary Institution:
These institutions are responsible for forming basic personality
structure (eg. Family, kinship)

• Secondary Institution

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Those which satisfy the needs and tensions created by primary
institutions (religion, marriage, etc)
- CRITICISM:
The basic personality theory was criticised on the grounds that it
could not explain variations in personality trait.

His classification of institutions do not provide any solution as to

why some societies prefer Polygamy and Monogamy

Vague classification

- CONCLUSION:

CORA-DU-BOIS:
- INTRODUCTION:
Alice Cora-Du-Bois (1903-1991) was a cultural anthropologist,
who belonged to the culture personality school of thought.
- BOOKS:
‘The People of Alor’ (1994)
- CONTRIBUTION:
MODAL PERSONALITY:

• In 1937, she departed for the island of Alor for her fieldwork, with
the following objectives:

• To determine and describe the institutional constellations

of ALor culture

• To participate actively in the life of culture

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• To document the biographies of individual members of the
culture using psychoanalytic criteria as dreams and
fantasies

• To administered Roscharch and intelligence tests

• She also collected eight lengthy biographies on dreams and

children’s drawings as well as administered a number of
projective tests.

• After her return, she submitted the life histories to Kardiner, the
test results to Emile Oberholzer and drawings to Trude Schimdl
Wachner for interpretation.

• Each of these specialists worked ‘blind’. However, the conclusion

of all these experts were similar to a great extent and described
the most prevalent personality feature of the group. She called
this as the ‘modal personality’
- CRITICISM
It is not necessary that adult personality which reveals modal
personality is total outcome of early childhood

According to Wallace and Kaplan, results obtained from modal

personality are very neat but they are not very satisfactory or
predictive.
- CONCLUSION:

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POST MODERNISM

- INTRODUCTION

- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

- BASIC PREMISES

- METHODOLOGY

- MERITS:

1. CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION:

Postmodernism adamantly insists that anthropologists must consider the
role of their own culture in the explanation of the “other” cultures being
studied. Postmodernist theory has led to a heightened sensitivity within
anthropology to the collection of data.

2. Demystification – Perhaps the greatest accomplishments of

postmodernism is the focus upon uncovering and criticizing the
epistemological and ideological motivations in the social sciences, as well
as the increased attention to the factors contributing to the production of
knowledge.

3. Polyvocality – The self-reflexive regard for the ways in which social

knowledge is produced, as well as a general skepticism regarding the
objectivity and authority of scientific knowledge, has led to an increased
appreciation for the voice of the anthropological

- CRITICISM

- CONCLUSION