Culture and Personality Approach

Category: Theoretical approaches

The culture and personality approach is closely linked with the work of two American anthropologists - Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead. Ruth Benedict was a student of Franz Boas. Boas and other diffusionists saw cultures as always changing and the diffusion of cultural patterns as the prime agent of that change. Even though Benedict was influenced in her early studies by diffusionism she realized that this approach doesn’t answer the question of “cultural integration.” Her answer to this question is presented in her integrative approach to culture, known by several names - “cultural relativism”, “theory of a ‘cultural configuration” and “culture and personality approach”. This approach viewed small-scale cultures holistically. To develop and test her theoretical approach she performed ethnographic research on North American native populations of Serrano, Zuni, Cochita, Pima, Pueblo, Dobu Islander, and Zuni. She researched personality types, interactive choices, and patterns of culture among those cultures.

Benedict presented her approach in the book Patterns of Culture (1934). Benedict explored the interdependent relationship between individuals and cultures. Cultures are shaped by choices made by individuals, and, in turn, cultures shape individual personality, thus we end up with a dynamic synergy of personality and cultural systems and culture-personality isomorphism. The humanistic cultural potential exists in all cultures, but individual creativity and individual choices play out differently in different cultures. Possibilities for the adoption or development of various cultural patterns in every culture are almost limitless, but through individual “selection” all those individual patterns are integrated into a consistent whole, a cultural totality. The meaning of any individual cultural pattern depends on its place within that whole, that is, on its relationship with all other patterns.

Benedict distinguishes two basic types of cultures by the way they shape individual personality. These two types are the Apollonian and Dionysian cultural models. These two models are borrowed from Nietzsche’s distinction between the Apollonian and the Dionysian in his book The Birth of Tragedy. Apollonian cultural model produced a personality characterized by calm, balanced, and nondestructive behavior, which was exemplified by the Pueblo people. In contrast, the Dionysian cultural model shaped personality with a penchant for excessive, violent, bellicose, and paranoid behavior, which was evident in the Pima, the Kwakiutl, and the Dobuan peoples.

During World War II the Army Information Bureau of the War Department commissioned Benedict to examine the national character of several countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Japan, and Thailand. This endeavor's product was a monograph on Japan's national character: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946). In studying Japanese people most crucial task was to determine whether or not the US should remove the Japanese Emperor from the throne after the allied victory in the war. The most important values in Japanese society are concepts of hierarchy and indebtedness, which are in stark contrast to the most important American values of equality and freedom.

Japanese people see family and social relationships as grounded in indebtedness and hierarchy, and the greatest imperative for any Japanese individual is to fulfill their familial and social duties, as a form of repayment of debt to the supreme authority, whether in the family or the society. A sense of self-respect is tied to the execution of these duties and subjugation to authority. Because every culture is an integrated cohesive whole people from one culture tend to judge cultural patterns from other cultures, not by the standards of that other culture, but by standards of their own culture. This leads to cross-cultural misunderstandings. For example, Americans find Japanese culture to be without freedom, while Japanese people find American culture to be lawless. Benedict believed that anthropology would give people the tools to see their own, but also other cultures in a new way, so people can be more accepting of other cultures and change useless and inhumane customs in their own cultures.

Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead was Influenced by the culture and personality approach of her mentor Ruth Benedict, and by neo-Freudian theory, and she wanted to apply psychoanalytic concepts, especially those related to child development, in order to build an interdisciplinary approach that could be applied to study socialization in primitive societies. Today’s subfield of psychological anthropology is highly influenced by this approach. Mead stated that individuals mature and are socialized in their cultural context, with the ideological system having special importance because expectations it produces condition responses of individuals to different situations. In her studies, she discovered the relativity of sexual mores, childrearing practices, and types of families, between different cultures. These differences influenced the cultural construction of gender and forms of masculinity and femininity present in some cultures. After World War II she wanted to apply her theory, which was developed to study primitive society, to improve the US and other Western societies, and with that cause in mind, she founded the Society for Applied Anthropology.

Mead championed numerous social causes, including advocating trial marriage, the decriminalization of marijuana, better educational standards, greater autonomy for students, and women’s rights. Feminism was a constant theme in her writings and criticized the passive cultural role of women in the US, and fought for women’s liberation. Books Culture and Commitment (1969) and A Way of Seeing (1970), address problems of overpopulation and famine, pollution, racism, and war.

Mead pioneered the use of audio-visual techniques in the field, as a method for gathering data. She developed field techniques and training for use in the field. Mead, also, used psychological tests to study native populations.

Coming of Age in Samoa

Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) is one of Mead's most famous and influential books. Based on her field study on the island of American Samoa this book highlighted topics of adolescence, gender, child development, sexuality, and especially the sexual behavior of adolescent girls. Her research looked at the influence of cultural conditions on adolescent life and the psychosexual development of Samoan girls. Her research was conducted in a small village. Both sexes were involved in child rearing, both boys and girls were taught different skills, while physical punishment was given for bad behavior. Girls were encouraged to learn practical skills like weaving, in order to find good husbands. Boys were encouraged to learn fishing and to display both bravery and aggressive behavior, as well as being humble. Men and women formed separate social groups, first were formed to do work outside the home, while the latter formed groups to do child rearing and domestic work. Mead found out that Samoan girls were tacitly allowed to explore their sexuality in secrecy through sexual encounters. This research showed the existence of the different systems of morality that allowed premarital sex, and where adolescence wasn’t necessarily a stressful time of the life cycle. Adolescent girls in Samoa didn’t experience psychological tensions and had an easy transition to adulthood.

Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies

Mead's book Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935) studied people and their culture in three societies in New Guinea - the Arapesh, Mundugumor, and Tchambuli. Mead resided with each tribe for six months to immerse herself in the cultural practices of each society. In Arapesh society all members (of both sex) had feminine traits – sensitivity, nurture, and harmony; while masculine traits like aggression and violence were discouraged for all members. Arapesch mothers and their children had a prolonged relationship and men helped with childrearing duties. Mundugumor society had more masculine traits and all members were encouraged to display them, while pregnancies were associated with strong taboos. Tchambuli society exhibits duality of gender roles, but they were reversed to traditional gender roles in the US – men were nominally in charge of each collective, but were passive, gentle, and submissive, while women were truly in charge, breadwinners, aggressive and violent.

This research uncovered the constructed nature of gender and gender systems. Gender, gender roles, and gender systems are not a product of innate biological nature, but a product of culture and its practices.

Mead also studied education in primitive cultures in the book Growing Up in New Guinea (1930), and she found that the difference between the “civilized mind” and the “primitive mind” wasn’t that great and that human nature was malleable.

Other Notable Representatives of the Culture and Personality Approach

American anthropologist Cora Du Bois wanted to objectify the culture and personality approach through statistical methods.

Chinese-American anthropologist Francis L.K. Hsu did fieldwork in China, Japan, India, and the United States. In the book Kinship and Culture (1971), Hsu explored his hypothesis which states that culture-specific dyadic relationships that exist in kinship relations determine attitudes and behavior in wider social relations later in the life of an individual.

American psychoanalyst Abram Kardiner introduced the concept of a basic personality structure and developed a distinction between primary and secondary cultural institutions in his book The Individual and His Society (1939).

American anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn studied topics of personality, religion, and cultural values. His most famous books include Navaho Witchcraft (1944), Minor for Man (1947), Culture and Behavior (1961), and Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (1952), written in collaboration with Alfred Kroeber.

American anthropologist Ralph Linton did fieldwork in Polynesia and wrote several books including The Study of Man (1936), The Cultural Background of Personality (1945), and The Tree of Culture (1955).

American anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir is famous for his research on the relationship between language and culture, and his most famous book is Selected Writings in Language, Culture and Personality (1949).

Books;

Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture (1934);

- Zuni Mythology (1935);

- Race: Science and Politics (1940);

- The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (1946);

Du Bois, Cora. The Peoples of Alor (1944);

Hsu, Francis. Kinship and Culture (1971);

Kardiner, Abram. The Individual and His Society (1939);

Kluckhohn, Clyde. Culture and Behavior (1961);

Linton, Ralph. The Cultural Background of Personality (1945);

Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa (1928);

- Growing Up in New Guinea (1930);