National Character

A Psycho-Social Perspective

Alex Inkeles

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781560002604
• eBook ISBN: 9781351503730
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Seen in modern perspective, the concept of national character poses fundamental problems for social science theory and research: To what extent do conditions of life in a particular society give rise to certain patterns in the personalities of its members? What are the consequences?

Alex Inkeles surveys various definitions of national character, tracing developments through the twentieth century. His approach is to examine the regularity of specific personality patterns among individuals in a society. He argues that modal personality may be extremely important in determining which new cultural elements are accepted and which institutional forms persist in a society. Reviewing previous studies, Inkeles canvasses the attitudes and psychological states of different nations in an effort to discover a set of values in the United States. He concludes that, despite recent advances in the field, there is much to be done before we can have a clear picture of the degree of differentiation in the personality structure of modern nations.

Until now, there were few formal definitions and discussions on national character and the limits of this field of study. This book will be of great interest to psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and political theorists.

Part I

General Orientation

1

National Character: The Study of Modal Personality and Sociocultural Systems

The concept of national character is an important but problematic one in the social sciences. It has been strongly rejected in the hereditarian or racist forms in which it was couched by earlier writers. Seen in more modern perspective, however, it poses fundamental problems for social-scientific theory and research: To what extent do the patterned conditions of life in a particular society give rise to certain distinctive patterns in the personalities of its members? To what extent, that is, does the sociocultural system produce its distinctive forms of “social character,” “basic personality structure,” or “modal personality”? Further, what are the consequences, if any, of this patterning in personality for stability or change in the societal order?

The ancient problem of national character thus reasserts itself, in contemporary guise, as a problem in the interrelations of (modal) personality with culture and social structure. In this form it becomes a major—and vexing—topic of multidisciplinary inquiry, standing as it does at the interface of individual psychology (including psychoanalysis and psychiatry) and the social sciences. Its multidisciplinary character gives it a strongly ambivalent appeal. On the one hand, it provides an opportunity for integration of the various disciplines involved, and is thus a stimulus to advances in basic theory; on the other, it requires a crossing or transcending of disciplinary boundaries and thereby presents a threat to established disciplinary viewpoints and identities. And, indeed, the study of modal personality has undergone a rather remarkable evolution in several disciplines over the past three or four decades. We begin with a brief historical review of developments in anthropology, psychology, and sociology.¹ This review will set the stage for the more systematic treatment of theoretical and research issues in the sections that follow.

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^*From “National Character: The Study of Modal Personality and Sociocultural Systems,” by Alex Inkeles and Daniel J. Levinson (1969), in The Handbook of Social Psychology, IV, 2nd ed., G. Lindzey and E. Aaronson, eds., McGraw-Hill Publishing Inc., New York. Copyright 1969 by McGraw-Hill, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Historical Development of the Study of National Character

Anthropologists have for many years played a prominent part in the study of national character. This is to be understood largely in the light of the internal development of anthropology as a discipline. In the period preceding the 1920s, social anthropology was still largely concerned with outlining the main social norms of the societies investigated. It was assumed that virtually all individuals behave in conformity with the prescribed norms of their society. In the subsequently changed climate of opinion to which men like Rivers, Sapir, and Boas contributed heavily, anthropologists became increasingly aware of the individual both as culture carrier and as cultural innovator. The growing interest in the study of deviant behavior led to greater recognition that the fulfillment of cultural imperatives depends on the individual’s internalization of cultural values and his learning of appropriate behavior. An individual’s personality came to be seen as an expression of his or her culture, and consequently as a source of data for the study of culture equal in importance to arts, rituals, and other traditional foci of anthropological investigation.

Until the mid-1930s, anthropologists continued to emphasize the description of the individual, though their accounts made little use of systematic psychological theory. This trend was reflected in a substantial number of biographical studies. The standard procedure was to present the individual’s retrospective life history substantially as he or she spontaneously recited it. On the whole, these descriptive studies sought to demonstrate the ways in which the individuals reflected cultural norms in their behavior and conscious attitudes. Insofar as anthropologists turned to psychology for theories to use as guides for their new pattern of investigation, they turned almost exclusively to Freudian psychology.²

An event of major significance occurred with the publication of Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture, in which she gave fuller statement to important issues she had discussed earlier.³ In this book Benedict went beyond the mere behavioral description of the individual as a product of his culture, to characterization of the psychological coherence of the culture as a whole. Benedict did not have a well-rounded and integrated conception of individual psychology, and she was neglectful of the developmental aspects of personality. Her emphasis, as characterized by Gorer, was rather on “the psychological coherence of the varied institutions that make up a society.”⁴ Further, she did not make a clear conceptual distinction between the sociocultural system and the personality as a system, but rather appears to have assumed that the psychological coherence of the individual personality was isomorphic with the psychological coherence of the culture. Nevertheless, Benedict’s work served as a model and stimulus to other anthropologists who, more centrally concerned with the individual personality and utilizing more fully developed psychological theory, later studied the relations of culture and personality.

Tremendous impetus was given to this work during and immediately after World War II, when a variety of anthropologists, psychoanalysts, and others attempted explorations into the psychology of various nations, particularly the wartime enemies of the United States.⁵ During this period the study of national character was a major area of anthropological interest.

The decade from 1935 to 1945, bracketed by Benedict’s Patterns of Culture and Kardiner’s Psychological Frontiers of Society, was the seminal period of development.⁶ The period that followed was one of self-confident affirmation as the results of wartime research and new field work poured in. These were represented in the two editions of Kluckhohn and Murray’s Personality in Nature, Society and Culture.⁷

In the early 1950s, the climate of opinion began to change. Between 1955 and 1965 at least three major collections of research reports and critical reviews appeared.⁸ There was a widespread feeling that the study of culture and personality had come to a point of intellectual crisis, unsure of its future. Thus, in Hsu’s review volume entitled Psychological Anthropology, Honigmann wrote that during the 1950s he had observed diminishing support, changing interests, and loss of appeal in culture and personality studies. In the same volume, Spiro suggested that, “having succeeded in its attempts to induce personality psychology to incorporate sociocultural concepts within its conceptual apparatus, and having succeeded in legitimizing the use of personality concepts by anthropology, it might be argued that its [culture and personality study’s] original mission has come to its end.”⁹ Honigmann and Spiro seem to have made accurate observations about the historical trend in anthropology: since the early 1950s, it has largely withdrawn from the study of personality and culture in general, and of national character in particular.

The picture has been quite different in academic psychology. Until recently, few psychologists entered the study of national character, and the attitude generally manifested toward this field was predominantly cold, if not hostile. Here again some clue is to be found in the internal development of the discipline. Until recently, psychologists were concerned less with the influence of social factors in human psychology than with the psychological substratum underlying social behavior. This was true of Freudian theory in the sense that Freud viewed human behavior largely in terms of a genetically given maturational cycle in which different biologically rooted drive systems emerged as central forces in determining behavior. It held as well, though in a different sense, for academic experimental and animal psychologists who were concerned with learning, perception, and other psychological processes per se. They studied how the organism learns or perceives, without regard to social context or setting, and largely without concern for individual or group differences. Indeed, a prime objective was “to control for” social influences, which often meant, in effect, to rule them out of consideration in the search for universal principles governing individual behavior.

As for the social psychologists, who were concerned with man as a social product, much of their energy during the 1920s and 1930s went to attacking generalizations about national or group character. Such generalizations were associated with race theory and were regarded as unscientific stereotypes, involving wholesale projection of our values onto other groups, or as rationalizations of our own social structure.¹⁰ The emphasis on rigorous method and experimental technique in social psychology, and the rejection of personality theory, also contributed to the aversion to research on national character.

Since the late 1930s, however, several new trends have emerged in academic psychology. Personality theory and research have assumed a more prominent and legitimate place in the discipline as a whole; clinical psychology has become an established field and has influenced developments in other fields; and social psychology has vastly expanded in theoretical scope, in research interests, and in methods of inquiry. By the mid-1950s, these trends had advanced to the point where the study of modal personality in cross-societal perspective could be generally accepted as an appropriate concern. Psychologists became increasingly ready to move from the academic laboratory to the social (and international) field setting. Studies of national differences in achievement motivation, of conformity as judged by Asch-type experiments, of social distance, and of interpersonal cohesiveness have become common entries in the tables of contents of our sociopsychological journals.¹¹ There is now a sufficient body of research by psychologists to permit an extensive review by Lindzey of the use of projective techniques in cross-cultural research, and by French of cultural differences in perceptual and cognitive functioning.¹² Indeed, the entrance of psychologists into this field has had a major impact on its evolution in the past decade. In turn, cross-national research is exerting a significant influence on personality theory and general social psychology.¹³

Psychoanalysis and related viewpoints stemming from clinical psychiatry played a crucial part in the early development of this field. In the years during and following World War I, Freud became increasingly interested in ego theory and social psychology.¹⁴ Indeed, his work on the psychological aspects of social groups, culture, and history had a considerable influence on the later evolution of his conception of individual personality. During the 1930s, anthropologists found in psychoanalysis a stimulus and guide to the study of “personality and culture.”¹⁵ However, it was not merely that anthropologists turned to psychoanalysis. What was equally important, a number of creative psychoanalysts turned to anthropology and other social sciences. Kardiner embarked upon a long-term collaboration with the anthropologist Linton.¹⁶ Erikson engaged in ethnographic field work on two Indian tribes with Mekeel, and over the years carried out a series of psycho-cultural and psychohistorical investigations. Other psychoanalysts such as Alexander, Fromm, Reich, Reik, and Roheim made early and significant contributions. Harry Stack Sullivan called for the development of an inclusive social psychiatry and social psychology. These and other investigators did not write parochially, from within the boundaries of their clinical disciplines.¹⁷ They read widely in the literature of the social sciences. They worked with, learned from, and taught social scientists. And they envisioned the emergence of a new, psychosocial approach, instead of seeking merely to apply existing personality theory to social phenomena. These intellectual developments reflected the crisis in Western civilization during the 1930s and 1940s. Since the early 1950s, however, psychoanalysts have played a less prominent part in the study of relationships between personality and social systems.

In this development, sociology remained curiously underrep-resented through the 1940s. This is anomalous if we approach the problem from the perspective of sociological social psychology. The viewpoint usually identified as the Chicago school (notably Cooley, Park, and G. H. Mead) would b...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I—General Orientation
• Part II—Delineating National Character: German, Russian, American
• Part III—National Character in Relation to Stability and Change in Sociocultural Systems
• Part IV—Multi-Nation Comparisons
• Index