Title: Culture and Personality – Anthropology
Headings: Culture and Personality
Culture and Personality
Basic Premises
Points of Reaction
Leading Figures
Key Works
Principal Concepts
Methodologies
Accomplishments
Criticisms
Sources and Bibliography
Relevant Web Links

Content: Culture and personality are viewed as aspects of a total field rather than as separate systems or even as legitimate analytical abstractions from data of the same order (Kluckhohn 1954: 685). In other words, culture and personality are interdependent and track along an interconnected curve. Culture influences socialization patterns, which in turn shapes some of the variance of personality (Maccoby 2000). Because of distinctive socialization practices in different societies, each society has a unique culture and history. Based on this perspective, one should not assume universal laws govern how cultures develop. There has been recent renewed interest in the connection between culture and personality by some psychological anthropologists (Hofstede and McCrae 2004). T
Leading Figures
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Freud was a Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist and the most influential psychological theorist of the 20th century. He famously identified the Oedipus complex which he regarded as a universal phenomenon in which unconscious feelings and ideas centered on the desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex and express hostility towards the parent of the same sex. Freud’s long-sustained interests in anthropology are reflected in his anthropological work, most notably in Totem and Taboo.