Social Identity, Personality, and Gender

1
Chapter 17

• Social Identity, Personality, and Gender

2
Chapter Outline

• The Self and the Behavioral Environment
• Personality
• Alternative Gender Models From a Cross-cultural
  Perspective
• Normal and Abnormal Personality

3
The Self and the Behavioral Environment

• Enculturation, the process by which individuals
  become members of their society, begins soon
  after birth.
• For enculturation to proceed, individuals must
  possess self-awareness, the ability to perceive
  and reflect upon themselves as individuals.

4
Self Awareness

• For self-awareness to emerge and function, four
  orientations are necessary to structure the
  behavioral environment in which the self acts
• object orientation
• spatial orientation
• temporal orientation
• normative orientation

5
Social Identity Through Personal Naming

• Personal names are important devices for
  self-definition in all cultures.
• For this reason, many cultures consider name
  selection to be an important issue and mark the
  naming of a child with a special event or ritual
  known as a naming ceremony.

6
Personality

• The distinctive ways a person thinks, feels, and
  behaves.
• Most anthropologists believe early childhood
  experiences play a key role in shaping adult
  personality.
• A societys economy helps structure the way
  children are brought up, which influences their
  adult personalities.

7
Dependence Training

• Dependence training socializes people to think of
  themselves in terms of the larger whole.
• Its effect is to create community members whose
  idea of selfhood transcends individualism,
  promoting compliance in the performance of
  assigned tasks and keeping individuals within the
  group.

8
Independence Training

• Independence training fosters individual
  independence, self-reliance, and personal
  achievement.
• It is typically associated with societies in
  which a basic social unit consisting of parent(s)
  and offspring fends itself.
• Independence training is particularly
  characteristic of mercantile (trading),
  industrial, and postindustrial societies where
  self-sufficiency and personal achievement are
  important traits for success.

9
National Character Studies

• National character studies have focused on the
  modal characteristics of modern countries.
• Many anthropologists believe national character
  theories are based on unscientific data.
• Others choose to focus on the core values
  promoted in particular societies while
  recognizing that success in instilling these
  values in individuals may vary considerably.

10
Modal Personality

• The body of character traits that occur with the
  highest frequency in a culturally bounded
  population.

11
Alternative Gender Models

• Intersexuals are individuals who do not fit
  neatly into either a male or female biological
  standard or into a binary gender standard.
• Transgenders are people who occupy a culturally
  accepted intermediate position in the binary
  malefemale gender construction.
• Many cultures have created social space for
  transgendered individuals who are culturally
  accepted as a third gender category.

12
Pregnant Man
13
Normal and Abnormal Personality

• What defines normal behavior in any culture is
  determined by the culture itself.
• Abnormality involves developing personality
  traits not accepted by a culture.
• Mental disorders that have a biological cause,
  like schizophrenia, will be expressed by symptoms
  specific to the culture of the afflicted
  individual.

14
Ethnic psychoses

• Mental disorders specific to particular ethnic
  groups.
• The Windigo psychosis is limited to northern
  Algonquian Indian groups such as the Cree and
  Ojibwa.
• In their traditional belief systems, these
  Indians recognized the existence of cannibalistic
  monsters called Windigos.
• Individuals afflicted by the psychosis developed
  the delusion that they were themselves
  transformed into Windigos, with a craving for
  human flesh.

15
Video

• http//video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/p
  laces/culture-places/work/india_eunuchs.html
• http//video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/p
  laces/countries-places/thailand/thailand_transsexu
  alcabaret.html
• http//video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/p
  laces/culture-places/beliefs-and-traditions/china_
  freelove.html
• http//video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/p
  laces/culture-places/arts-and-entertainment/us_liz
  ardman.html

16
In-class Paragraphs

• Describe what independence/dependence training
  is. Give an example of each. What culture is more
  likely to practice which? Why? (Chapter 17)
• What are the definitions for forager?
  Pastoralist? Horticulturalist? Agriculturalist?
  (Chapter 18)
• Define reciprocity, redistribution, and market
  exchange. Give an example of each (Chapter 19).