Culture and personality (Benedict, Mead, Linton, Kardiner and Cora –du Bois). | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Culture and Personality
The study of culture and personality seeks to understand the growth and development of personal or social identity as it relates to the surrounding social environment. In other words, through the examination of individual personalities broad or correlations and generelization be made about the specific nature of those members. This has led to the examinations of national character, modal personality types and configurations of personality.
The field of culture and personality draws on psychology and anthropology. Born out of Sigmund Freud's psycho-analysis, anthropologists began searching for common aspects that would characterize differing peoples by their cultures. In an attempt to avoid racist, hierarchical culture models, a new breed of anthropologists sought to describe culture based on the individuals within a society and the similarities that are shared.
The pioneers in this school of thought were students of Boas and Kroeber. They include Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Linton, and Cora-Dubois. These scholars, during 1920s, became extremely critical of. the theories put forth earlier in anthropological thought. Instead, they provided the culture personalities theories as an alternative.
Basic Premises
1. The cultural practices of people are reflections of their personality.
2. Differences in personalities of peoples are because of differences in cultures.
3. Culture influences to a great extent the personality traits of the people.
4. The primary aim of culture personality school is to examine the interrelationship between culture and personality. It is the study of culture as it in embodied in the personality of individual members.
Configurational Approach - Ruth Benedict & Margaret Mead
1. A culture according to Benedict is analogous to an individual in that if is more or less a consistent pattern of thought and action.
2. Hence, any analysis of culture requires a psychological approach.
3. When traits and complexes become related to each other in functional roles, a cultural pattern is formed.
4. Many cultural patterns integrate themselves into a functional whole they form a special design of a whole culture. This special design of whole culture is called configuration of culture.
5. The integration of culture is on the basis of tendency seen in all aspects of culture (traits, complexes, etc). This tendency is called by Benedict "special genius" that brings about integration.
6. There are two types of geniuses found in human society. Apollonian and Dionysian. In Apollonian pattern, one will see the existence of peace, discipline and kindness. The Dionysian culture is characterized by a great deal of changes and aggressiveness.
7. These two geniuses mold, the personality of the members of their group. The Apollonian personality compels members of the group to behave in one form and the Dionysian personality in the other. This Will lead to the formation of special cultural characteristics for the group concerned. In this way personality influences culture.

Criticism
Morris Opler criticized this configurationalist approach stating that there are not only two bases of cultural integration but many. Thus, this approach is very narrow.
Margaret Mead, along with Ruth Benedict has been the pioneer of culture-personality school of thought. Heavily influenced by Franz “Boas, she along with Ruth Benedict began with the configurational approach. Her important works like "Coming of Age in Samoa" reveal this fact. However, her later works reveal that she slowly moved away from the configurationalist approach which analyses the impact of personality on culture. Instead, Mead, through her work Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies" explains the impact of culture on the personality formation. She opines that it is culture which shapes the personality of the group.

The three tribes of New Guinea, .Mundugumor, Tshambuli and Arapesh, though live in the same geographical area represent different personality structures. This is because their cultures are different. The different cultures have different socialization processes. This is the reason why interactions between people differ along with their behavior.