National Character Studies
Encyclopedia
National character studies refers to a set of anthropological
studies conducted during and directly after World War II that arose from (and ultimately ended) the Culture and Personality School within psychological anthropology
.
National Character Studies arose from a variety of approaches with Culture and Personality, including the Configurationalist Approach of Edward Sapir
and Ruth Benedict
, the Basic Personality Structure developed by Ralph Linton
and Abram Kardiner, and the Modal Personality Approach of Cora DuBois
. These approaches disagreed with each other on the exact relationship between personality and culture. The Configurationalist and Basic Approaches both treated personalities within a culture as relatively homogeneous, while Cora DuBois argued that there are no common personality traits found in every single member of a society.
Major Works on National Character include:
Ruth Benedict
's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
on Japanese national character. Because researchers could not enter Japan at the time, Benedict conducted her research as "fieldwork-at-a-distance" through literate, film, and Japanese expatriots (mostly concentration camp victims) in the United States. Although her work can be criticized for returning to the "armchair anthropology" of the earliest anthropologists (such as Edward Tylor), other scholars of Japan have verified the symbolic importance of aestheticism and militarism for national identity (which is not necessarily to say individual personality).
Margaret Mead
's And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America (1942)
Geoffrey Gorer
's The People of Great Russia: A Psychological Study (1949)
This last monograph led to the demise of National Character Studies and Culture and Personality as a whole due to its poor reception. In it, Gorer argues that the personality of the Russians, so distasteful to their enemies and his sponsor, the Americans, resulting from their practice of swaddling infants, wrapping them tightly in blankets. This, Gorer posited, generated cold and removed personalities in adulthood. This theory became known as the "swaddling hypothesis," and was generally regarded as unworkable, simplistic, and hastily determined.
The main contribution of Culture and Personality was to show that, revolutionary at the time, socialization continued beyond infancy and early childhood, and national discourses could have an effect on personal character. The entire approach is now considered defunct.
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
studies conducted during and directly after World War II that arose from (and ultimately ended) the Culture and Personality School within psychological anthropology
Psychological anthropology
Psychological anthropology is an interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of cultural and mental processes. The subfield tends to focus on ways in which humans' development and enculturation within a particular cultural group—with its own history, language, practices,...
.
National Character Studies arose from a variety of approaches with Culture and Personality, including the Configurationalist Approach of Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
and Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict was an American anthropologist, cultural relativist, and folklorist....
, the Basic Personality Structure developed by Ralph Linton
Ralph Linton
Ralph Linton was a respected American anthropologist of the mid-twentieth century, particularly remembered for his texts The Study of Man and The Tree of Culture...
and Abram Kardiner, and the Modal Personality Approach of Cora DuBois
Cora DuBois
Cora Alice Du Bois, was an American cultural anthropologist and a key figure in culture and personality studies and in psychological anthropology more generally.-Biography:...
. These approaches disagreed with each other on the exact relationship between personality and culture. The Configurationalist and Basic Approaches both treated personalities within a culture as relatively homogeneous, while Cora DuBois argued that there are no common personality traits found in every single member of a society.
Major Works on National Character include:
Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict was an American anthropologist, cultural relativist, and folklorist....
's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture is an influential 1946 study of Japan by American anthropologist Ruth Benedict written at the invitation of the U.S. Office of War Information in order to understand and predict the behavior of the Japanese in World War II by reference...
on Japanese national character. Because researchers could not enter Japan at the time, Benedict conducted her research as "fieldwork-at-a-distance" through literate, film, and Japanese expatriots (mostly concentration camp victims) in the United States. Although her work can be criticized for returning to the "armchair anthropology" of the earliest anthropologists (such as Edward Tylor), other scholars of Japan have verified the symbolic importance of aestheticism and militarism for national identity (which is not necessarily to say individual personality).
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
's And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America (1942)
Geoffrey Gorer
Geoffrey Gorer
Geoffrey Gorer, English anthropologist and author , noted for his application of psychoanalytic techniques to anthropology.He was educated at Charterhouse and at Jesus College, Cambridge. During the 1930s he wrote unpublished fiction and drama. His first book was The Revolutionary Ideas of the...
's The People of Great Russia: A Psychological Study (1949)
This last monograph led to the demise of National Character Studies and Culture and Personality as a whole due to its poor reception. In it, Gorer argues that the personality of the Russians, so distasteful to their enemies and his sponsor, the Americans, resulting from their practice of swaddling infants, wrapping them tightly in blankets. This, Gorer posited, generated cold and removed personalities in adulthood. This theory became known as the "swaddling hypothesis," and was generally regarded as unworkable, simplistic, and hastily determined.
The main contribution of Culture and Personality was to show that, revolutionary at the time, socialization continued beyond infancy and early childhood, and national discourses could have an effect on personal character. The entire approach is now considered defunct.