Cult Backgrnd Persnlty Ils 84 by Ralph Linton

Author:Ralph Linton [Linton, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Sociology
ISBN: 9781136238581
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IV

PERSONALITY

Recognition of the phenomena which are the subject-matter of personality studies must be as old as our species. Even the ape man soon learned by experience that certain members of the horde were good-natured or irascible, stupid or intelligent, stolid or quick with emotional response. However, throughout most of human history such differences have been regarded as in the nature of things, requiring no explanation. The emergence of modern concepts of personality and the study of the process involved in personality formation are exceedingly recent developments. They are even newer than the studies of culture and society, some of whose results have been presented in the previous chapters. It is not surprising, therefore, that considerable confusion still exists with regard to the concepts and definitions which must be used as tools in personality studies. Even the exact meaning to be given to the term personality is still unsettled. There are innumerable definitions extant, all of which have certain elements in common, but the process of clarification through usage, already described in connection with the definition of culture, is still under way.

Actually, the main problem involved in the definition of personality is one of delimitation. The individual and his environment constitute a dynamic configuration all of whose parts are so closely interrelated and in such constant interaction that it is very hard to tell where to draw lines of demarcation. For the purpose of the present discussion, personality will be taken to mean “The organized aggregate of psychological processes and states pertaining to the individual”. This definition includes the common element in most of the definitions now current. At the same time it excludes many orders of phenomena which have been included in one or another of these definitions. Thus it rules out the overt behaviour resulting from the operation of these processes and states, although it is only from such behaviour that their nature and even existence can be deduced. It also excludes from consideration the effects of this behaviour upon the individual’s environment, even that part of it which consists of other individuals. Lastly, it excludes from the personality concept the physical structure of the individual and his physiological processes. This final limitation will appear too drastic to many students of personality, but it has a pragmatic, if not a logical, justification. We know so little about the physiological accompaniments of psychological phenomena that attempts to deal with the latter in physiological terms still lead to more confusion than clarification. In the face of a universe all of whose parts are in some degree interrelated, all sciences set arbitrary limits to their fields of research. Experience has shown that it is possible to arrive at valid conclusions about phenomena of a particular order without reference to all the phenomena of other orders with which those of the first order may be functionally interrelated. Thus the geneticists have been able to establish their laws of heredity without reference to the gene chemistry upon which the reproduction of physicál characteristics must ultimately depend.

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