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Week 7: Anthropology 11--Introduction to Cultural AnthropologyLecture Notes for Chapter 5:Growing Up Human (118-147) |
Email: wolfordj@msx.umsl.edu
| Definitions for Chapter 5 | Outline for Chapter 5 | Anthro 11 homepage | GO TO BOTTOM OF THE PAGE |
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The important questions Haviland
cites for you to consider while reading this chapter:
What is enculturation?What is the effect of enculturation on adult personality?
Are different personalities characteristic of different cultures?
Do cultures differ in what they regard as abnormal personalities?
Notes for William A. Haviland,Cultural Anthropology, 10th edition: |
Chapter 5: Growing Up Human (118-147) |
• disregards and debunks any notion of hereditary psych factors
• Individual development is a combination of hereditary
and environmental influences
• Example
• American society emphasizes passivity and subordination
for women
• also: the successful female in public life will assume a passive demeanor
• It's never as simple as all that, however
Catherine Beecher, 19th century: empowerment
through domination of the household
The Self and its Behavioral Environment (120-128) |
• but theirs has not developed the complexity that
human adaptive capabilities have
| page 120 | enculturation | the process by which a society’s culture is transmitted from one generation to the next and through which individuals become members of their society |
• humanity's major agents of
enculturation at birth are: the mother and a male figure
• among humans, different societies have developed different cultural models for including the males in the process of enculturation
• the father can be substituted
by:
mother's brothers
grandfather(s)
siblings
mother's mother
father's mother
members of the central family unit
• later, peer groups play a
dominant role
THE SELF (120-122)
• not born to react to themselves
• not born to appraise or evaluate their selves
• they have to learn to do this
• they learn this through development
of self-awareness
| page 120 | self-awareness | the ability to identify oneself as an object, to react to oneself, and to appraise oneself |
• Children in non-Western world: typically earlier
(he doesn't say when)
• Why?
• in Ju/'hoansi society ([pronounced zhu-twasi] Kalahari Desert, Africa): 70% of time
• ALSO: contact in other, non-US societies tends to be spread out between lots of family or community members
• in developing self-awareness, perception of a
phenomenon precedes conception, or understanding, of a phenomenon
• Conception: connecting external with internal worlds: cognitive
• becoming world-oriented
rather than me-oriented is a
difficult transition
THE BEHAVIORAL ENVIRONMENT (122-128) |
• mediated symbolically through language through cultural glasses
• people seem to need
to maintain order in their perception of the world
• based on this culturally-constructed order, people structure their societies in culturally-specific and culturally-appropriate ways
• Objects, time, space—all organized
culturally
• Objects, time, scapula invested with normative orientations
• again, remember Toelken and his discussion of European-American vs. Navajo worldview
The Penobscot (124-128) |
• in 17th century held a strong belief based in animism (a belief in spirit beings, that can animate nature)
• believed shamans (especially)
could separate vital self from physical self
• strangers were regarded suspiciously:
• they were suspicious because they
obviously were traveling, which was seen as dangerous and personally harmful
• so the strangers must be supernatural
or shamanistic, which implied potential danger
• they developed myths explaining
their environment and how they relate to it
| page 125 | patterns of affect | how people feel about themselves and others |
• the Penobscot have changed since the 17th century,
due to their nearly 400 years of sociocultural experiences since then
• just the way Anglo-Saxon Americans have changed
since the 17th century
• these patterns of affect
are vitally important to recognize in relating to any person or to any
people
ORIGINAL STUDY: (on p.
125-128)
THE BLESSED CURSE
• Blessed Gift: The Native American View |
Personality (129-134) |
| page 129 | personality | the distinctive way a person thinks, feels, and behaves |
• of their physical environment—spatial maps based on important landscape features
• the individual self is the
center of each cognitive map
• each cognitive map is altered over time, and through each experience
• Example:
• how we perceive our home as adults
The Development of Personality (129-134) |
• the studies are however highly
critical
• because Freudian psychology tends
to be culture-bound
Important People: Margaret Mead
(1901-1978) [p. 131]
• a founding "mother" of Anthro |
• Independence
Training
Dependence Training (131-132) |
| page 132 | dependence training | child-rearing practices that foster compliance in the performance of assigned tasks and dependence on the domestic group, rather than reliance on oneself |
• ensures continuity of the group
• ensures the growth of the group
• typical of extended families
• typical of subsistence farming groups
• typically, one family member
makes all of the important decisions and everyone else follows
• in-marrying family members must conform, which could be difficult
• Ways to reduce the tension
• children given important family chores at early age, to give sense they are actively supporting the family
• Punitive features
• the child's personality is
shaped by these conditions
• their very definition of self comes from their primary identification with the group rather than from their individuality
Independence Training (132-133) |
| page 132 | independence training | child-rearing practices that promote the child's independence, self-reliance, and personal achievement |
• typical of societies where nuclear-families are predominant
• particularly characteristic of Western, industrialized societies
• Supportive features
• children are encouraged to compete
• schools are the primary enculturative tool in American society
• controlled aggression and
sexuality is encouraged in children
• Punitive features
• children are discouraged in individual responsibility until later in childhood (or older)
• importance of children contributing to the welfare of the household is minimized
Combined Dependence/Independence Training (133-134) |
• primary value: + share and share alike
• Emphasize:
• children receiving positive, affectionate attention from adults
• prolonged oral gratification
• low pressure for compliance
• encourage personal achievement & independence
• De-emphasize
• Both the independence from the independence training
and the dependence/cooperation from the dependence training apply
• NO system is intrinsically worse than another
• thus, if a society is primarily functional, it can be seen as successful
• likewise: you don't want a society that emphasizes
independence training among people who need to be highly cooperative
• for instance, even within state societies, such as farming families
• sometimes, you get subsystems that require one
type within a dominant system that requires the other type
• yet American dominant culture demands that people
compete
• the competition model is what fuels oppositional
social movements:
Group Personality (134-135) |
• But...it would be equally unfair to say that
no group of people has a distinctive character type
• John Whiting and Irvin L. Child argued back in the 1950s that every society organizes its childrearing priorities in customs and behavior based on:
• 2. shelter
• 3. protection
• Extroverted people in Penobscot society were seen as sorcerers and were shunned
• Yanomami seen as fierce and aggressive, but quite a few are passive, quiet
• Generally, however, we can say that for any group,
a dominant personality type will emerge based on the perquisites of the
cultural needs
MODAL PERSONALITY (135-136) |
| page 135 | modal personality | the personality typical of a society as indicated by the central tendency of a defined frequency distribution |
• a statistical concept: identifies the mean personality—the one that more people are more likely to fall into than not
• quantifies observable data
• uses psychological testing methodology
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• people have to structure the perceived situation before responding
• people thus project their personality through their preferred perception of the image
• Problems with testing for modal personality of
a group
• 2. difficulty in obtaining a representative sampling of the population
• 3. making the tests culturally appropriate
• 4. the very traits—such as aggression—are being
defined by a Western discipline
• aggression in America, e.g., can have both a positive and a negative connotation
• so when we test aggression, what are we testing—the positive or the negative?
NATIONAL CHARACTER (137-139) |
• Irish as loud drunkards with lousy food
• French as élite, bureaucratic, logical, systematic, with great food
• Italians and Spanish as emotional
• Chinese as sly, calculating
• etc.
• as indicated above, such stereotypes
are gross and not to be accepted uniformly
• some anthropologists, esp. in the 1930s-1960s, supported the claim of national character
• the most famous of these people was Ruth Benedict
Important People: Ruth Fulton
Benedict (1887-1947) [137]
• in Patterns of Culture (1934) she identifies three distinct cultural types:• 1. The Dionysian (typified by the Kwakiutl)• her book was immensely popular—and still is• egocentric• 2. The Apollonian (typified by the Zuìi) |
The Japanese (137) |
| YOUR ESTEEMED
PROFESSOR'S COMMENTS ABOUT SIGMUND FREUD AND HIS THEORETICAL CONSTRUCT
FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY • is a set of unprovable and un-disprovable hypotheses • is based on his study of Austrian society in 19th century • is based primarily on 8 middle-class, middle-aged Austrian women • with modifications, his theory may apply to western society • his specific theory, however, can not be applied to non-Western people • his theory, that is, is CULTURE-BOUND |
• he said that Japanese parents
applied toilet-training methods that were too rigid
• Japanese children, he said, were forced to exercise their sphincter muscles at too young an age for their neurological or muscular development
• thus, they grew up with a repressed rage, which expressed itself in wartime atrocities
• he developed these hypotheses
during World War II, when the United States was fighting the Japanese
• he tested the hypotheses after the war—and found them wrong
• Gorer's work exemplifies how one's cultural perceptions can color one's scholarly work
Objections to National Character Studies (138-139) |
• too subjective
• foregrounds one trait (national identity) over other, possibly more important ones (occupation, gender, religion, socioeconomic class, etc.)
| page 138 | core values | the values a particular society especially promotes |
• Pa Chin's novel, Family, has been a classic in Chinese society for decades
• core value for Americans: rugged individualism
Normal and Abnormal Personality (139-147) |
• among the Navajo, the berdache (Native American "two-spirit) is accepted as normal, even special—blessed with supernatural powers, whereas in Christian traditions, such people are demonized
• Every society has norms, but the norms of one society may seem just plain wrong in another
ANTHROPOLOGY APPLIED:
(on p. 142)
ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND MENTAL HEALTH
• a consequence of Westernization, or development, in non-Western societies is an increase in mental disturbances |
| page 145 | ethnic psychoses | mental disorders specific to particular ethnic groups |
• Book gives a chart of several different examples
of ethnic psychoses (144-145)
• much fuller descriptions are in the book, but here is a short summary
| amok | Malaya | rage disorder |
| anorexia nervosa | American | eating disorder |
| latah | Malay | fear reaction: echolalia |
| koro | SE Asia | fear reaction: penis withdrawal |
| windigo | Algonkians | fear reaction: cannibalism |
| kitsunetsuki | Japan | fox obsession |
| pibloktoq | Arctic areas | hysteria |
• for instance, why does anorexia nervosa strike so many teenage girls and young women in the United States?
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