Culture and the Individual

Social Structure and Personality

Anthony F.C. Wallace

Societies deal with individual differences in personality in two general ways:

1. They enculturate and socialize children, shaping them to suit cultural expectations

2. They provide alternative roles that accommodate different personalities

Enculturation Vs. Social Stratification

The Enculturation, Socialization and Personality PowerPoint focuses on enculturation and socialization of individuals to try to shape them to cultural ideals.

The Social Stratification and Personality PowerPoint will deal with how society shapes personality and the kinds of roles it provides for individuals with different personalities.

Barry, Bacon and Child 1959

Subsistence Strategy of Society

High food accumulating: agriculture

Medium food accumulating: horticulture

Low food accumulating: foraging and pastoralism

Personality styles

Compliance = responsibility, obedience, nurturance

Assertion = achievement, self reliance, independence

High food accumulating associated with compliance

Low food accumulating associated with assertion

Subsistence and Personality: Pastoralist Males

Cooperative with others in the group

Aggressive towards outsiders

Make important economic decisions quickly

Act on decisions independently 

Profound emotional attachment to their animals.

Initiative

Realistic in his appraisal of the world

Risk taking 

Confident

Willing to take advantage of others for personal gain

Social Institutions as Personality Shapers

Social Institutions include

Status (Class or Caste) is one’s hierarchical position with regard to others in the society

Roles are the sets of behaviors and expectations assigned to a particular function filled by an actor in a given social situation

Marxist TheoryMembers of the industrial proletariat will be characterized by:1. Shared material interests as exploited wage laborers2. Crowded working conditions, making communication and organization

possible3. Lack of private property4. Nothing material to lose by rebelling

And will tend to have the following personality characteristics:1. A revolutionary spirit2. The habit of organized action3. A psychology of comradeship with co-workers4. A productive and constructive conception of how things work

While the bourgeoisie will have the following personality characteristics:1. Individualism2. Rationalism3. Entrepreneurial creativity

Peasant PersonalityMembers of the peasant class will be characterized by the following

1. Access to land

2. Competition with other peasants

3. A subordinate position in the larger society

4. The belief in the “Image of Limited Good”: (Foster) says that amounts of land, wealth and all other desirable things in life exist in absolute quantities insufficient to fill even the minimal needs of peers, and there is no way to increase the quantities so that there is enough to go around.

Personality traits will include

1. Envy

2. Suspicion

3. Anxiety that others will get ahead at one’s own expense

personality characteristics that are shaped by the “Image of Limited Good”

The Bureaucratic Personality

Robert Merton: The requirements of the job will both

1. Attract individuals who have appropriate personality characteristics, and

2. Shape the personality characteristics of those who do the job over long periods of time

Bureaucratic positions are characterized by:

1. Fixed areas of jurisdiction

2. Graded levels of authority

3. Specialized managerial skills

4. General procedural rules

5. Depersonalized activities

The Bureaucratic personality will be

1. Timid

2. Rigid

3. Authoritarian

4. Overconforming

5. Insecure

The Business ExecutiveBronfenbrenner suggests that families in different status positions will socialize

their children very differently

The Business Executive will tend to have the following personality characteristics

1. Strong desire for achievement

2. Strong desire for upward mobility

3. Positive attitude and attraction to authority figures

4. Decisiveness in decision making

5. Strong self identity

6. An active, realistic approach to problem solving

7. Strong feelings of frustration when blocked

Entrepreneurial families train boys to “get ahead”

Bureaucratic families train boys to “get along”

THESE KINDS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURAL PATTERNS CUT ACROSS CULTURAL AND NATIONAL BOUNDARIES

Primary Role Identification PRIMost members of a society will develop a

primary role identification Rohrer and Edmonson 1960

New Orleans “Negro”1. for males, identification with middle

class values2. for females, identification with the

maternal role in a matriarchial family

3. for males, identification with “age graded peer groups – gangs”

4. for both, identification with being a family member

Four role identification possibilities, two for each sex:1. For males, a family protector/defender who is street

smart and respected on the street2. For males, a worker who will not get good jobs or

stable employment, but who can be trusted to bring home a paycheck to his mother’s household as often as possible

3. For females, a unwed welfare mother whose children will bring in income to the mother’s household of which she and her child/ren are a part

4. For females, an upwardly mobile individual who gets some level of education and a job that allows her to meet and marry above her socioeconomic status

Puerto Rican PRIs in New York

Cultural Hegemony

Cultural Hegemony occurs when the ruling class imposes its ideas on the rest of society.

In a psychological sense this occurs when minority groups internalize negative stereotypes about themselves and turn them into reality.

ONCE WERE WARRIORS