Anthropological Perspective

- from the Greek words – ANTHROPOS

(man) and LOGUS (study/science)
- science of man

What is Culture?
- A way of life
Universals & Specifics
Henry Murray
- an American psychologist at Harvard University, Director of the Harvard Psychological
Clinic in the School of Arts and Sciences after 1930
- he developed a theory of personality called personology, based on “need” and “press”
(Wikipedia)
Clyde Kluckhohn
- an American anthropologist and social theorist
- best known for his long-term ethnographic work among the Navajo and his contributions
to the development of theory of culture within American anthropology (Wikipedia)
“Every man is in certain respects like ALL other men, like SOME other men, and like NO
other man.”

Pre-contemporary View
- sameness
- invariability
- universality
- predictable
- studied uniformly
 Man is identical, constant, and general

Contemporary View
- inherent variability
 - many points of view

Joseph LeDoux
- American neuroscientist whose research is primarily focused on survival circuits,
including their impacts on emotions such as fear and anxiety (Wikipedia)
- “The Self is a unit; it is not unitary.”

The Concept of Culture

- the concept of culture and its influence in shaping the self
 - represents identity
- establishing uniqueness

Our Bodies and Culture (How do we express culture with our bodies?)

- convey status (Culture influences our body image.)

 - perception of your body

The Self Embedded in Culture

- roles in society
- the self as multi-faceted yet unified

MARCEL MAUSS
- a French sociologist
- nephew of Émile Durkheim
- His academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology
(Wikipedia)
- person as a cultural category
- MOI (self) vs. PERSONNE (person)

PERSONNE
- about personhood
- cultural conception
- “category” of a particular community
- socially and culturally constituted
- varies
- malleable (depends on cultural context)

HARRY TRIANDIS
- psychology professor, University of Illinois
- The Self and Social Behavior in Differing Cultural Contexts

3 Aspects of the Self (Harry Triandis):

Private - traits, states, behaviors of the person
 - assessment of the self by the self
ex. “I am…”

Public - generalized others’ view of the self

- assessment of the self by the generalized others
ex. “People think I am…”

Collective - view of the self-found in some collective

- assessment of the self by a specific reference/groups
ex. “My family thinks I am…”