Influences of Early Influences of Early Anthropology on PsychologyAnthropology on Psychology

Jennifer ReckJennifer Reck

Anthropology vs. PsychologyAnthropology vs. Psychology

• Modern anthropology– Science of humanity– Historical– Evolutionary– Method

• Participant-observer• Observation• Fieldwork

• Modern psychology– Science of behavior– Ahistorical– Acultural– Method

• Experimental• Quasi-experimental• Case studies

Is psychology ahistorical and Is psychology ahistorical and acultural?acultural?

• Freud– Psychoanalysis gave a history to psychology

by anchoring patients in their own histories– Behaviors influenced by desires of the

unconscious

• Anthropologists’ ideas would help shape psychology as a cultural science

BeginningsBeginnings

• Evolutionary theory• Humans evolve through 3 stages:

– Savagery– Barbarism– Civilization

• Wundt – same intellectual capabilities; just used them differently; shared common psychological characteristics such as thinking, perception, etc.

Bronislaw MalinowskiBronislaw Malinowski

• Trained as a psychologist• Functionalism• Humans are practical and seek to meet their needs with the least amount of

effort– Needs include physical requirements, as well as

psychological needs (assurance, relief from anxiety)

• When practical reason fails, they turn to religion

Malinowski and IntelligenceMalinowski and Intelligence

• Premodern learning is practical, contextual, and personal

• Modern learning is abstract, generalized, and formal– EX) Australian aborigines had difficulty with the

Porteus maze– Why?

• Timed

• Tests not testing Intelligence, but cultural mores and values

Franz Boas (1858-1942)Franz Boas (1858-1942)

• Born in Germany• “Father of American

Anthropology”• Degree in physics and work in

geography• Assistant editor of Science• Professor at Clark University

(Hired by G. S. Hall)– Resigned because of Hall’s

interference

• Columbia University

BoasBoas

• Dissertation in physics on the optical properties of water

• Interests included…– Problems with perception– Kantian philosophy– Psychophysics (psychological problems in

physics)– Subjective vs. objective experiences

Boas on scienceBoas on science

• The method of science is to begin with questions, not with answers, least of all with value judgments.

• Science is dispassionate inquiry and therefore cannot take over outright any ideologies "already formulated in everyday life," since these are themselves inevitably traditional and normally tinged with emotional prejudice.

• Sweeping all-or-none, black-and-white judgments are characteristic of totalitarian attitudes and have no place in science, whose very nature is inferential and judicial.

Boas and PsychologyBoas and Psychology

• Romantic Empiricist– Test hypotheses while recognizing an aesthetic and ethical component

• Believed in the “psychic unity of humankind”

– Psychological laws control minds of humans everywhere– Variation is due to “historical accidents”

Boas and Racial EqualityBoas and Racial Equality

• "It is possible that Boas did more to combat race prejudice than any other person in history." -Thomas Gossett

• Racial inequality = social construction– Not biological

Boas and Racial EqualityBoas and Racial Equality

• In The Mind of Primitive Man Boas said "If anthropologists can show that mental processes among primitive and civilized are essentially the same, the view cannot be maintained that the present races of man stand on different stages of the evolutionary series and that civilized man has attained a higher-place in mental organization than primitive man."

Cultural RelativismCultural Relativism

• Boas' student Melville Herskovits summed up the principle of cultural relativism as this:

"Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation."

Cultural Relativism is NOT Moral Cultural Relativism is NOT Moral RelativismRelativism

– The concept of culture…can be abused and misinterpreted. Some fear that the principle of cultural relativity will weaken morality. "If the Bugabuga do it why can't we? It's all relative anyway." But this is exactly what cultural relativity does not mean.

– The principle of cultural relativity does not mean that because the members of some tribe are allowed to behave in a certain way that this fact gives intellectual warrant for such behavior in all groups. Cultural relativity means, on the contrary, that the appropriateness of any positive or negative custom must be evaluated with regard to how this habit fits with other group habits.

In other words…In other words…

• Most philosophers understand cultural relativism to mean– what is right or good for one individual or

society is not right or good for another, even if the situations are similar, meaning not merely that what is thought right or good by one is not thought right or good by another ... but that what is really right or good in one case is not so in another.

Edward SapirEdward Sapir

• Boas’ “most brilliant student”

• Culture can only be seen through perceptions of various personality types who are constrained by their world

• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis – differences in languages coincide with differences in cognition and worldview

Ruth Fulton Benedict (1887-1948)Ruth Fulton Benedict (1887-1948)

• Born in New York• Studied under John Dewey and Franz Boas at Columbia• First female president of AAA• Voted one of the five top anthropologists in America by Cattell, and one of the three leading female

scientists in the world

Benedict and PersonalityBenedict and Personality

• Personalities were reflections of culture

• Cultures cannot be compared, only appreciated for their beauty and unity– Each culture is unique

• Members of a culture must be socialized so they can survive in their ecological niche

““Psychological Types in the Psychological Types in the Cultures of the Southwest”Cultures of the Southwest”

• Study on the Pueblo Indians• First paper to apply psychological ideas to

anthropology• Interpreted a pattern in the way each culture

was structured and believed this determined personality differences within cultures

• Used Freud’s psychoanalytic techniques to probe dreams and the “hidden personality”

““Psychological Types in the Psychological Types in the Cultures of the Southwest”Cultures of the Southwest”

• Influenced by Nietzsche…– Apollonian (Pueblo) – do not

take chances, traditional,

calm, disciplined– Dionysian (Kwakiutl) –

search for ecstasy, escape

from daily life through drugs, torture, orgy

Other ContributionsOther Contributions

• Anthropology and the Abnormal– Ruth’s defense of her homosexual lifestyle

and an attempt to persuade the psychiatric field to re- examine the definition of abnormality

• Abraham Maslow believed she was a self-actualized individual

Anthropology’s Impact on Anthropology’s Impact on Psychology TodayPsychology Today

• DSM-IV inclusion of culture-bound syndromes• Intelligence testing not valid with other cultural

groups• Influences on multicultural counseling• Perception different between cultures• Extinction of eugenics• Fight for racial/ethnic equality• Psychological anthropology

ReferencesReferences

• Caffrey, M. M. (1989). Ruth Benedict: Stranger in this land. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

• Lindholm, C. (2001). Culture and Identity. Boston: McGraw Hill.

• McGee, R. J., & Warms, R. L. (Eds.). (2000). Anthropological theory: An introductory history (2nd ed.). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing.

• http://anthropology.net/wiki/franz_boas• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_relativism• http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/psych.htm