Culture and Personality (Psychological Anthropology) -- University of Minnesota Duluth

["Culture ... is"] "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man [sic.] as a member of society." -- Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom, 1871

"A culture is the configuration of learned behavior and results of behavior whose component elements are shared and transmitted by members of a particular society." -- Ralph Linton, The Cultural Background of Personality, 1945, p. 32

"A culture is the way of life of a group of people, the coniguration of all of the more or less stereotyped [i.e., standardized] patterns of learned behavior which are handed down from one generation to the next through the means of [both[ language and imitation." -- Victor Barnouw, Culture and Personality, 1985

Main Characteristics of Anthropology

(slides)

culture: as a primary concept
- learned
  - is not inherited
    (i.e., is not biological)
  - is not “instinct”
- shared
- transmitted from generation to generation
- symbolic
- integrated
  - "patterns of culture"
    - Ruth Benedict
cross-cultural comparative methods as major approaches to the study of human behavior development and structure
holism: or the study of "humankind" as a whole, as a primary goal of anthropology
- The approach used in this class emphasizes the "holistic" anthropological view which combines observations of "culture" and behavior with considerations of the physical and developmental aspects of humans

Culture Definitions

Main Characteristics of Anthropology