Culture and personality
Culture and personality is a branch of psychological anthropology that studies the types of character that exists to a specific culture and cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The behaviour that is normalized to a given culture is called the personality of that culture. In anthropology, culture and personality studies are conducted using the principles of psychology. Many studies relating to culture and personality and culture have been carried out on different cultures across the globe. Each culture has been found to have a unique personality that cannot be found in another. This study is an analysis of several research studies and how they relate to culture and personality.
In his work, Roy D’Andrade gives an account of the historical development of cognitive anthropology. He researches how cultural understandings are organized in and between the minds of people. His research examines studies conducted between 1950 and 1969 about how cultures differently categorized relationships of the kinship and indigenous environment. He then relates this to a more complex study conducted between 1970 and 1989. His work is related to culture and personality as it studies how different cultures operate uniquely. In another study by Ferguson discusses diglossia, which is the form of standardizing two languages in a society together where each plays a different role. He discusses how people use different dialects in culture to communicate. For instance, a Bangladeshi Christian will use a Christian Arabic dialect to other Christians, and when talking in the general public, he will use the Muslim Arabic dialect. From his study, he has discussed a unique personality in a culture with two languages being compared.
Moral tribes by Joshua Greene discusses how our brain has been set on a specific tribal line that alienates others. It is difficult for a person to avoid tribes because wherever you go, there will always be a tribe you have to join. In these tribes, you get to lose some old ways and gain new ones. Whether you enter a new school or college or move to a new town, you will find people with a particular culture that defines them and have a specific personality. Haidt examines two schools of thought, i.e. the nativist and the empiricist answers. He brings in arguments and tries to answer using both answering schools of thought. For instance, an innate would argue that if morality is different across the globe and long in history, then it cannot be hereditary, but according to the empiricist, an infant develops a sense of caring and harm even before learning a language and ability to reason. He also uses stories for his audience, and they are to give rational reasoning, but the stories are repellant.
In another study by William Labov, the urban black children living in the ghettos have been viewed with a notion that they are poor verbally. He even uses the term Nonstandard Negro English to depict how alienated black people were in their language. The English they use are viewed as the black vernacular of African Americans. His research with the black youngsters’ attempts to argue that English is spoken with intellect and logic can be considered a formally functioning language. The study relates to culture and personality as black children and adults have a unique English associated with them. Steven Pinker states that language is an opening to understanding human nature. Analysis of a language can explain people’s thoughts and feelings. His work analyzes how our words are linked to what we think and our surroundings. He simply tries to understand people’s personalities and cultures concerning their language and their environment.
Author Mary Waters researched the racial and ethical identities of youngsters from different countries living in New York and how they felt being different from other Americans. The second-generation adolescents depicted identity issues in terms of black American, ethnic and nationality identities. The ones that had black American identity issues felt more discriminated against and racialized than others. The culture of a person can lead to identity issues when he finds himself in another culture. People tend to feel alienated from racial and ethical backgrounds when they are indifferent culture. The more a person stays in the new environment, the more he becomes adapted, assimilated, and stops to feel discriminated by race. Karla Hoff and Priyanka Pandey experimented on how social and legal incapacities could be affecting individuals and hence influence the earnings of a group. They used both high and low castes in their experiment. When the groups were not made aware of their ranks, there were no differences. When they were informed, the performance gap increased significantly. The study indicated that, when a reward is presented to the castes, the higher rank is likely to improve as it expects to be rewarded well. However, the lower caste will lower its performance as they await a poor rewarding. Personality matters a lot in a group of people as it influences their performance.
In conclusion, all these authors have significantly contributed to the understanding of culture and personality. The way people think, communicate and identify themselves in a community determines their culture. Every culture has unique character traits that are only found in it, and I consider it its personality. The research has created a more in-depth insight into culture and nature. Further studies on the evolving world could help us understand how today’s culture and personality are being conducted in our communities.