Anthropological Approaches to Personality Studies

1. Introduction

   a. Differences in Asian and American Norms

       a.1 Hosting, Wife Introductions, Bragging, Job interviews and Emergency Call

   b. Expand of Culture and Personality: Three Questions to Address

         b.1 Are there psychological differences between human populations?

         b.2 What are the causes in individual development of psychological differences between populations?

         b.3. How are psychological differences between populations related to sociocultural environments of those populations?

2. Culture-and-Personality Studies

    A.  Robert LeVine’s Five Categories (in spite of lack of theory)

        a.1 Anti-culture-personality position

              a.1a Irrelevant because it negates the approach itself

        a.2  Reduction position

              a.2.a Irrelevant because of its inclination to Freud’s theory of psychosexual development

        a.3  The personality-is-culture view

               a.3.a  Drastically modified making it less deterministic and opting for more interactive and empirical approaches

         a.4  The personality mediation view 

                 a.4.a  Most recent studies use 4 approach

          a.5  The “two-systems” view

                  a.5.a  Most recent studies use 5 approach

   B. Three Approaches to Culture and Personality

           a. Culture as a determinant of Personality

            b. Culture as the Determinant and the Expression of Personality

            c. Culture and Personality as Co-Existing systems in Society

3. Culture as the Determinant of Personality

    A.  Ruth Benedict’s Pattern of Culture

         a.1 Configurational Approach (Culture = Personality)

                a.1.a  Zuni Culture (mild and orderly)

                a.1.b Dobu Islanders

                a.1.c Kwakiutl Indians (violent and aggressive)

          a.2  Criticism of Configurational Approach 

                a.2.a Exaggerated the internal consistency of culture and neglected aspects

                a.2.b Observations and Subjectivity are difficult to verify

                a.2.c What caused culture configurations to develop

                a.2.d Overdrawn Western psychological labeling

     B. Margaret Mead’s South Sea Studies

           b.1 The cultural basis of groups differences in behavior

                 b.1.a Coming of Age in Samoa

                 b.1.b Growing Up in New Guinea

                 b.1.c Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies

             b.2  Criticism of Mead’s South Sea Studies

                     b.2.a Subject Impressionism

                     b.2.b  Overgeneralization

                     b.2.c Contradictory Information

4.  Culture as the Determinant and the Expression of Personality

      A.  Abram Kardiner’s Basic Personality Structure 

            a.1 Personality Mediation Views 

                   a.1.a Basic Personality (societies develop similarities by sharing patterns of child rearing practices in first and secondary institutions)

                    a.1.b First Institutions (family and kin)

                    a.1.c Secondary Institutions (art, myth, religion)

      B. John Whiting’s Child Training and Personality

           b.1  Three Significant Findings in Personality Mediation Views

                  b.1.a Child training practices and their effect on satisfaction and anxiety are related to illnesses and therapy

                  b.1.b. American families start child rearing early compared to other societies and that practices are severe

                  b.1.c Parents in other societies are more concerned with interpersonal relations rather than body functions

           b.2  Praises of Whiting Child Training and Personality

                   b.2.a More empirical than Kardiner’s approach because it uses crosscultural data in a comparative analyses

                   b.2.b  Independent panel of judges for re-examination

             b.3 Criticism of Whiting Child Training and Personality

                    b.3.1 Problem of casual explanation

                    b.3.2 Neglect in idiosyncrasies in a culture

5. Culture and Personality as Interdependent Systems

      A.  Alex Inkeles and Daniel Levinson’s study on Modal Personality and Social Change

            a.1 Ideal congruence (High compatibility between personality and social roles)

             a.2 Unstable Congruence (Seemingly stable relationship between modal and sociocultural but high potential for social change or personality deviance)

              a.3 Institutional Induced Noncongruences (Rise in institutional changes that the society’s relatively well-established and internally stable modal experiences serious strains in meeting the new role demands made on them)

               a.4 Characterological Induced Noncongruences (Hypothetical situation where a new stable modal personality type is introduced into an established and it is not compatible)

6.  Comparative Study of Value in Complex Societies

      A.  Kluckhohn and Stridtbeck’s Value Orientation Study

            a.1 Five Basic Problems Common to All Humans

                   a.1.a What is the character of innate human nature?

                   a.1.b  What is the relation of man to nature?

                    a.1.c  What is the temporal focus of human life?

                    a.1.d What is the modality of human activity?

                   a.1.e What is the modality od man’s relationship to other men?

      B.  Hsu’s Americans and Chinese: Passage to Differences

             b.1 Comparative study of two contrasting ways of life: Chinese and Americans

      C. Connor’s Study on Three Generations of Japanese Americans

            c.1 Empirical study of persistence and change in personalities among three generations of Japanese America