On Alternative Views of the Individual in Culture‐and‐Personality Studies

Abstract

N A paper in this journal (Cohen 1964a), based on a more extensive report of I several cross-cultural studies (1964b), I took strong exception to an interpretation of initiation ceremonies offered by Whiting and his collaborators (Burton and Whiting 1961 ; Whiting 1962; Whiting, Kluckhohn, and Anthony 1958). Inter a h , I noted that aniong the serious lacunae in their work was a failure to relate their variables of anal? sis in connection with initiation ceremonies to social structure and to its articulating principles (Cohen 1964a:529-534). I also took exception to the implication in their work that institutions of society can arise out of unconscious conflict.My purpose in this paper is to widen my disagreement with Whiting because our differences are more than divergent opinions over the specific meanings of initiation ceremonies and other cultural activities. There appears to be a fundamental conflict, which, if made explicit, can serve a useful purpose in future scientific discourse and in the evaluation of other inquiries. Our basic difference, as I see it, is over the conceptualization of the individual and of his relationship to the social s!stem. (See also Norbeck et al. 1962; Young 1962 Young , 1965 Whiting's exclusive focus on infantile and childhood experiences as determinants of later behavior implies that adults behave in terms of the residues of their infantile and earliest childhood experiences. This view has the logical, if not necessary, implication that it is sheer redundancy to study behavior in adulthood as well as in childhood because adult personality structure is the sum of the elements or factors which, with greater ease, are observable in childhood. I believe that one of the serious limitations in this orientation is that it blocks out from view the most important dimension of human life, namely, the reality of the institutional integrations to which the individual must adapt if he is to succeed within the social organiz a t ' ion. There are two specific stimuli t o this comn~unication; the first is a recent article by Landauer and Whiting (1964) published in this journal in which it is maintained that adults tend to be of taller stnture in societies in which infants are subject to considerable emotional stress than in societies in which they are not.To begin with, I would like to suggest briefly the following alternative explanation of the findings of Landaucr and Whiting: The range in stature in any given population is due primarily to dietary factors; taller stature in adults and emotional stress during infancy tend to covary with each other because, I hypothesize, infants and children who are suhject to considerable stress will eat 355