to top of page / A-Z index

Main Terms, Concepts,
Ideas and People
in
Culture and Personality Studies

Dionysus,
Greek Theatrical Mask

to top of page / A-Z index

• The Four Fields of General Anthropology
• Main Characteristics of Anthropology (slides)
• Three Major Debates
• A CP Glossary in Historical Context
  • Culture
  • Personality
  • Multiple Cultural Worlds
  • Emic / Etic
  • . . .
• Language and Communication (slides)
• Perception and Cognition
• The Centrality of Learning
• Methods
• Important Figures in Culture and Personality Studies
• Cultures / Places Considered
• Other WebSites Related to Culture and Personality

to top of page / A-Z index

The Four Fields of General Anthropology

1. archaeology
   
   
2. physical or biological anthropology (bioanthropology)
   
   
3. socio / cultural anthropology
   
   
4. linguistic anthropology (slides)

Main Characteristics of Anthropology

(slides)

1. culture: as a primary concept
   
   
   • learned
     • is not inherited
       (i.e., is not biological)
     • is not “instinct”
   • shared
   • transmitted from generation to generation
   • symbolic
   • integrated
     • "patterns of culture"
       • Ruth Benedict
         
         
         
2. cross-cultural comparative methods as major approaches to the study of human behavior development and structure
   
   
   
3. holism: or the study of "humankind" as a whole, as a primary goal of anthropology
   
   
   • The approach used in this class emphasizes the "holistic" anthropological view which combines observations of "culture" and behavior with considerations of the physical and developmental aspects of humans

Three Major Debates

1. Biological Determinism vs. Cultural Constructionism
   • “nature vs. nurture”
   • “learned vs. inherited”
     • Minnesota Twins Studies
       
       
2. Ideationism vs. Cultural Materialism
   
   
3. Individual Agency vs. Structuralism
   • “free will” vs. “power structures"

Basic Terms in Culture and Personality Studies:
A CP Glossary in Historical Context

Culture

• culture: as a primary concept
  • learned
    • is not inherited
      (i.e., is not biological)
    • is not “instinct”
      
  • shared
  • transmitted from generation to generation
  • symbolic
  • integrated
    • "patterns of culture"
      • Ruth Benedict
        
        
• "Where is culture?"
  • "superorganic" vs. individual
    • Alfred L. Kroeber vs. Clyde Kluckhohn
      
      
• "Is Culture a Uniquely Human Property?"
  • "Proto-culture"
    • Of Chimps and Humans
      • 99+% [96%?] genetic
      • tool using / tool making
      • language
        • design features
      • Do Monkey's Count?
        
        
• cultural relativism
  • the perspective that each culture must be understood in terms of the values and ideas of that culture and should not be judged by the standards of another
    
    
• absolute cultural relativism
  • the perspective that says a person from one culture should not question the rightness or wrongness of behavior or ideas in other cultures because that would be ethnocentric
    
    
• critical cultural relativism
  • offers an alternative view that poses questions about cultural practices and ideas in terms of who accepts them and why, and who they might be harming or helping
    
    
• "universals"

• per-son-ality
  
  
• modal personality
  • modal behavior
    
    
• mean personality
  
  
• basic personality

• mean

• median

• mode

• range of variation (range of diversity)
  • "patterns of culture"
    • Ruth Benedict

to top of page / A-Z index

• "normal"
• "abnormal"
• "deviant"

• national character
  • "typical personality traits associated with a culture"
  • Ruth Benedict
  • stereotyping?

• beliefs / values / attitudes
  
  
  • beliefs
    
    
    • "postulates"
      
      
    • E . Adamson Hoebel -- Wikipedia
      
      
      • The Law of Primitive Man. 1954. Harvard, MA: Atheneum.
        
        
    1. existential postulates
       
       
    • relate to the question of how things exist
      
      
    • "conceptions of reality"
      
      
    • "propositons about how the universe works"
      
      
    • "When describing our own beliefs...we may consider them 'facts' or 'knowledge.'"
      (Bryant, DeWalt, )Courtney and Schwartz 2003)
      
      
    2. normative postulates
       
       
    • relate to how things ought to be
      
      
    • people's conception of what should occur in a given situation
      
      
    • "norms"
      
      
      • "rules, principles, or standards for behavior"
        
        
        
  • values
    
    
    • "conceptions of what is desirable and undersirable, good and bad"
      
      
    • + / -
      
      
      
  • attitudes
    
    
    • individual's likes or dislikes
      
      
      • including ambivalent
        
        
        • a person can simultaneously have positive and negative views or feelings
          
          
        • or no particular views or feelings
          

• "culturally constituted behavioral environment" (CCCB)
  • A. Irving Hallowell

• cultural shock
  
  
• altered states of consciousness (ASC)
  
  
  • alcohol / drugs
  • trance
  • shamanistic ecstasy
    • shaman
  • sorcery
  • dance trance
  • prayer ecstasy
  • yoga / meditation
  • dream states
  • "highway hypnosis"
    • Anthony F.C. Wallac
  • . . .
    
    

• culture and biology
  • nature vs. nurture
  • "inherited" vs. "acquired"
  • "Our Sociocultural Nature"
    • instincts
    • sociobiology

• human evolution: biological and cultural
  considers cultural influences on basic psychological processes
  • sex
  • aggression

• "traditional" systems vs. "modern society"
• "traditional healers" vs. "western medicine"
  • "sorcery"

Multiple Cultural Worlds

• people live in multiple cultural worlds (roles)
  • sex / gender
  • age
  • ethnicity
  • race
    • Race: Can This Tenacious Concept Be Supplanted?
      • continuous dimensions
      • illustration
  • class
  • institutions
    
    
• intergroup relations

Emic / Etic

• emic
  • from linguistics: phonemics
    • the study of basic sounds
• etic
  • from linguistics: phonetics
    • the study of sound unit

• "illness"  vs. "disease"
  • “illness” = culturally specific
    • culture-bound syndromes
      • Aiyiperi
      • amok
      • anfechtung
      • brain fag
      • cholera
      • ghost sickness
      • koro
      • latah (startle reflex)
      • mal ojo (evil eye)
      • pibloktoq (Arctic hysteria)
      • susto (fright sickness)
      • windigo
      • shinkeishitsu
      • . . .
        
        
  • “disease” = universal

• The Essence of Being Human
• Anthropological Perspectives on Culture
• differences and similarities

Language and Communication

• language
  • design features
    
    
• phonemics
  • the study of basic sounds
    
    
• phonetics
  • the study of sound units
    
    
• morphemics
  • the study of how sound units combine to form "words"
    
    
• syntatics
  • the study of rules of sentence and phrase structures
    
    
• semantics
  • the study of meaning
    
    
• kinesics
  • the study of "body language" -- motion
    
    
• proxemics
  • the study of "body language" -- space

• perception
  
  
• cognition
  
  
• the development and change of cognitive and affective behaviors
  
  
• "domains"
  • semantic domains
    
    
• Cf., synaesthesia
  • Hearing Colours, Eating Sounds -- BBC

The Centrality of Learning

• The Centrality of Learning
  • enculturation
    • Melville J. Herskovits
    • education
    • habituation / imitation
  • socialization
    
    
• intercultural contact and cultural change
  • acculturation
    • Homer Barnett, et al
      
      
• early childhood training

Methods

• "study of culture at a distance"
  
  
• in the 1940s many studies were carried on with the assumption that "culture is to society what personality is to the individual"
  • culture : society : : personality : individual
    
    
• "Cross-Cultural Research: Scope and Methods" (intro.)
  • MMPI, TAT, FIAT, PPPP
    
    
• psychoanalysis
  
  
• How to Comprehend Behavior and Culture sociocultural context
  
  
• "quantitative - qualitative mix"

  • Pertti J. Pelto

Important Figures
in Culture and Personality Studies

biography reference

• Homer Barnett, et al
  • acculturation
    
    
• Ruth Benedict
  • Patterns of Culture
  • Chrysanthemum and the Sword
    
    
• Cora Du Bois
  • The People of Alor: A Social-Psychological Study of an East Indian Island
    
    
• Erik Erickson
  
  
• George Foster
  • "Image of the Limited Good"
    
    
• A. Irving Hallowell
  • Culture and Experience
  • Culturally Constituted Behavioral Environment (CCBE)
    
    
• F. L. K. Hsu
  
  
• Florence Kluckhohn
  • Clyde Kluckhohn
  • Richard Kluckhohn
    
    
• Margaret Mead
  • Coming of Age in Samoa
  • Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies
  • Trance and Dance in Bali
    
    
• Louise and George Spindler
  
  
• Tylor, Sir Edward B.
  • "survivals"
    • traces of earlier customs that survive in present-day cultures
  • "culture"
    • "Culture . . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man [sic.] as a member of society" (Primitive Culture, 1871)
  • unilineal evolution
  
  
  
• W.H.R. Rivers

Cultures / Places Considered

• Amish
• Anishinabe (Chippewa, Ojibwa)
  • Paul Buffalo
  • Jimmy Jackson
• Aymera (Bolivia)
• Bali, Indonesia
• Egypt
• Great Britain
• Inuit ("Netsilik Eskimo")
• Japan
• !Kung San (AKA Khoisan,"Bushmen")
  • they call themselves zhun/twasi, "ourselves"
• Malaysia
• Melanesia (cultural "area")
• Nepal
• New Guinea, Manus, Pere Village
  • New Guinea, Sepik River, Arapesh, Mundugumor, Chambri
  • Murray Island, Torres Straits (off the southern coast of New Guinea; Papuans)
    • Torres Strait Island Communities. . . -- State Library of Queensland
    • Torres Strait Islanders -- University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
• Polynesia, American Samoa, Taû
  • World of Polynesia
  • Samoan Sensation
  • Samoa
  • Admirality Islands
• Samoa
• Tibet (Buddhist monk)
  • Tibet Information Network
• Todas (India)
• Yanomamö (Venezuela)