The Cultural Background Of Personality
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
What makes a person who they are — biology, upbringing, or the invisible hand of culture? In The Cultural Background of Personality, renowned Columbia University anthropologist Ralph Linton presents a landmark argument that personality is not merely an individual phenomenon but a product of the cultural matrix in which a person is raised. Drawing on his vast fieldwork and cross-cultural studies, Linton details how shared values, social norms, and cultural patterns shape what he terms the basic personality structure — the psychological common ground that members of a given society come to share. The work stands as a foundational bridge between anthropology and psychology, articulating with precision how culture functions as an invisible architect of the self. Linton's prose is authoritative yet accessible, making complex anthropological theory available to a broad readership without sacrificing intellectual rigour. The Cultural Background of Personality chronicles a pivotal moment in the history of social science, when scholars first began to systematically map the relationship between the individual psyche and its cultural environment — a conversation that remains urgently relevant today. For anyone curious about the hidden forces that shape human behaviour, identity, and society, this book poses a question that lingers long after the final page: if culture makes us who we are, how much of the self is truly our own?
Author: Ralph Linton
Format: Hardback
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
What makes a person who they are — biology, upbringing, or the invisible hand of culture? In The Cultural Background of Personality, renowned Columbia University anthropologist Ralph Linton presents a landmark argument that personality is not merely an individual phenomenon but a product of the cultural matrix in which a person is raised. Drawing on his vast fieldwork and cross-cultural studies, Linton details how shared values, social norms, and cultural patterns shape what he terms the basic personality structure — the psychological common ground that members of a given society come to share. The work stands as a foundational bridge between anthropology and psychology, articulating with precision how culture functions as an invisible architect of the self. Linton's prose is authoritative yet accessible, making complex anthropological theory available to a broad readership without sacrificing intellectual rigour. The Cultural Background of Personality chronicles a pivotal moment in the history of social science, when scholars first began to systematically map the relationship between the individual psyche and its cultural environment — a conversation that remains urgently relevant today. For anyone curious about the hidden forces that shape human behaviour, identity, and society, this book poses a question that lingers long after the final page: if culture makes us who we are, how much of the self is truly our own?