Sociology

SEMESTER: 1

SUBJECT: SOCIOLOGY

A PROJECT ON:

Culture and Personality

SUBMITTED TO: Dr. Vrinda Mohan P

SUBMITTED BY: SARTHAK JAIN

Batch: BA LLB Division A

Roll Number: A038

SAP ID: 81012019143

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INDEX

Index ..................................................................................................................................... 2
Aim of Research ................................................................................................................... 3
Research QuestionS .............................................................................................................. 3
RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS ................................................................................................. 3
Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 7
Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 8
Impact of Personality on Culture: Benedict’s work ................................................................ 9
Margaret Mead’s Contribution ............................................................................................ 11
BASIC PERSONALITY TYPE .......................................................................................... 12
Ralph Linton ....................................................................................................................... 15
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 16
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 17

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AIM OF RESEARCH

This paper will analyze the intersection of personality and culture. Through this paper, we aim
to explain the overall impact of culture on personality.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

 How does culture affect personality?

 Do cultural differences exist in personality?
 Why is it important to consider cultural effects on personality?

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

Values and beliefs learned from the culture taught since the beginning form the personality of
an individual.

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Introduction

There was no clear point of view, one central leadership, and no well-defined methodology,
but on the other hand, there were some certain ideas about which everyone was in the field
could agree. Additional to these will be: adult personalities are determined by childhood
experiences and values and institutions such as faith. A major line of argument among
socialization and character development theorists holds that personality traits are influenced by
social practices. Enrolling someone in the social programs encourages them to have feelings,
opinions, to be responsive members of society. It promotes thought development and
integration by establishing goals and connections between emotional activities and cultural
values, personal expectations and societal norms. The research on how various socialization
leads to an individual to different characteristics. The four most important influencing factors
for personality development are the infant's temperament, the interactions between the
caregiver and infant, the amount of parental responsiveness, the availability of stimulation, the
consistency or reliability of parenting, and discipline, and the nature of the infant's
environment, and finally, whether or not there is an acceptance or rejection of the infant by his
or other people in his surroundings. Heredity is environmental, history, and environmental
conditions may also play significant roles. People in the same setting also share similar traits,
since they spend time in the same geographic or physical locations because of their needs,
which often affect their personalities. According to the physical human conditions, one is
influenced by the surroundings one gets their ideas and mannerisms. There is a clear link
between the environment, community, and human personality. Insofar as a person's
environment directly affects their personal development ascription, how it impacts their beliefs
and attitudes is dependent on their environment. In the writings of Sigmund Freud's, we find
the beginnings of human culture and personality studies which are particularly noticed to the
20th century, the concept is known as "the critical period hypothesis," which claims that in the
early years of life, a person has the ability to acquire skill sets that they master later in life."
Freudian invested a considerable period in the beginning of the twentieth century in dealing
with culture and personality, contributing to the formulation of the idea of what is known as
cultural psychology. Still today, it keeps attracting anthropologists like a moth to a flame. To
understand how technology functions, we must look at anthropologists such as Gregory
Bateson, Ruth Benedict, and other theorists. One's personality is profoundly influenced by the
society in which he or she is raised. Countries around the world have observed a number of
distinct from nationalities and subcultures have been shown to have an effect on personality

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development. Some anthropologists and sociologists claim that individual culture is the
subjective facet of the overall pattern. They regard the patient's personality and culture as part
of the whole individual. With the conclusion that growth of character and the acquisition of
culture are one and the same, this makes him feel as if these phases are part of the same learning.
He thought of it as an aspect of personality whereas she saw it as a set of characteristics that
people developed together. It's generally agreed that in any given society, a certain form of
personality has emerged.

Even then, situational factors can have an effect on what you are as an individual, as well, for
example, you are defined by the people you learn from and the experiences you go through.
The effect that social contact has on how one feels depends on the intensity and frequency of
exposure. The effects that are acquired from experiencing and staying with the community are
constant, but the sudden and infrequent ones can change one's emotions. On a day-to-to-day
basis, type-day basis, adult interactions with the child are the primary source of his personality
growth. an instance, It is no coincidence that how one's personality is shaped is influenced by
one, this means: All children are socially prepared to engage in activities such as offering
hospitality, sitting at table, and making friends as part of an integrated method, where they
learn specific procedures that emphasize certain patterns to particular segments of people on
an unconscious level, experientially and convey learning both unconscious routines like
behavior and overt techniques on how to apply certain principles in their day-to-day lives. All
humans share these two essential personality traits: phenotypic uniqueness and social diversity;
(either uniquely or in a society and/world, whichever is found). Second, man has four
conditions: 1) he is a species, and exhibits both morphological and biological uniqueness, 2)
he is a social, (cultural being as well), (both (b) and (2) (the phenomenon), (the phenomenon)
he is part of must be physical and possesses his awareness within it (n)) Each individual is
equipped with two primary appendages at birth: two hands and two feet. It is fair to believe
that individuals who possess this stereoscopic vision share essential common characteristics
and inborn features such as far as humanity and personality. a little of everything: they must
have to breathe, to live, they must feed, and use the toilet, and must pass away; every man has
other bodily needs to some degree of course: he must rise, but inescapably also die conforms
to the fact that as social animals, they have to learn to rely on the society around them. They
are social animals that are held to certain standards based on their cultures. Finally, both people
must realize that they will have to adjust themselves to the world beyond them. Linked with
the literal and the majority of the other ways people are not concerned with something that's

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abstract. Let us apply an example in which one hiccups from life and civilization (that is,
accident-free factors) are formed in an unknown manner when classifying life. Even though
identical twins may be considered to one another based on their physical appearance, and
experience, unique environmental circumstances can create individual differences in their
social behavior. As one of two such individuals were injured in an automobile traffic accident,
let's suppose that the one who was not injured now is different from the other due to that he or
a year later in bed rest (long-term bed rest) could make them suffer serious personality changes!
The sociocultural care the bed-ridden twin will receive will be mostly defined by culture, with
an additional layer of extra-cultural help, idiomatically motivated need for nurture for the part
from his or her family, while the sea-blind twin will receive mainly extra-cultural assistance
for food and companionship.

Since he researched various aspects of culture and personality and arrived at the hypothesis
that basic personality, status, and social inventiveness are essential for various people, came up
with the definition, factors like invention, independence, might be prominent among all of
differing cultures, he also posited more ideas, e.g. He advanced the hypothesis that society has
a certain amount of influence over human beings due to this amount of socialization, culture,
customs, and rituals, and as well as to what they're bound to carry on, and therefore, they're
able to be described as a collective personality of a popular habit. There are different kinds of
people, who get special treatment due to their role, and that grant them additional advantages,
which causes them to possess unique personalities. He used the term "social inventor" to
describe those who constantly innovate and diverge from society's established social norms,
such as innovators who are uncommonly few and exceptional individuals in a cultural
evolution, thus mentioning that there are cultural shifts and change agents who obey the norms
of their time instead of those laid down for them.

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

(1) Explain how personality plays a major role in the creation of cultural patterns;
(2) comprehend the effect of society on personality formation; and
(3) comprehend the impact of both culture and personality on each other in the formation of
cultural groups.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

LeVine, Robert A. 2001. Culture and personality studies, 1918–1960: Myth and history.
Journal of Personality 69.6: 803–818.

This article describes and criticizes stereotypes of the culture-and-personality movement that
became established among anthropologists in the decades after 1950 underestimates of its
historical depth and exaggerations of its homogeneity. This was a first attempt at incorporating
new historical evidence concerning the complexity of the movement.

Darnell, Regna. 2001. Invisible genealogies: A history of Americanist anthropology.

Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology 1. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press.

This sets the culture-and-personality movement in the context of “Americanist” anthropology

i.e., studies of Native American peoples from Franz Boas onward. Its detailed historical
account includes the differing views of Sapir, Ruth Benedict, and others in and outside the
movement. Essential for an understanding of culture and personality.

Bock, Philip K. 1988. Rethinking psychological anthropology: Continuity and change in

the study of human action. New York: Freeman.

Culture and personality are a prominent among the contemporary anthropologists and
psychologists. Anthropology in the first half of the 20th century was mainly about the
development of cultural and personality ideas and the migration of peoples. Culture and
personality were very dissimilar, and it could never really be said to be a school of thought.

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IMPACT OF PERSONALITY ON CULTURE: BENEDICT’S WORK

Anthropologist Benedict, through her contribution to the discussion of cultural patterns,

broadened our understanding of both disciplines. Before her, “pattern” was merely a metaphor,
but credit is due to her for giving us a methodological paradigm for categorizing human culture.
One of the many potential ways that patterns of cultural interaction take place within a
community is for participants to respond to life crises. Anything which is part of the general
culture happens to be reproduced. Since Benedict could not go to the indigenous communities
during World War II, this content analysis technique was adopted. One of the U.S.
government's ideas was to do research on occupied or enemy nations was proposed. she based
on Japan as her initial destination and penned the now-famous work to gather information for
her dissertation. She read the information and discovered several findings about the Japanese
culture. When scholars started to investigate cultures from afar, it was entirely novel. She
explains that in her description of Japanese child rearing: there are two ways of doing things.
The person in Japan is totally cherished, totally free, and totally supported by the people in
caring for him or her until they reach maturity. But when they reach puberty, their lives take a
decidedly more controlled turn. He or she is requested to make an elder-friendly appearance.
Individuals or individuals during puberty are not supposed to break social taboos. to be
imaginative, he or she must follow the rituals of the family. In young Japanese society, there
has traditionally been a contradiction between rearing and mental growth. She sees parenting
activities in Japan as the country's national flower and sword. Kids think of Chrysanthemums
as signifying the socialization in one's early years. The Japanese believe that their children's
best period is infancy, and nurture them to ensure that they blossom like a Chrysanthusia. Once
teenagers (and children) have completely blossomed, they face a daunting existence. They
encourage their children to do well and they allow them to get wealthy. There is an abundance
of hostility and brutality as a result of this. There's always a sword around their neck because
they don't invite elders to support them with their mission. Some cultures have one set of
reasons for why they advance and others have different ones. Thus, population size and density
are definitely not set by race, but rely on several other factors, including the state of the overall
community and the climate. Additionally, where a population is located is a deciding factor—
along with its size and density will make a difference? It is important to consider all
personalities and cultures if you describe one of these groups. How broadly does an individual
thought, emotions, or an entire population, or a culture's thinking, emotions, generalize through

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diverse stimulus conditions? How reliable can an individual thinking, emotions, actions, and
action definitions be if individuals and collectives can only be dealt with in terms of their
measurable traits? Both of these questions are of vital significance, and it is important to our
well-being to find an answer to both of them. If action is well understood, it can be defined
with fewer words; if comprehensively general, with fewer and more; if extensively so, with a
larger.1

1
Church, A. (2010). Current Perspectives in the Study of Personality Across Cultures. Perspectives on
Psychological Science, 5(4), 441-449. Retrieved April 2, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41613451

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MARGARET MEAD’S CONTRIBUTION

Field work is a period of study in time and place where our input can benefit or lose in
translation. More than 20 years after these models were adopted; they have only recently been
given attention in anthropology. This advancement is a great advance for Margaret Mead,
Specifically, in learning about culture, she wanted to study the difference between childhood
and adulthood, Mead hoped to create a framework in which events from the latter would serve
as experiences for the former. She was proud of her performance with regards to having
dedicated the ideas in the essay to writing as an entire Community and Dedication, which was
met with differing reactions from colleagues. To someone who didn't hold preconceived ideas
about her being involved in spreading generational principles, she said her main aim was to get
readers to think about how culture is transferred between generations, and all other thoughts
came from there. The problem is not so much with providing specific answers to existing
questions, but instead with developing a broad question which can serve as the nucleus of an
inquiry. the cultures play a crucially important role in both the character and substance of the
individual members of every community. All in a person is exposed to decide what he or she
would value, as well as many of the issues and beliefs that are addressed in the society. Perhaps
one of the three significant books on Mead's is entitled Sex and Temperament in the Three
Primitive Societies. In this particular, Mead takes up the topic of culture on personality growth
in the role it plays in shaping individuals. Similar to the case of Arapaho-Mundum and
Tschambale, this research looked at three distinct groups: The Lempira of western
Tsambulswhere, the eastern Tsambale band, and the Bisa of southern Tsambul. This was a
research to discover the mechanisms of personality variations across cultures in their natural
and urban settings, how they vary and what role these play in people who live in any type of
environment. When she examined the behaviors, she discovered that in Aesh, there exists a
tendency to be a both a submissive male and female cultural system. Socially positive
personality traits are celebrated by the most, but if you look a little deeper, you can discover
that such traits are insignificant compared to socially conscious behaviour. Among the Mundu
tribesmen, both men and women are strong and battle-ready. Since this culture is concerned
with the many masks of many different personality traits are present, the characteristics it
presents are suspiciousness, competitiveness, squabbling, egotism, meanness, and being
opposed to others.

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BASIC PERSONALITY TYPE

In response to the configurationalist approach Kardinar, along with Linton developed the
concept “basic personality type” in his book, Psychological Frontiers of Society
(1945). Human personality, so far as I can tell, is comprised of three simple universal human
tendencies that have evolved as a result of acting in society over time. expanded on Freud's
ideas in the future of an illusion, which say that the extent to which they internalized a parent's
religious beliefs are dependent on their childhood and where they spend their youth is
determined is for that religion in their adulthood Many modern theories of personality
development consider childhood to be an important for laying the foundation of personal traits
and characteristics. Even some simple childrearing practices were more prevalent, as a result
of the need for safety and hygiene are required by society, leading to other common personality
traits among society members. He said that he believed in the basic personality and, but felt it
necessary to explain its placement in society or in a specific sense. There are two main
categories of social institutions: primary and secondary. Fundamental cultural structures
include kinship, having children, sexuality, and economic self-sufficiency, which are
commonly found in most societies. we only know that all societies have a common feature that
combine to form a specific personality structure on the other hand, these other, non-expanding
features, these secondary institutions relate to customs, behaviors, activities, and traditions are
categorized as such as religion, rituals, folkways, and norms. While between primary and
secondary institutions, he represents the fundamental structural construct of personality. He
assumes that youth play a significant role in shaping the basic characteristics of a person's
personality. as has proven to be the basis of these groups' philosophies, with regard to both life
and death it communicates in the ideas of how the foundation. Two separate populations of
people—horticulturists who had developed new techniques for growing wet paddy rice, and
intensive rice farmers—were compared to Tanala. He conjectured that the religion of the
former provided a sense of being smothered and chained to their most basic construction. This
is the reason for the prevalence of secondary institutions like magic and spirit possession in the
latter's community. Through analyzing various personalities and studying cultures, Dr. Howard
concluded that increased social and political complexity brought with it a proportional rise in
the number of personality styles. 2

2
Hallowell, A. (1947). Myth, Culture and Personality. American Anthropologist, 49(4), new series, 544-556.
Retrieved April 2, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/662894.

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Both communities and subcultures have the same common models of behavior, which we call
cultural configurations. They have both primary personality type cultures and those whose
personalities are classified as modes and those with primary structure, and the ones who have
secondary styles, among them. Culture and personality were two main theoretical influences
on the theory of relativism, but additionally drew on Boas' cultural relativism and Freud's
psychoanalytic theories of infantile development. The question here is: If we believe that all
humans are hereditarily equal, why are people as a people so much different from each other?
This school expanded on Freud's theories by referring to those pertaining to infancy and how
communities learn different character traits and using them to argue that our diverse qualities
originate from differing cultures. Which I would attempt to demonstrate by saying that the
cultures set the basis for personality development during childhood based on particular to each
one's beliefs. The theorist was eager to learn new and different patterns of childrearing from
around the world. So, on the basis of this, the School of Cultural and Personality traits
contrasted the findings. A family from China is known as having children with many distinct
traits. These peculiar characteristics were due to the manner in which the families had raised
their children. The purpose of making this distinction was to demonstrate the relationship
between raising children and adult personality styles

One of the leading pioneers of the culture and personality theories in the early 20th century
was Culture and Personality, in that case. In the past, ethnic, cultural, and personality behavior
analyses were used instead of (or as well) to explain various human behaviors instead of relying
on theories of prejudice as a large a black child-rearing tradition (Clinical interviews, in
particular, utilized a number of methods that are now useful, such as projective assessments,
life histories, and a compilation of dreams to get to investigate differences between cultural
behavior and personality.). Also, people, a vital portion of the culture and personality school's
findings cutback in racial generalizations in the early 1950s is the concept of egalitarian
stereotypes of human groups, as well as their promotion of new ideas about culturally diverse
peoples. It provided a framework for changing the cultural beliefs about human nature from
being seen as static to conceptual, enabling scholars to concentrate on current human dynamics
instead of searching for rules of human action that applied to all. When one or a number of
such occurrences occurred during the formative process, it results in a basic personality
structure. BPD should obviously have a neurobiological structures or components (in other
words, the development of nerve pathways or memory), but is comprised of an expansive or
varying constellation of characteristics which, for this alone does not make it irredeemable.

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This is how we, as a culture, form the clay that is actually describing "human existence." on an
individual, other components (such as complexes, complexes, fears, and desires) which his or
her basic structure doesn't recognize but projects into philosophy, religion, folklore, taboos,
and value systems do exist. The theories associated with projective identification that he has
defined as "secondary institutions".

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RALPH LINTON

From his seminal work "The Science of Power" in Society, he distilled the concepts of status
and position (1936). A simple demonstration of how the interaction of American culture traits
has occurred in this book is open to the reader. Although his most well-known work is to date
is the cultural history of personality, he has done extensive research on temperaments and how
we cope with change in organizations as well (1945). This is another of his unsuccessful
attempts to identify cultures and to try to distinguish cultures on the basis of behavior. The
writer also stressed how personality and cultural behaviors are linked to personality types.
While Linton began his career studying only subcultures and culture in the 1930s, he eventually
rose to prominence due to his interest in the personality studies of subgroups during the
1940s. Linton is almost often thought of as "school of culture and character". For the vast
majority of the individuals, it was not a significant issue to assume that a relationship existed
between culture and personality, only one of one culture influencing all of the personalities
equally. Also, in the 20th century, his writing speaks of contemporary capabilities. In contrast
to Ray and Abrahamson, who believed in equal or correlative integration of personality and
culture, Kardiner and Linton asserted that there was a definite relationship between them
agreement of both, as well as personifications were in the center as pertains to this object, while
the identity of an institution is based on its expansion. He could not fully explain the large
variations in personality characteristics in such as these because of his theory, called
"Kardiner's model", applies to all groups of people. Subsequent to the weakness of personality
theory having been revealed, this was resolved by Du Bois' experiments in modeling.

The theory was originally based on and still follows on a theory developed from the work of
Freud and current neo-Freudians postulate/neo-Freudian psychology, which argues that
childhood experiences are critical to personality development. As a result of this school's
expansion, anthropologists began to focus on finding the national personality styles (cultures)
in other parts of the world. In doing so, anthropologists have employed psychological concepts
such as stimuli, rewards, conflicts, needs, id desires, cognitive representations, cognitive goals,
etc., to understand humans, humans have been doing the same for some time, in aversions,
dislikes, fears, Id urges, drives, and worldviews, that latterly, too, have fallen into line with
everything else.

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CONCLUSION

The presence of different childrearing customs was related to various theories, including those
dealing with actions and personality characteristics, which described the functions and
circumstances of parents in various societies. To gain a better understanding of a particular
person's personality, we can begin to explain the general characteristics of their culture. The
two central beliefs of theoretical psychology are: culture influences human personality and
personality influences culture the interplay between the natural characteristics of human beings
and their social ones. The focus of studies during the middle of the 20th century on cultural
aspects of personality (that is, individualism) emerged as a couple of decades later as part of
current cross‐cultural research. But in the years following 1950, it was rejected by both
anthropologists and sociologists. The result was the conclusion that the myth had developed
around it, and the fact that contemporary investigators fail to perceive its significance. There
are certain limitations to this study as well, like applying some of the ideas and methods of
personality research to various nations that didn't take into account individual differences in
those countries, creating a severe problem. There were some problems with projective
strategies that were tenuous and subjectively imprecise, and a dubious value to begin with, and
this included the possibility of misinterpretation of cultural groups. Work undertaken in this
field may involve exploring (a) conceptual and analytical means to gauge various dimensions
of culture; (b) ascertainment of behavioral traits through their expression; (c) context-
specificity; (d) circumstances. Investigators made attempts to determine whether or not various
factors produce the likelihoods for manifestations of spirit activity based on the experiences
that have been collected, and then proceed and try to reify these chances. The general mindset
is based on the belief that someone has a “the real inner personality or the true individual,”
something distinct from his or her outward actions. This example highlights a theory known as
manifestation by logic: objects within an organ are able to push out the manifestation of their
existence.

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