Title: National Character | Encyclopedia.com
Headings: National Character
National Character
National Character
History of the field
Culture and personality
Culture at a distance
Approaches to national-character analysis
The basic personality
The modal personality
Child rearing
Functional prerequisites
Sociopolitical interpretations
Controversies over research
Unresolved questions
BIBLIOGRAPHY
national character

Content: There are cultural sanctions operating continually throughout the society to reinforce behavioral patterns, and thus there is an expected consistency in cultural configurations. Cultural constraints become fixed and internalized aspects of personality. Third, there are studies comprising simple comparative descriptions of those cultural configurations which distinguish one national unit from another; different life styles and ways of looking at things are defined as part of national character. Studies of this last variety remain, from a psychological standpoint at least, surface descriptions of what seem to be consistent culturally defined values, or behavior patterns, without reference to possible underlying motivations or personality mechanisms. In contrast, studies included in the first two categories mentioned by Mead seek to push beyond the descriptive level to trace out certain underlying structurally consistent aspects of personality that are manifested in the overt behavior peculiar to members of a given society. The basic personality
Kardiner, in several studies concerned with personality patterns operative both in non-Western societies and in certain sectors of American society, developed the concept of basic personality (Kardiner 1939; Kardiner & Ovesey 1962). By means of this concept Kardiner attempted to define components of a common personality integration shared by a significant number of individuals who have had similar cultural experiences. The concept is based on an interpretation of psychoanalytic theory that de-emphasizes biological variables and focuses on culturally determined primary (i.e., family) influences on personality development.