Culture and Personality Studies, 1918–1960: Myth and History

Abstract

The field known as "culture and personality studies" in the middle decades of the 20th century was a precursor of contemporary cross-cultural research on personality. Its rejection by anthropologists and sociologists after 1950 was accompanied by stereotypes that have hardened into myth and obscured its character and relevance for contemporary investigators. This article dispels some prevalent misconceptions (concerning its chronology, its theoretical unity, its positions on individual differences and its relationship to Freudian psychoanalysis) and proposes a tentative explanation of its decline.

A Theory of the Emergence, Persistence, and Expression of Geographic Variation in Psychological Characteristics

“…Although early research on national character generated several influential ideas (e.g., Adorno et al, 1950;McClelland, 1961), some criticized the field for lacking theoretical clarity and methodological rigor (Inkeles & Levinson, 1969;LeVine, 2001). First, the conceptual models of personality applied to nations varied significantly.…”

Personality-and-culture: The case of national extraversion and word-of-mouth

“…The description and comparison of cultures in terms of typical personality profiles date back to the early Greeks and were particularly active during the early-to-mid-20th century among social scientists including such eminent pioneers as Margaret Mead and Edward Sapir (e.g., Mead, 1935;Sapir, 1949; for a thorough history, see LeVine, 2001). After intervening decades of relative inattention and disfavor, the study of personality-and-culture is undergoing a revival.…”

Medical Orientalism and the War on Terror: Depictions of Arabs and Muslims in the Psychodynamic Literature post-9/11

“…An opposing view from Edward Sapir (1938) argued that culture consists of the actions and behaviors of individuals who possess the agency to act differently. However, by the late 1950s, the influence of the culture and personality school waned as methodologies could not progress beyond problematically essentializing whole societies (Levine, 2001). The fact that these psychodynamic texts revert to this procedure raises questions about the ethical and political motivations of the authors, acting as armchair anthropologists and psychoanalysts removed from their subjects.…”