CHAPTER 17

Social Identity, Personality, and Gender

Chapter Preview

What Is Enculturation? How Does Enculturation Influence

Personality? Are Different Personalities

Characteristic of Different Cultures?

Tabula Rasa

In the late 17th century philosopher John Locke suggested a theory (tabula rasa) that the human infant is comparable to that of an tablet (chalkboard) throughout the infants life experiences would be written (chalk) onto the tablet. Eventually the person would have been molded by his/her life experiences.

How Does Enculturation Influence Personality?

Each individual begins with certain broad potentials and limitations that are genetically inherited.

In some cultures, particular childrearing practices seem to promote the development of compliant personalities.

In others different practices seem to promote more independent, self-reliant personalities.

Are Different Personalities Characteristic of Different Cultures? Every culture emphasizes certain personality

traits as good and others as bad. The concept of modal personality recognizes

that any human society has a range of individual personalities, but some will be more typical than others.

Since modal personalities may differ from one culture to another and since cultures may differ in the range of variation they will accept, it is clear that abnormal personality is a relative concept.

Enculturation: The Human Self Culture is socially constructed and learned it

is not innate, in other words we are not born knowing what our culture entails.

Our closest members to us during our formative years are the one’s who help to enculturate us into our culture.

As we mature outside factors and people will also help the enculturation process.

This process begins with self-awareness

Self Awareness

The ability to: Identify oneself as an individual.To reflect on oneself.To evaluate oneself.

The ability to do the above is something we learn again not something we are born with.

Attaching positive value to the self ensures individuals act to their own advantage.

Social Identity & Names

Naming a child might be one of the most exciting and also difficult aspects of parenthood. Names reflect and identify who that child will be and represent in life.

Some cultures wait until birth or soon after and other’s might pick a name before the child is born (typical in the United States).

These naming ceremonies are special events or rituals that mark the naming of a child.

Naming in in Multicultural and Pluralistic Societies

When an ethnic group or nation falls under the control of a more powerful and expanding neighboring group, its members may be forced to assimilate and give up their cultural identity. Thus making naming of a child more difficult because of the abandoned practices.

People may be forced to change their names into more culturally accepted names by mainstream society.

The Self and the Behavioral Environment

There are four main orientations that must be learned by an individual as the mature into their culture and natural environment.Object OrientationSpatial OrientationTemporal OrientationNormative Orientation

Orientation

Object Orientations are when individuals must learn about all objects in the world and then they tend to ignore or lump together those which are deemed unimportant by their culture.

Spatial Orientations are when one must remember or recall how to travel from one place to another; incorporates placing yourself in a geographical context.

Orientation

Temporal Orientation allows people to have a sense of their place in time.

Normative Orientation deals with the understanding of moral values, ideals, and principles which are relative to one’s culture.

Personality

Personalities reflect the process of enculturation for an individual their personality refers to the distinctive ways they think, feel, and behave.

Most anthropologists believe adult personality is shaped by early childhood experiences.

The economy helps structure the way children are raised and this influences their adult personalities.

Two Patterns of Child Rearing

Dependence training - promotes child rearing practices that foster compliance in the performance of assigned tasks and dependence of the domestic group rather than reliance on oneself.

Independence training –Child rearing practices that foster independence, self-reliance, and personal achievement.Which best describes the United States?

Independence Training

Common to industrial and postindustrial societies where these traits (independence & self reliance) are best for success is not for survival.

Infants in these societies typically spend less time with their parents than in non-industrial societies.

Dependence Training

This technique is common to non-industrial societies where co-habitation with extended families is a necessity.

Family members all actively work to help and support each other, rather than one doing the work for the whole family.

Modal Personality

The modal personality of a group is defined as the body of character traits that occur with the highest frequency in a culturally bounded population.

Modal personality is a statistical concept. It opens up for investigation the questions

of how societies organize diversity and how diversity relates to culture change.

This data is best collected by psychological tests which are administered to a sample of the population.

They are not intended to ascribe one personality trait with an entire culture.

Highly objective data due to the fact that not every culture defines certain characteristics the same. Furthermore not every society member may identify a trait in a similar fashion.

National Character Studies

Focused on the modal characteristics of modern countries.

Many anthropologists believe national character theories are based on unscientific and overgeneralized data.

Although still debatable in their relevance they did help to shift focus to modern cultures as opposed to traditional non-industrial small scale societies.

When there are only two biological sexes among humans (male/female) how does one identifies their personality and social identity if it does not fit clearly into one of those sexes?

Many societies identify more than one sex (third gender) and have developed special roles for these individuals. Intersexual is a person born with reproductive

organs, genitalia, and/or sex chromosomes that are not exclusively male or female.

Gender

Mental Disorders

Despite odd or even rare cultural practices it is possible for there to be “abnormal” activities, thoughts, or actions no matter what the culture.

Although each culture might identify the disorder in a different capacity.

Culture Bound Syndrome or Ethic psychosis- mental disorders specific to particular ethnic groups.