Do provide references when you say there is proof of something. Without data, discussions are just chatter.

Ronan,

I have written at great length on these matters and each paper contains more than sufficient references. Hopefully, my work confirms the unreliability of both.

Given the wide variation of personality within a culture and even within families that share about as much culture as it is possible to share, I am skeptical.

Karl, don't be. There is a position that considers the nature of the human mind, the full title Iºve forgotten but it concerns mind dichotomy and although it has largely gone out of fashion it still offers explanations. Ur presents two minds rather than mind autonomy. According to this theory Bronze Age and early Iron Age cultures did not display autonomy but in short terms a combined hero and god duality, often gods making decisions. Further, there appears to have been a point in Mesopotamian history, seen equally in Egyptian but less marked, when masculinity developed. Male portrayal limited it self to young and athletic male figures constructed through aggression and war. Now while this is not stand alone it offers evidence for the construction of the male in certain fashions and at certain points. Similarly, Sumerian literature first concentrated on gods, as much ancient literature did, through displaced reality whereby human nature was explored through godly or heavenly developments, seen equally in the bible. Enlil was the intellectual god and intellectuality and its properties were considered and developed. Inanna was considered through aspects of beauty and power, which was rebelled against by the Gilgamesh text in which she is shown as overthrown, masculine rule preferred. But she is used to develop feminine attributes and in the ISIS cult she is shown as giving and developing love within a feminine ideal, connected to spirituality, the cult developing perhaps the first hospitals. There appears a connection between ISIS and Jesus, and his feminine traits may come from her. These feminine traits in the form created in the past have helped social development since. Nevertheless, these are neither static nor predictable.

The problem with accepting this view is that people believe that human traits are innate rather than slowly developed in specific forums, and within a slowly developing cultural impress through ways of constructing space and time through religious buildings . manifestations of rule and maleness, and indeed femininity, as the means of creating rule. We have a specific understanding of human development which encourages us to believe that human actors of the past are the same as those in the present and evidence for present actors being the same as past ones rather than cultural developments occasioning different behaviours. Even in the present.

Socrates with his invention of the soul, so important to human personality construction, emerged from specific social developments, not least the democracy he loathed, whereby attributes of aristocrat and commoner were shared thereby everlasting life was not only the preserve of the rich and powerful. Human behaviours and the personality traits which emerged over and through time solidified through catharsis say and the development of literature and art.

It does, considering that culture is a strong social determinant of personality via diverse pathways.

Frank,

Thanks. I was despairing.

I can only support you on the 'diverse pathways'- I think you need to know history to be fully aware of it or gave insight into your own culture.

I was thinking of this more and going from the first literature on Inanna, the early goddess, archetypes of women expressed through goddesses and Mary go from Machiavellian personalities to the creative, nurturing format of the Mary type. ISIS was not a mother but a goddess of love and prostitutes. Most believe women have always been nurturing types but there is no genuine evidence of that, That thus type became common involved a change in culture-Mary in fact is an extension of ISIS. Nurturing characteristics developed along with a specific female type.

Antonio,

I hope to move such discussions away from particulars. Can you be more clear about biological dispositions? Certain animalistic tendencies we share?This aspect suggests agency. My point is that is within culture we construct and reconstruct ourselves and thereby is an agency and not dependent on other agents. Within mental health we have developed certain propositions in order to participate in cultural activity and the late and disproved claim of chemical imbalance is subject to commercial and professional claims.

Antonio,

How can chemicals inform personality, except yes apparently through DNA.

I am nothing like my family and there is no indication of outside influences, so where is the DNA?

Actually recent research has gone against DNA and suggests it is the cells that transmit inheritance. Cultural transmission involves belief, we believe through cultural identification. So DNA and our belief in DNA is culturally based, certainly as it is no longer considered true.

This paper might be interesting for you, open access:

Najjarkakhaki A, Ghane S. The role of migration processes and cultural factors in the classification of personality disorders. Transcultural Psychiatry. 2023;60(1):99-113. doi:10.1177/13634615211036408

Hugo,

Thank you! Yes, this will be useful! Much obliged! I am certainly glad to see people are grasping the matter so well.

But, I see claims such as 'personality order' within the framework of cultural construction!

There are few examples of mental illness of any kind in the ancient world and really conclusions such as 'they didn't know enough', etc, merely confirm cultural change and difference not reality.

I have only, if I remember, dealt with King Saul but only to a limited extent, pointing out his illness was likely the result of the battles he was supposed to have fought, although realistically this period fits in with the King Arthur myths of England. A blow to the head possibly. That his illness concerned Yahweh fits in with the period it was written, but the fact that Samuel would today be called a psychopath admits again of cultural change and changed perceptions towards violence.

We need to view intellectual processes and certainly disciplines outside of their social and financial context and understand better the mythmaking processes of institutions of all kinds.

Let me provide an example here by Alberto Perez Rubio concerning Ancient Celtic identity -The Birth and Origins of the Celtic Polities -Sons of Teutates-

Ancient Warfare, Vol XVII Issue 2.

The institutional structuring of these new political communities went hand in hand the enunciation of a specific ethnic identity, differentiated from that of their neighbours, through a series of ideological strategies aimed at cementing a sense of belonging. Ethnic identity is not a given and natural characteristic, but a political and cultural construct, continuously redefined and morphing.

What we believe now to be genuine ideas, even on human psychology, reflect ethnic identity carved out of many situations over hundreds of years and thereby is provisional. Psychiatry and its ideas suggest a tribal situation of linked background and identity, and psychology a university view of those outside of the group.

The ancient Celts might have been headhunters, a behaviour we would label psychopathological but then was part of their symbolic representation of themselves.

Yes. Culture does construct personality, with respect to autopoiesis(interaction between environment, biological system and self-control).

_______

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

C.G. Jung

Dear Stanley Wilkin

Thank you for the very interesting question.

Rather than seeing culture as the sole constructor of personality, it's more accurate to view it as a powerful influence. Culture provides a framework, a set of tools and scripts, but it doesn't entirely determine who we are. Our personalities are shaped by a combination of factors, including our biology, individual experiences, and our cultural context.

Best wishes,

Zylfije Tahiri

Zylfije,

Thanks, yes its not the sole constructor but nevertheless I see psychology and psychiatry as constructed by specific cultural periods or earlier transactions. colonialism and empires play a part by distinguishing between cultures and establishing ethnic or territorial identities.

i have claimed elsewhere that psychiatry is a process of identity, it changes individual identity as if engaged in magic. The notion of normality, arriving out of racism as it establishes a tribal connection, came in its negative form from Francis Galton so must be seen as a recent understanding in parallel with the rise of psychiatry.

No one effectively enters the psychiatric arena without undergoing identity change in the negative. To enlarge on this point: American indigenous groups had intellectual shared constructs involving human life and politics but were reduced to 'primitives.' A recent book (2020) The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (Graeber/Wengrow) stresses the valuable lessons bestows by American peoples on European institutions. Whoever has power then identifies the group it has power over.

Dear Doctor

[One of the most influential papers on the personality-and-culture relationship was published by Markus and Kitayama (1991),who showed that people in different cultures have vastly differentself-construals, as for example when they answer the question“Who am I?” 20 times. With an independent self, “interactionwith others (actual, imagined, or implied) produces a sense ofself as separate, distinct, or independent from others” whilewith interdependent self, “interaction with others produces asense of self as connected to, related to, or interdependent withothers. These interactions are guided by culturally prescribedtasks that require and encourage fitting in with others” (Markusand Kitayama, 2010, p. 423). In other words, culture influenceshow people view themselves, and how people view themselvesmay determine their behavior. Thus, culture provides scripts andscenarios, which people learn to think and speak about themselves.

Note that this model does not distinguish between phenotypicand genotypic traits.]

(PDF) Culture and Personality. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288376650_Culture_and_Personality [accessed Jul 13 2024].

Yes! I'm a Nigerian who believes in culture:

1. Community and family bonds are highly appreciated and practiced in Nigeria, Africa.

2.Our cultures great emphasis on respect for the elderly, tradition, and heritage.

3. Our storytelling and application of oral traditions are second to none.

Obaje,

How does that construct behaviour or thinking?